Although, last night’s storm was one of the bigger ones. Lots of rain and wind gusts over 50 mph. So far, we are not aware of any injuries, however, there seem to be quite a few aircraft in homebuilt camping that have rudder damage. Some of the damage is quite severe and they are not flyable. No doubt there will be a lot of web scouting to find some rudders this week. Those of us who road it out in a tent had an exciting time to say the least. The thunder was a constant rolling sound, with no breaks, with lots of heavy rain. Not all tents survived, and this morning there’s lots of wet clothes and camping gear being hung out to dry.
Luckily, the next few days look to be better. Seeing all of the rudder damage again begs the question: why do we face the homebuilt airplanes east when all of the major storms bring strong winds in from the west/northwest?
Yesterday’s weather forecast no doubt kept the arrivals down, so today is a fun watching day!
Which begs an obvious question – Why, in the face of an approaching heavy, radar-evident storm, don’t owners re-face their airplanes into the wind? Most would certainly do that if they were on a parking ramp. The EAA should encourage this.