Mother Nature always wins

As I write this the nation is focused, at least to some degree, on a storm named Milton. It’s a major hurricane, which means it’s a Category 3 or higher. There will be damage. There will, in all likelihood, be fatalities.

A Category 3 hurricane brings wind speeds of between 111 and 130 miles per hour. That’s rough. Driven by those winds is a substantial amount of water in the form of rain. Water, which weighs in at 8 pounds per gallon, pushed along at those speeds can topple trees, tear roofs off homes, and crush otherwise stable structures.

This is going to be bad, as hurricanes always are.

The eastern United States are still reeling from the impact of the last hurricane, just a few weeks ago. Hundreds have died. Whole towns were destroyed. Towns that are far, far from the ocean. Storm surge didn’t get them. Stormwater runoff did.

All of this is relatively obvious to anyone who watches the weather or has lived through a hurricane. Being a Floridian I’ve been through more than my share. They’re stressful. For those of us who are in the path of a storm like this we know there will be damage. We’ll be hit with unanticipated repair costs. Our lives will be affected negatively and perhaps significantly. This is sad stuff.

Fortunately, we are not without options. For those who accept reality and prepare well before the storm arrives, life is better. If we do the simple things like bringing loose items in out of the yard, preparing drainage options for the significant storm waters that are coming, and identify a safe place to hunker down, we’re generally coming through the storm in good shape.

That’s true of all things in life, though. Not just hurricane prep.

Being prepared, understanding that something bad is on the horizon, that’s the key.

For each of us will face hardship. We will all wrestle with challenges brought on by Mother Nature. Those of us who realize the Earth will win every battle are in a much better position than those who stand on the shore denying the obvious.

When a 20-foot wall of water is headed your way you can’t defend the precious belongings stored in your low-cost, waterfront mobile home. It doesn’t matter how emotionally committed you are to those items. If you don’t get to higher ground, you’ll be lost right along with your mother’s treasured collection of Hummel figurines.

My first exposure to this sort of ego-centric denial in the aeronautical world came when I was working as a flight instructor in New England. The summer passed, the fall crept up on us, the leaves changed colors, and a fair number of local pilots took no notice of the shifting threats to safety.

In the summer, thunderstorms are our arch nemesis. Violent storms that can develop quickly tend to at least open the possibility that an otherwise pleasant sight-seeing flight could quickly become a white-knuckle ride. Most, but not all, of us are aware of this. A few will try to skirt too closely to the storm in an effort to get to their destination more quickly.

That’s a bad idea.

A few bold souls will attempt to scud-run under the developing cumulonimbus monsters in the hope of getting out the other side before the mature phase kicks in.

That’s an even worse idea. But people do it. To their great detriment, of course.

In those cases the best you can hope for is survival. Damage to the aircraft in terms of hail strikes, an overstressed airframe, and the possibility of parts disembarking from the aircraft prior to landing are a real possibility.

With fall and winter the thunderstorm risk lessens, replaced by an equally menacing threat that few pilots I’ve met take seriously. I speak of frost. That thin layer of ice particles that clings to the upper surface of your aircraft’s wing is just as deadly as the thunderstorms of summer. Unfortunately, few take it seriously.

The common misconception is that frost is light. It adds little weight to the airframe and so doesn’t come into play as the aircraft zips down the runway, reaches rotation speed, and lifts gracefully into the air.

That’s where the trouble starts.

You’re flying, but just barely. The runway is slipping aft at a dizzying rate, but the airplane is not climbing. You’ve pitched for best climb speed. The engine is producing power exactly as it should. But the airplane isn’t climbing. Instead, it has settled into ground effect. You’re flying beautifully at 10 feet above the surface, but you can’t get higher, the trees aren’t getting any smaller, and the end of the runway is looming ever larger.

This is just one of the many potential risks to something as beautiful and seemingly inconsequential as frost. As the sun rises and lights up those millions of little prisms, the frost makes your airplane look like a diamond encrusted dream machine. In truth it has been temporarily turned into a stress-inducing vehicle that produces more fright than lift.

That thin layer of ice, so pretty, so bracing, can disrupt airflow enough to spoil the wing’s ability to produce lift.

Frost can be removed — and it should be — before flight. Hurricanes pass. There are remedies for virtually all the obstacles we are likely to encounter in flight and in life.

The real variable is whether we will take the precautions necessary to be safe or not. Too many of us play fast and loose with the risks. The resulting accidents present general aviation in a poor light to those who stand on the outside looking in. They see us as dangerous and, frankly, some of us are.

It’s worth remembering that Mother Nature always wins. The planet and its many natural phenomenon are trying to kill us with hurricanes, tidal waves, earthquakes, forest fires, mud slides, ice storms, and temperature extremes. But we don’t have to enter the battle unarmed. We can prepare.

I hope you will. I wish us well.