"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
We had another big downpour on sunday the 30th.

Yep, it really, REALLY came down this morning, ruining our plans for an
early departure. I'll post some awesome pictures of the gust front
approaching. (It reportededly flipped one plane onto two other planes,
in nearby Appleton.)

We were inside the tent when it hit, holding the windward side up with
our feet. Despite this, the 6-foot tall tent collapsed far enough to
hit me in the head with the lantern hanging from the center hook -- and
I was laying down!

No further damage, but our neighbors had poles sticking right through
the top of their tent!

A wild end to a great week...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

We were there Thursday-Sunday. The storms that came in on both Saturday and
Sunday morning were the fastest moving weather I've ever seen. On Saturday,
we got up, showered, and saw the front heading our way. I thought we had a
good 30 minutes to grab breakfast and get to cover, but the clouds and wind
were on us in 10 minutes or less. Thankfully, there was no rain on
Saturday. Today, the experience was similar - fast moving storms, high
winds, but we got a lot of rain too. My understanding is that the Homebuilt
Cafe tent came down during the storm. We were in the Ace's Cafe, getting
very wet, despite being in the direct center of a 4,000 sf tent. When we
got back to Homebuilt camping, the row of porta potties had blown over. I'd
hate to clean up that mess, but I'd hate it even worse if I'd been inside
one of 'em when it went over.

Once things dried out, we broke camp, loaded the airplane, and headed south
where we saw some REALLY interesting weather. Just north of Aurora, I
deviated west to avoid some building convective activity. We went around a
rain shaft or two, and then I spotted a funnel cloud dropping from the base
of the convective stuff. It dropped 300-500' from the cloud base and
couldn't have been more than 3 miles away. I notified the tower at Aurora
that there was a funnel cloud 5 miles west of the field. This got their
attention, as well as the attention of several aircraft in the area. In a
couple of minutes, the funnel retreated back into the clouds, so I let
Aurora towere know that too.

My most miserable experience from Osh this week was the departure. First,
there was a loooooong line of aircraft taxiing for departure. Second, I got
stuck behind a jet. Breathing kerosene stench for a 20 minute taxi was an
eye-watering experience. Then came my departure. I thought the wind was
straight down 18, but the aircraft which departed in front of me got pushed
way left by a crosswind. Determined not to let that happen, I let the RV
weathervane, then made a horrible bounced (!) takeoff. Uggh.

KB