strange experience
Reading this brought to mind a very strange experience I had flying a Piper Seneca five to Malaga from the UK single pilot with the owner on Board.
We had refueled at st Sebastian and I took off climbing to FL120.
The aircraft was level on autopilot with only me and the owner on board.
I was approaching the vicinity of Madrid and a line of thunderstorms.
Temperature at Madrid was 42 deg C.
Seeing two cells ahead I picked a route in clear air between the cells.
There was light chop but nothing the autopilot couldnt handle.
All of a sudden the airspeed needle shot from 155 kts ias to 70 kts ias in a matter of seconds.
I hit the autopilot off pushed the nose over and applied full power.
I sat there with nothing on the controls, IAS still on 70 kts ias and the aircraft dropping like a stone in a level vertical profile.
Frankly the aircraft felt as if it had flown into a vacuum.
I dropped 4000 feet from 12000 with nothing on the controls.
The experience was not frightening as I knew it would eventually come out which it did.
I have experienced wind shear before, but this was different and like nothing I had ever experienced in over 20 years of flying business jets and twins all over Europe.
As stated this felt more like a vacuum than wind shear and as if the aircraft was no longer in air!!!
I reported the problem to the controller as we had lost 4000 feet in controlled airspace.
Anyone explain this to me?
pace
Last edited by Pace; 28th Aug 2007 at 21:14.