Quote: My dad had a 1957 Cessna 172 and had taken a cousin and her friend on a flight to see the hole on top of the mountain. As my dad flew toward the mountain, he noticed a black band of clouds between two lighter ones. at this time he was about 75 miles out from the mountain. As he got closer he realized it was not a cloud, but a huge ash plume, and he could see huge boulders being tossed into the air, and flashes of lightning. He immediately turned the plane around and flew back to the Auburn airport where he kept the plane. He found out later that my cousin knew that the mountain had blew, they had heard it on the radio on the way to the airport. He was so mad he was speechless. He would not have even taken off that day, my cousin endangered his life as well as her friend's and her own. Just a small amount of ash sucked up by the engine could have brought the plane down.
Hi Walt,
This is waaay off topic for this thread (imagine that?) but I had a similar experience as I was flying my friends Cessna 180 (Robertson Modified Stol Conversion installed) to a "fly-in" at Yelm, Washington from Crest Airpark in Covington. Just over the south end of Lake Tapps at about 1400 ft ABS, I noticed a huge black cloud and clearly visible bolts of lightning on the southern horizon. I glanced away for about 5 seconds to do an instrument and traffic check and when I looked back the black cloud was at least 4 times larger & wider than before! I had no clue that it was the mountain as I muttered to my co-pilot, "I've never seen a thunderstorm storm grow that fast before!!" And then the radio traffic started with many unprintable exclamations from pilots coming from all over to the fly-in, many of whom were very close when it blew, and some even staying close to take videos and film of the action. I very foolishly said to my co-pilot, and coincidentally the owner of the plane, "Golly gee, we should go on down there and get a closer look, eh?" To which he replied, stupified by my suggestion, "Not in my golly durn (self-edited) airplane were not!!!" We continued on to Yelm and as planes began arriving, some sputtering dangerously and several with all the paint gone from the props and leading edges of wings tails etc. etc., he gently but somewhat forcibly led me over to several planes and showed me the plugged up air filters and all the missing paint and pitted windshields and hissed, "SEE?" Duhhh!! ..."Uhh yeah, I get it now," says I..! By the time we finished breakfast about an hour and a half later, the sky was getting darker & darker and radio reports were coming in from Yakima and points East & NE - and the ash cloud was now about 50,000 feet high but waaay off to the East of the mountain (due to high winds aloft). Time to leave for home...and we did and arrived at Crest with no damage whatsoever to the airplane - much to the relief of the owner. I had moved to Montana that winter with my family and I had returned to Kent to finish up some jobs for a couple of months - the ash cloud was headed straight for NW Montana so had to call the wife & kids advise on what precautions to take, go to hardware/paint store & pick up masks & filters, stay indoors, stuff wet towels around bottoms of doors, etc. etc. - "I'll be there as soon as I can!!" That turned out to be about 2 months later....
The novel is not yet complete but have probably pushed Steph over the edge already so's ah'd best quit now....
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