Mild Turbulence When Wet

I've always felt a strange myriad of emotions when flying through a storm. It's strange seeing the science of nature up close and personal. To watch the water bead up until the weight makes it fall. Observing haphazard moisture tumbling from the sky is truly a unique experience.

Although, when you're guiding a plane loaded wall to wall with technophobic individuals, then you find yourself in a bit of a difficult situation. I held the controls as steadily as I could, slowly raising the airtight passenger-can-with-wings into of the rumbling sky. The plane fought my grip, psychics and gravity combating against my progress. Behind me, less than six or seven feet away, where a group of highly uncomfortable Amish gentlemen. They shifted uneasily in their seats, adjusting the seat belts absently; in an attempt to distract their minds from the fact that they were relying on technology, most entirely unknown to them, and were slowly rising to new and dangerous heights unknown to them before.

Mothers lurked in the foreground as well, comforting children with words that they may not have even believed. I could understand their apprehension about the flight, even on best of circumstances. But that night, we flew through an electrical storm, amidst a torrential downpour of rain. Not the safest conditions, and in no way guaranteed to get from point A to point B safely. Mostly because airspace C was a host of unknowns wrought with potential danger.

I adjusted my headset, offering what words of encouragement came to me. Although, being a disembodied voice at the far end of a technological system they neither understood nor liked, my words primarily fell on deaf ears. I could hear lowered chatter, and steady white noise among the hum of the engines, the distant roar of rapidly-approaching thunder, and jolting shakes from my controls. Weather tower checked in, asking on the status of the flight. So far, the flight was headed as smoothly as flying an awkwardly large hyper-compressed series of wings and steel through a thunderstorm could be. Behind us, less than fifty miles, was a tropical storm rapidly turning hurricane. A large tsunami was already forming on the coast, and it was looking like my hometown, as well as the historical homes of my passengers, would be ruined beyond reasonable repair.

Weather tower updated me on the weather situation on the surface, and ahead in the skies. I repeated the weather information to my co-pilot, and guided the plane into a slightly more rapid ascent. The storm clouds peaked at 21,000 feet, and I was prepared to depart... No, to escape the misery of lightening-ridden skies. Rain pounded on the plane, and wind effect tripled the force of gravity against the plane. I fought to keep the plane's face forward, urging the nose high into the heavens. The wind batted against the plane, rocking the wings, flaps, and even the cabin. Turbulence is a given in any weather situation, but there is no word severe enough to describe the horror of mother nature at her proudest. Wind howled, rain hammered, lightening appeared ahead, and I steadied myself for the worst the skies had to offer me.

The following moments are lost to me as I try to recall them. I remember streaks of blue, white, and purple rending the skies in my vision. I recall the stiff, cold ache of my fingers as I fought the controls. My co-pilot, his voice amongst it all. Speaking, telling jokes, and generally shaping the mood in his mind to a more comfortable place. The plane, aged but game, tore into the clouds with a hearty disregard for its current, previous, and impending-still danger.

After what felt like uninterrupted hours of agony, wrestling with my conscious, my calm, mother-nature, and my own co-pilots sarcastic wit in time of danger, the clouds' end appeared. Blue, light and inviting, opened a beam of sunlight to me as I maintained against the final gusts of wind and the occasional bolt of lightening in my vision below. My arms shook from cold and fear, my eyes dry and irritated from little blinking, my arms and back sore from uninhibited tension. I breathed a sigh of relief, escaping the last of the darkened skies and leveling the plane at a healthy 31,000 feet above sea level.

I reached for the locket at my throat. A stunning image of my wife in her prime looked at me. Her smile, eternally captured in print, seemed even more stunning than usual. Her blond hair and kind eyes twinkled in place in the picture. I was convinced that her ghost had seen me through the last few hours of aerial hell. I caught a glimpse of the house behind her. Flowers and greenery, all hand planted by her, glinted in the picture from the morning dew. I couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness for the loss of the house I had built that was turned into my home by her skilled and gentle hands.

Radio tower summoned me from my memories, and I heard my superior's voice cackle in through my ear piece. He congratulated me on the successful flight, and informed me of my landing location and time. I adjusted course as necessary while confirming my landing orders. The general of the National Guard, my immediate superior, congratulated me again on a flight that seemed impossible. I reminded him that it was the working of luck more than any skill I could have possibly accumulated over a multitude of previous piloting missions.

After all was concluded, I told the co-pilot to inform the passengers that the remainder of the flight would be smooth and relaxing. He got a glint in his eyes, laughed wickedly to himself, and turned on the speaker system.

The passengers, still nervous of the technology which they still don't understand, all turned to the nearest speaker when his voice flooded across the plane. And in a statement nearly worth braving the storm, he informed the passengers,

“The captain has now allowed the use of portable electronic devices.”