What's the worst weather conditions you ever flown in?

[rifleman_btx]

Thought this would be fun. Mine was when I was stationed at ft eustis VA, hurricane sandy was coming through and one other pilot and myself had a running competition on who would fly through anything no matter what? Well I was on my way to the field as he was driving out. I got there set up and flew my edf plane around for about 3 laps before I had enough. The wind kept getting worse and worse to where the plane was nearly in a hover at wide open throttle. I got it down and headed home. Luckily the rain waited, as I was driving back home it came down. Lol never again!

[seaviper]

30kts. Back 1997 I had flown the Cessna Cardinal (C177) from Hollywood North Perry to Vero Beach. We landed on the northern runway into a direct and constant headwind of approximately 30 kts. (I kept a healthy airspeed margin on final) I mean sitting still on the runway we were indicating 30! Talk about wind over the deck! Taxi was difficult to say the least. On the ramp, the aircraft jumped the chocks as we were walking to the FBO. Had to run and grab it and turn it around. I had trusted the line guy when he parked me tail into the wind. Not a good idea.

On the return leg, as I was climbing through about 5k off the coast of Vero at best climb speed (70 something as I recall), the controller asked me if I was aware that my ground speed was only 35 knots! I said "yeah, and you didn't have to tell everybody" :) What a day! I will never forget it.

After returning from that flight, my flying buddy and I went and flew my old Aircore Knighthawk .40 at the RC field at Markham park. It was so windy I landed across the runway at almost a hover.
One flight and we said enough! Crazy. A great way to kill an airplane.

[CT]

While at the local park the rain started coming down steadily, and while I had the whole park to myself I could not resist the temptation. I took my trusted 1400mm T-28 and started flying, wondering what if any affect the rain would have on aerodynamics. While doing manuevers a local Highway Patrol drove in the parking lot and stopped, I could only imagine what was going through her head, I landed and walked over to her, she rather surprisingly asked if I could fly these things in the rain. A little friendly conversation later I bid her my usual "stay safe out there" which along with a friendly handshake I offer to all law enforcement, went back to flying. I learned one consequence of flying in the wet weather is all the pushrods corrode very fast. Removing all pushrods from my T-28 and some WD-40 and cleaning she is as good as new, but I dont think I will be flying in the rain any more

[rifleman_btx]

Heck yeah! Good stories. :)

[Aros]

One of my first RC electric flights...Stryker I believe. Took it up the street in 50+ mph gusts. Yes, I know. I was so desperate and impatient to fly (I had already been waiting weeks) I said the heck with it, what's the worst that can happen?

Well I hand tossed it, got it up to altitude and proceeded to watch it get thrown over 100 yards into the tall evergreen trees that were parallel to where I took off. Yeah, wasn't operating with the smartest practices back then, lol.

And no, I never did recover it. Flight predictably lasted all of 10 seconds. And I definitely got what I deserved.

[PappaBear]

I've flown and landed successfully in 40MPH wind on a hot day. It was not comfortable but i did it. However the worst weather I can say I've flown in would a blizzard one day in January many many years ago. I remember only having the one flight. I was very cold and wet.

Martin.

[rifleman_btx]

Sounds like I was, but I was just back from a deployment and i wasn't gonna wait another day lol

[bradl4648]

I would have to say flying off the frozen lake 3 degrees out snowing hard out. The the elevator broke plane went down next to an outlet canal. Ice thi cracking every step. Finally a guy loaned me a fishing pole and believe it or not caught most of the pieces and quit for the day. Flying off a frozen lake is truly fun and normally the ice is smoother then blacktop.

[rifleman_btx]

3°! Heck I'd be as frozen as that lake! Lol

[redtwilight]

I hadn't flown in too much bad weather. The only one I remember was a few years ago on a cold winter day. I was flying my Big Lazy Bee with the 60" "sport" wing powered by an old OS .30 slimer. As I was flying I could see the beginning edge of snow falling down the runway. Before I knew if it was snowing heavily. So heavy that I could no longer see the large cub yellow colored airplane I was flying at 100' away. Once I regained sight of the plane I promptly landed and packed up for the day. The worst part of the day was having to clean the nitro goo off the plane in freezing temps.

[rifleman_btx]

Man I'm sure that was rough with that temperature.