I'm alive! I can hardly believe it.
What was supposed to be an easy hour and a half flight back from Atlanta turned into a full fuel usage four hour nightmare. I had borrowed my brother in law's Beech to go see my twin brother.
I checked the weather in Marietta and there was a line of thunderstorms to the South with a huge break in them that I was to be vectored through by air traffic control.
Took off from RYY at 7:30 nice and smooth with a little rain to the East, no biggie.
Got mid Atlanta and it was bad to my East, but still nice and clear to the South and West. They have me on transponder code so I feel like I'm in good hands.
Well just past Atlanta, the lightning closed in and boom, the radio blew apart and my nav screen went black. I actually saw the bolt! My transponder was out and all I now have is my chart, altimeter, rpm guage, airspeed indicator, vsi and a flashlight. They had vectored me right into a sucker hole and now I can't even scream at them and a 180 is out of the question.
I can't see the ground and lightning is all around. It would toss the little plane around and it took everything I had just to keep it in the air. I turn to what the wildly spinning magcompass reads as West to get out of this and I can see the ground, but there's nowhere to go.
I have the flashlight jammed in my mouth while trying to unfold the chart and figure out where I am so I can get a reading on my watch to get my bearings. The Directional Gyro is dead and the compass is mwewly eratic.
I can now see the ground so I can determine a landmark to try and land, but I have to go farther west to get out of the storm.
I get all the way to Montgomery and plan to set her down, but the storm has the airport there under seige as I could actually see the downdrafts. I have to press on.
Had to swap fuel tanks twice, not good.
I finally saw a break and just flew right through the storm and got a bearing on Eufala, if I can make it there, I can get to Dawson (16J) and set down there.
I spot the beacon at Eufala and just turn East and I see lights in the distance, the storm is over and I get to Dawson under clear, starry skies. However.... I have no comm so I can't activate the RW lights. Lucky for me someone had either just departed or landed because the runway lights were on. WHEW!
I use my cellphone to close my flightplan with the Macon FSS and reassure them that I wasn't dead as they had me on radar, but my transponder was dead.
I told them thanks for the ride, but if I wanted that kind of thrill, I would go to Disney World.
I absolutely don't know how you purposely pointed your ship into a boomer. All I can say is my hat's off to ya!
