DEN Summer WX finally arrived

[COFlyBoy]

Any idea how big the hail that caused that level of damage was?

No idea. The storm was in the middle of the night. We live about 4 miles straight north of the field and we only got pea sized hail.

The adjuster was telling us that the Cherokee 6 has pretty thick skin and it still looked like the surface of an orange. He said they had a Skycatcher where the skin looked like it had been crumpled.

We were parked right next to a Cessna 400 and it looked OK from 10 feet away, but when you got up close you could see little rings where the haailstones hit. It probably needs completely new wings since the composite is delaminated underneath.

 

[COFlyBoy]

Thats too bad. Was there any hangars available? If there was one available and you cared about your plane, I would have had it stored in a hangar

Hangars are almost unobtainable at KAPA at any price. Its a tradeoff between covenience (I could have hangared at FTG), cost and risk. I knew the risk when I parked it and I paid the insurance to cover it.

 

[flyer]

Hangars are almost unobtainable at KAPA at any price. Its a tradeoff between covenience (I could have hangared at FTG), cost and risk. I knew the risk when I parked it and I paid the insurance to cover it.

I have heard of case where the owner of a plane got hit with hail, totaled his plane got another one and got hit with hail again that same year. The insurance co canceled him until he got a hangar.

 

[Everskyward]

No idea. The storm was in the middle of the night. We live about 4 miles straight north of the field and we only got pea sized hail.

The guys on the night shift told me that it was golf ball sized, and there was a lot. Hail piled up on the hangar roofs and blocked the drains. They said it was raining harder inside the hangars than outside. Many of the offices in the maintenance row got water damage.

 

[denverpilot]

Met the insurance adjuster yesterday on the ramp.

It looks like my plane is probably totaled and definitely not airworthy.

Sounds like you're going shopping thanks to an Underwriter who took their risks and lost, and still probably makes a profit anyway.

Keep us informed on your progress.

 

[denverpilot]

By the way, if it makes you feel any better, even aircraft under the open covers were damaged.

CAP had a spinner beat up but had an aircraft about to time out engine-wise, so they were able to swap spinners and carry on.

All the analysis I've seen of the storm indicated that the last time that amount of hail to hit APA in one storm was a 40 year event. Those storms were feeding themselves at midnight and trapped against the Mountains by the uncommon frontal activity. (Slow heavy storms are common in the Midwest but not here... they usually move East quickly. They can be destructive in a small path, but that was a slow moving unexpected monster.)

We got 2" of rain in the neighbor's rain gauge at my house. That's unheard of here. We see 1" at a time rare enough that they're memorable.