Reacting immediately, knowing what was going on, does a small GA even stand a chance with that?
Hmm. How to answer this gingerly...
First off, seeing a wet one like in the video, is easy. Seeing and avoiding a dry one, is a hell of a lot harder, unless you spot telltales on the ground. Dust kicked up, etc. Around here, it's so dry that most of these that may start as falling air and water aloft, are just cold air headed downhill at a hellacious speed and the storm producing the energy may be a ways off. Or may have a very high "rain free base" and that horizon is VMC all the way underneath.
All that said, I've been microbursted all the way to the runway in a Skyhawk. With a CFI on board. It was late in my PP training and only a few weeks before the check ride. We were doing pattern work at EIK landing south. I turned base a bit further out than usual, working on making it stable in mildly gusty conditions.
For reference, the microburst was pretty much centered over a spot about the threshold. How we eventually came to figure this out was by two fortuitously placed flagpoles on houses and the airport windsock. I'll explain as we get there...
I'm looking at a normal longish straight in now and I've got the power all the way back and we are not losing airspeed or altitude. CFI was kinda not noticing a first, I was close enough to the check ride that he wasn't having to maintain the death-watch on what I was doing. He was even comfortable enough that his kid was in a car seat in the back. (That kid is now a Commercial/Muli/CFI-I haha).
About a half mile out we haven't come down from pattern altitude and he's noticing. "Pull the power out. All of it. You're high."
"It's out."
He grabs my hand on the throttle and pulls just checking me.
I'm also starting to push the nose down hunting for the familiar sight picture which is windmilling the prop enough that the RPM hasn't really come down much. Airspeed is climbing with idle and full flaps.
About this point the runway is leaning backward in a funny way due to the steepness of the nose down pitch and I can tell he's about to either tell me to try a slip or to go around, which isn't making me real happy, since I want these landings to look good enough to get my signoff for the ride.
Then we hit the direct downdraft and the bottom fell out. Airspeed falling rapidly, and I hear, "My airplane, but stay with me on the controls, I'll explain in a minute." He shoves the power to full and I'm now in " crew" mode calling out the rapidly falling airspeed numbers.
We are now in essentially a takeoff climb attitude for Vx and and the engine going full tilt boogie, and we are going down 1000 fpm plus. I'm following along still not getting what's going on but seeing that he's coaxing the airplane to fly, each time a gust beeps the stall horn he's relaxing just a touch of back pressure and in what felt like minutes, but was really only 20 seconds or so, we are at the threshold and we smack into the area just before the numbers at just about 1000 fpm down.
I had never seen the famous Skyhawk "spring steel" landing gear actually "spring" before. We did NOT bounce back into the air, and the stall horn was on continuously for the last 100' of flying.
We now are on the runway, planted there hard enough we didn't bounce back up, and accelerating because the engine is still roaring. We both chop the throttle simultaneously (two handed... Was funny later...) and he says, "your airplane" and I figure out how to get us stopped.
We turn off and taxi to a run up area and he points at the flag on the house at the approach end. And the midfield windsock. They're pointed opposite directions and both are standing straight out. And they stay that way for a long time, then both go generally slack and then swing around and point down the runway, like normal, gusting lightly but not standing straight.
"That was your first microburst."
We sat there and talked for a bit about them. And why I had high airspeed on final, switching to normal airspeed and a huge sink in the middle. And finally to a tailwind that threatened to not allow us to accelerate our airspeed enough to stay aloft, right before the "flare", as it were. There was no flare really. Just flying it on under full power.
He also explained that he was simply holding a deck angle and listening to the air and the stall horn. Either we would fly out of it or we would hit prior to the runway in the dirt, but the options were gone. The knowledge that a propellor driven aircraft at least has some prop wash over the wing center at full power and that we didn't have to wait for an engine to spool up like a turbine, meant he was just going to hold what should be a good climb angle and full power and wait... Couldn't really retract the flaps to help the acceleration, because we were too damned slow.
A big big learning day for me.
Now here's the stupid part. The airplane was EIK based. We could have parked it and gone home for the day. We didn't. We saw the sock and the flags were back to normal, so we taxied down there and blasted off again, because I wanted to get these landings in. And we thought it was dissipated and over with.
Whether or not it was a new microburst or just the same one that had been disrupted by something for a number of minutes and was back... We can't say, but when we started to hit the exact same behavior on the next line up on final, we were both more ready for it. And we both looked. Those damned flags were pointed opposite directions again and the windsock at midfield was all sorts of confused. Maybe we should have gone around (in hindsight) and flown somewhere else for a Coke and a break and waited it out, but he let me continue the approach and with foreknowledge that the bottom was going to drop out soon, I was ready with power and had kept the speed up... This one was much more mellow and by the time I had passed through it, it was a "normal" downwind landing... So to speak.
We both looked at each other after I landed it, and said "I'm done!" Nearly in unison.
I learned a hell of a lot that day...
1. If you're seeing +20 over what you're expecting from the airspeed indicator for pitch and power set, something is up and it's trying to get your attention.
2. If you attempt a go around and the airplane won't climb, keep flying it. Select a pitch and power combination that should result in a solid climb and hold it if you can. Let the airspeed indicator and the stall horn be your guide. But keep flying. The runway is still there and you just might make it.
3. When the weather gets that weird, don't be an idiot and launch back into it. You already tempted fate once today with your instructors toddler in the back seat. Dummy.
4. Microbursts can be invisible and you won't always have three wind indicators nicely placed along its path to see what's happening.
5. We were less than 20 miles from a hail producing thunderstorm over toward Boulder, CO. The admonition to give thunderstorms a wide berth, was rammed home.
6. Don't let outside events (upcoming check ride) short circuit your go/no-go criteria, and remember each takeoff is a go/no-go decision, not just the whole flight.
Are microbursts survivable in a light aircraft? Sure. But it's all very dependent upon conditions. I really don't ever want to experience one again at low level in an underpowered airplane up here in the summertime, but neither am I enthused about one in cruise flight at a higher altitude. Best to go around by a large margin.
The only other time I've suspected one, was either that or just some very sharp turbulence caused by an unknown factor. Was tootling along headed for APA from the east when out of nowhere I was bounced off of my Skylane's roof. Headset bands hurt when jammed into your head at high speed. Was just under yellow line in a long fast descent. No significant weather showing but thunderstorms developed about two hours later in the area, so unstable air was plentiful.
Anyway, full power with a runway getting bigger in the window and really no pitch control available to choose the landing spot, hoping it doesn't worse and you can make the runway, isn't my idea of a fun afternoon of flying.
Just avoid the damned things if you can. If you can't or you can't see them, consider leaving the area rather than tempt them to smite thee.
