Jon Humberd, who has made a name for himself in the STOL community with his homebuilt Super 701, just posted a video to YouTube he hopes will be a learning experience for all pilots.
“A summer thunderstorm in Tennessee quickly turned a very nice sunset flight into a landing nightmare,” he says. “Crazy wind gusts on final approach with very poor visibility through the windshield made for a very close call of becoming a total disaster. Thanks to a lot of luck and a little bit of pilot skill, both myself and the airplane made it home safely.”
He adds that he knows he “will catch a lot of judgment and kickback on this one and I probably deserve it. “
“My one-way, uphill, no go-around grass strip with trees and obstacles all the way around, plus the weather and poor visibility, made this a very sketchy landing. Luckily, it is was caught on camera for you all to see, judge, and hopefully learn something from.”
Jon, good recovery. However, being a detailed pilot, I am perplexed as to where the camera(s) were mounted during some of the aerial and taxi pictures. The complete airplane, from the outside, is visible in the camera but I can not imagine where the camera can be mounted to take the pictures.
The one and only lesson here is. Don’t go flying in weather like this unless you really need to take a video of it so that you tell us what you learned from your flight cheers
Good time to go to and alternate and let the TS pass. Given the conditions, good landing due to more skill than luck.
“Thanks to a lot of luck and a little bit of pilot skill,”
Thanks for sharing that video. It is a lesson many have learned the hard way when not as much luck or skill was available and the results were catastrophic. What I hope you learn from this is the next time you are faced with a situation like this you will have learned from this experience and go somewhere else until the storm passes. The trap is that pilots often think that since they dodged a bullet this time they can always dodge the same bullet again. And that is very dangerous thinking.
Wow Jon, glad you made down safely. Maybe nearby airport to wait out the storm then go back to your place . As fast as that storm looked like it was moving you would have been home in no time? Again, glad you are still with us. Rob
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You did well.
It was one of those occasions where “it is better to be on the ground wishing you were up in the air, as opposed to being in the air wishing you were back down on the ground”.
A” lesson learnt” might be that if you see a very distinct fast moving cold front rolling it, look out for a gust front with possible LLWS ahead of it coming your way up to 10 minutes ahead of the arrival of the main front.
Glad to see you and the aircraft made it down unscathed. Thanks also for sharing the experience for pilot education purposes, much appreciated.
Very likely not a front. This kind of convective activity is very common in Tennessee in the summer. Every afternoon like clockwork you can see there is hi humidity, high temps and a lot of lift and storms will pop up everywhere and then die out. The next day, start all over again.
How were the views looking back to the plane filmed? Looks like there was another plane up with him.
You were flying under a very defined squall line , viewed from a different angle, probably a significant roll cloud, which is NEVER good especially with a lot of rain shafts pouring out the bottom, in something slightly larger than a kite. Why would you not have expected a such wild bullride? Hopefully you’ll learn to read the skies better. However, glad you lived to study and fly another day.
On what was the camera mounted for the exterior views?
Glad you made the landing OK!
Thanks for sharing, and especially for narrating along the way instead of playing some cowboy music. If we want to listen to cowboy music we can go out and get that anywhere. But when we are watching an aviation video we want to learn about aviation! Thanks again!
Very scary situation, indeed. In 2010 while flying back to L94 from a 4 hour x-country flight in my Std. Cirrus (sailplane) I could see a squall line approaching my home field from 20 miles away. I had to race it back to the field and get down before the bad stuff got there. While in the pattern I was pelted with rain and hail, bounce around like a cork in the ocean and when on final I saw a bolt of lighting strike near the end of the runway, starting a brush fire. Had to wrestle it back to the trailer for disassembly. No going around on that one, or diverting to another airport in a glider. Now that I fly mostly airplanes, I give Cu a wide berth, or just don’t fly.
I applaud his performance to stay calm and fly the airplane in such adverse conditions.
Glad you made it and didn’t get hurt.
I would also like to know about that camera please…
The camera was likely an Insta360 ONE X2, which can remove the pole mount from the video in post.
Quite a magical camera for in-flight videos. it has auto stabilization in various modes, and since it captures the full sphere, you can determine the framing of the scene later.
The Insta360 video editing software is quite powerful.
Flying alng the front of a squall line can be vicious.
The problem here is a very light aircraft and an incompetent landing area that is minimal and lined with trees. If he was caught in a gust or a crosswind on landing he could be in trees.
He was correct in getting out of the weather situation, but I would have diverted to an airport. Those trees are scary.
Most of us have been caught in weather, including squalls like this, and the best thing is to fly in the opposite direction of the approaching squall, or land. He did the right thing, but that strip is scary.
I’d be real interested in how he shot that video. What kind of video system did he use?
Thanks for sharing this clip and glad it turned out o.k. for you and the plane. It’s a good learning tool. Weather is unforgiving and we need reminders occasionally to respect it.
How were you able to get the completely detached yet synchronous video shots from outside the cockpit?
Hey John! Scary stuff! Did you give any thought to diverting to another airport until the storm blew over? Glad to see you’re still with us. Thanks for sharing. Regards, Tom Godbout
First lesson: Don’t land at an airport that has a thunderstorm on top of it.
Glad you lived through it.
You might want to consider all the alternatives that were dismissed because you felt a compelling need to land at an unsuitable (due to weather) airfield.
I learned something from watching; so, thanks.