As if Hurricane Andrew wasn’t enough, shortly after arriving in New Smyrna Beach we got hit with what became known across the country as “The Storm of the Century”.
I had the aircraft parked in the grass nosed up to the tie down row in front of the FBO. Of course there were no tie downs that would begin to secure a C123.
I happened to turn the TV on at about 10:00 that night and got the emergency weather alert. The radar indicated a blinking red line packing 100 plus MPH winds the length of the state moving west to east at 50 MPH.
I jumped in the car to rush to the airport. My plan was to get in it and hopefully have time to at least start one engine and turn the airplane into the coming storm. I was planning to then start the other engine, neutralize the controls and hold the brakes and ride the storm out keeping the wings level.
I did not want to repeat the exercise that I had gone through in FLL with the tail feathers that had suffered wind damage. I had to recover the Cessna wing size rudder and replace most of the very hard to source broken rudder and elevator support assemblies. (See pic below). At least at FLL I was able to access a 727 tail scaffolding that was on the other side of a fence by throwing a banner towing grapple hook to it on a Sunday and pulling it about ten feet. Worked perfect-we were able to back the 123 in under it after letting some air out of the tires. We got caught just as we were safetying the top bolt.
When I pulled onto the NSB airport that night I could see the line of lightning approaching fast. I still had to park far enough away and run up to the aircraft, fumble with the padlock on the door, climb up to the flight deck and get the right engine started. As I approached the airplane the storm hit suddenly. When I got about 300’ from the airplane a friends Cessna 150 broke loose from its tie downs and cartwheeled across my path almost hitting my car. It careened into another friends V tail and literally cut it’s empennage off. I threw it in reverse and backed up next to a T Hangar concrete block wall on the down wind side of the storm. As the car was rocking the last thing I saw illuminated in the lightning flashes was my 123 tilting hard and pivoting around then the wall of water hit and it went pitch black. I thought that it was going to flip over on top of the FBO hangar.
After a few long minutes laying down in my car worrying about the T hangar wall collapsing on top of me the worst of the wind rain and lightning subsided.
I was relieved to see that the 123 was still there. It had rocked up on the wing tip and arced around, dragging the drop tank and wing tip and turned itself 180 degrees into the wind. The other wing ended up shadowing a T28 that was tied down next to it. Amazingly it didn’t touch the T28.
Somehow the tail feathers and support brackets survived unscathed. When I turned the master on the gear horn sounded and displayed an unsafe main gear light. Fortunately I had the safety lock pins installed or it would have collapsed. I jacked the aircraft and the gear locked down. The only damage was the scraped and bent wing tip (the opposite side as the one that hit the PBY prop dome) and the scraped bottom of the drop tank.
I then moved it to George Baker Aviation and fixed some known issues and advertised it.
C123K tour
https://youtu.be/IaWaAhEANHc
