"Hey, Lieutenant, you flying to Great Falls tonight?". It was the operations officer. "I don't know", I replied. "Weather looks pretty hairy up there but I'd kinda like to get home". "Well, if you decide to go let me know", he said. "I've got a package for you to deliver. Pretty important." "Package? What’s so important about a package?", I asked. "It's that new medicine just came out. You've heard of it. Penicillin. They need it at the hospital for some kid that’s bad off". That did it. For most of the flight I was on instruments flying in and out of snow. Ahead through breaks in the white stuff, I could occasionally see the city lights of Lewiston, Montana which was located just over the mountains and east of Great Falls. I reported my position to the Lewiston radio range. "Army 1234", they replied. "Be advised the airport at Great Falls is closed. A heavy snowstorm is in progress. What are your intentions?" "I'm not sure", I replied. "I've got a package aboard that has to be delivered. Can I land at Lewiston and get a car to deliver it? "Sure you can", they said. "But you'll have to circle the field until someone gets out there to turn on the lights. The don' t operate the airport 24 hours a day. Take maybe 30 minutes". "OK. I'll wait". I circled the field counter-clockwise for perhaps 20 to 25 minutes when the radio range operator came back on the air. "Army 1234, be advised the snowstorm has passed Great Falls and the field is now open. Do you still want to land at Lewiston or proceed to Great Falls?". "I’ll proceed to Great Falls", I said. I grabbed the outbound leg of the Lewiston radio beam and climbed up into the snowstorm and headed west towards Great Falls. But a new problem arose. I had vertigo! I felt like I was still circling around to the left and that my left wing was down. My first reaction was to raise the left wing but my instruments showed that my right wing was now down even though my "seat of the pants" told me that I was level! For a split second I wanted to panic! But I talked myself out of it. "Wise up, for Christ’s Sake! You've got vertigo! Remember your instrument training. Believe your instruments, not your pants. Keep your flight indicator level and your directional gyro on course. Watch your altitude, airspeed, and rate of climb indicator! In this manner, I flew through one of the worst snowstorms of my career, putting my faith and life in the readings of my instruments while I unconsciously kept leaning to the right still thinking that my left wing was low. About 10 minutes or so from Great Falls, I suddenly broke into the clear and everything was OK. The tower cleared me to land and I asked them to turn the runway lights on. "They are on", the operator replied. "But I can't see them. Turn 'em up to full", I asked. He turned them up but I could barely see them through the foot or so layer of new powdered snow. On final approach I turned on my landing lights but was almost blinded by the whiteness reflected from the snow so I turned them off. Barely seeing the runway lights through the snow was like looking into water and made my depth perception slightly off. As a result, I leveled off too high, came down some but still too high, down some more until finally I 3-pointed to a perfect landing trailing a gigantic plume of snow behind me. I taxied to the parking ramp and shut down the engines. Someone came out, picked us up, drove us to operations and hurriedly drove away with the package. It was early morning now and I was suddenly very tired. I never did find out how the kid made out who needed the penicillin. I left the next day on another plane delivery mission. John Yauk -- Nov, 1990 |