One such summer day in 1994, my dad requested the services of my piloting skills for a trip to Milton, Florida and Ozark, Alabama. I made the appropriate plans, noting the trip to Milton would take us directly over Whiting Naval Air Station in Florida, received a standard weather briefing, enlisted my seasoned navigator, Jim McKenzie, and left first thing that morning.
I was on flight following with Atlanta Center for most of the trip from Tuscaloosa to Milton. The flight was smooth and uneventful, the sky was clear, and we were making excellent time in our rented Cessna 172. As we neared our destination, we were handed off to Pensacola for approach control. About 5 miles north of Whiting, Pensacola vectored me around the airbase to the west and south, then approved the frequency change to the local UNICOM. I was about 4 miles from the field at this time.
I immediately noticed a significant amount of traffic for the tiny field, just a few miles north of the beach. I quickly began my decent and entered the pattern, but I was still far too high on final approach. I felt, however, that I could make the runway without too much trouble. I dove for the tarmac, and was doing about 90 knots when I crossed the runway threshold at less than 50 feet.
Feeling I had the worst of it behind me, I began to relax a bit -- even though I was still around 80 knots IAS. I felt and heard the mains hit the runway, and like a porpoise I bounced back into the sky. Apparently I liked the way it felt, because I did it again. And again. And again. Did I mention this was a small runway (both width and length)?
My dad said something, I can't remember what, but I'm pretty sure he was expressing his discomfort with the whole scenario. On bounce number 5 I noticed the plane was veering to the left of the runway, where a sea of well-trimmed grass awaited. At this point, I shoved the throttle through the firewall and bounced over the grassy area, sure I was about to hit the ground. The plane dipped ever so slightly and suddenly found it's wings; we gained enough lift from the cooler air over the grass to become airborne again.
Feeling a bit small, I went around for another approach, this one a good deal more successful. As we exited the plane, my dad asked me if that first approach counted as six landings. I think he was joking. Jim fumbled for his cigarettes and lit one up quickly. I said something about how hot it had become, and looked at the now partly-cloudy sky.
Once my dad had finished his business there, it was off to Ozark, a short 45-minute hop over the state line. This was to become my first experience with "light chop." The air was heating up, the clouds were building, and the plane was bouncing like it was on a trampoline. I learned all sorts of new words that trip, but the rest of that leg was without incident (never mind the fact that at one end of Ozark's runway lies Alabama's heretofore undiscovered version of the Grand Canyon (slight exaggeration, I assure you)).
A couple of hours later, we were ready to return home. The clouds had really started moving in, and looked a bit low for a comfortable trip back. The reported ceiling was at 4000, so I figured that would be okay. The return trip would take us directly over Montgomery, Alabama, who would also be following us on radar for most of the trip.
As we got within 15 minutes of MGM, the ceiling began to drop dramatically. A few spats of water found our windshield, but things still looked doable. Suddenly MGM approach was talking about locally severe thunderstorms in the vicinity of the field, and my eyes confirmed what they were describing: lightning was popping all over the place about 10 miles in front of us, and it was dark as night up there. I requested and was granted a decent to 3000, with pilot's discretion to avoid the clouds as necessary.
As we passed over and to the west of Montgomery, things looked a bit grim. The frequency of lightning was alarming to say the least, although it was the first time I got to see lightning from that perspective (quite impressive). Then, the line I joke with my friends about to this day: "Watch out for that lightning!" my dad suggests. I silently wondered just how I was supposed to see, react to, and swerve to avoid a lightning bolt. We altered our course from roughly a northwest heading to due west to avoid a particularly nasty group of clouds.
About 5 minutes later, I saw a gap between two groups of clouds. I evaluated the situation, and decided it was either go back to MGM or shoot the gap. After passing through the hole, avoiding most of the wet stuff, I turned back due north to get around the second cloud group. When this was no longer a problem, I began scanning the ground for noticable landmarks so I could figure out how far off course we were. Moments later, my navigator and my dad figured it out, and we weren't too bad off.
The clouds we had danced around were now behind us for the most part, and we returned to Tuscaloosa safely. That trip taught me a few things about Alabama summers, and it persuaded my dad to encourage that I brush up on my landing skills a bit.