The early Aero Commander 500A was an early Ted Smith design by a company in the late 40's which was later named Aero Commander. This little twin engine aircraft was a 180 knot cruise aircraft, which could carry 5 passengers, if one set in the co-pilots position. It had 260HP Continental engines, the IO-470M. It was a good little aircraft and as its heritage grew in later models, so did the speed and of course problems with its wing begin to show up in the 90's. Our most decorated soldier of WW2, Audie Murphy was killed in a 560E in Va. during entry into a thunderstorm.
This is a short story of a flight I had in a 500A in 1963, one of my first corporate aviation jobs. We operated the aircraft out of a small field North of Atlanta, named McCollum field, located outside Kennesaw, Ga. It was owned by a chicken processing company and we had plants all over the Southeast. One of our big suppliers was located in Palatka, Fla. and the plan was this: one trip down to take the big boss, RTB that evening and leave next morning with accountants to Huntsville, Ala, then return to Palatka and pick up the boss and RTB. It was not uncommon to make dual trips like this for a small company which had only one aircraft and everybody wanted to use it. The accountants used it at least once a week and sometimes two times.
This is also the story of how I saw Jesus one dark, rainy night over Griffin, Ga
The boss was an old B-26 pilot back in late 40's and 50's and saw action in Korea, and was shot down by a Yak 9 just south of Inchon but managed to crash land and walk away fron it. He like to fly, so on this trip down, he did all the flying, with me in the co-pilot's position, handling the radio's and etc. We had an old Mitchell auto pilot, but its functions didn't always work, so it was mainly a hand flown aircraft 100% of the time. But it was very stable and easy to fly, so it was not a real problem. The only problem with it was that it had old vacuum operated instruments, such as the attitude gyro and directional gyro. After about 45 degrees of bank, these things would "tumble" and then had to be reset. The DG had to be reset about every 10 minutes if you wanted to use it. The attitude gyro had to be "caged", then let the "kimbals" in the thing settle down and you could un-cage it and it would work until you tumbled it again. Wasn't the best thing in the world, because it always showed about a 3 degree bank, when straight and level. But after a while, you got used to it and you didn't pay attention to that little error!
After landing at Palatka about 3PM in the afternoon, I went downtown with the boss, because he was buying steaks for dinner. By the time I arrived back at the airport, refueled and prepared to takeoff, it was pushing 7PM, so I knew it was going to be a night time flight for most of the way. A few thunderstorms were wandering around Alma, Ga., so decided to file direct Gainsville, incept V-97 to Albany, then hopefully, cancel and fly direct to McCollum and home.
It was a very pleasant ride to Albany, a few cumulus clouds to enter, then a couple to navigate around which were beginning to light up, but all in all a good smooth ride. During this time, a line of storms had built from Gainesville, Ga to just east of Anniston, Ala and from the reports I was hearing, it was not going to be something to mess with, so I changed my flight plan for a landing at ATL, wait for it to pass, then go on to McCollum, where my car was. If I figured it right, should land just prior to line crossing ATL, wait a few minutes, then on to McCollum.
As I approached ATL from the Southwest, I was given a hold at Griffin intersection, South, 1 min legs, left turns. Gosh that line had really motored down and it was getting closer. I held at 7,000 feet, and had been holding for about 20 minutes because this line of storms was really messing up the ATL airline traffic and people were holding all over the place. I knew when I turned inbound one time towards the intersection on the in bound leg, I was going to be awful close to a cell which was really lighting up. ATC back then had not installed weather filters on their radar and when it rained hard, they really couldn't tell where the cell itself was, but this controller working with me assured me that I would miss the worst of it by staying just Northeast of the intersection and plan on staying on a 355 degree heading by the intersection. I did as I was told and bang, right in the thing, hard bumps, jolts, hard rain, then I heard the tale tale sign of hail! I was fight like mad, handling throttles, and controls to stay right side up and stay at 7,000 and all of a sudden a big jolt and bump, the attitude gyro tumbled and I knew I was in an unusual attitude to say the least. Gosh, there is a picture of Jesus in the top of my windshield! What I was seeing were the lights of Griffin, Ga and I was inverted, but instinct took over and I rolled the 500 back up to where the lights were now over my nose.
I proceeded on to McCollum, in a fairly steady rain but visibility was good, so got radar vectors to field and landed. As I was going over the city of Atlanta, I knew I had some kind of damage, just didn't know what at that time. After landing and flash light in hand, nose cone had took a beating and was damaged, the left wing leading edge was damaged by the hail and had to be replaced later along with the nose cone. Of course the birds was grounded for about two weeks with ongoing repair work and the company rental a 310D from a local flight school for our use. I really was lucky to survive that flight as I could have pulled a wing off that thing with the wrong response to realizing I was inverted. Good old Air Force training paid big dividends that night! Why the right wing did not receive any damage is beyond me, must have been close to a hail shaft and only glazed it.
That was the night I saw Jesus face on a dark rainy stormy night in Georgia! I had not been close to God before that night, but I renewed my love for him after that night and still have it today!
