Yep, this is real. My Dad just sent me this today. Absolutelly stunning! By the way, I had to reduce the picture, for it was a PDF file, and I just took a screenshot of it.Here is the summary:Hail Damage to GII aircraftCLASS: Info CATEGORY:EVENT DATE: 06/16/02OPERATOR: Sorry, edited outACFT: GIIS/N: Sorry, edited outEVENT: Acft departed Salina, Kansas climbing through 15K when theyencountered baseball size hail. The radome was penetrated at the forwardend leaving a large hole. The pilots' windshield was shattered and crackedin and outer panes. All wing leading edges were severely damaged along withthe vertical stab leading edge. R/H forward lower pylon skin pealed back.L/H upper forward pylon skin pealed back. Leading edge of nose landing geardoors skin pealed slightly with sheared rivets. Left and right engine nosecowl leading edges severely dented. Upper and lower anti-collision lightsbroken. Left and right engine blade spinners dented severely. Upper forwardfuselage canopy dented. Left and right inbd wing fillets dented severely.L/H inbd ID light lens cracked.ACTION TAKEN: Photos of all damaged areas forwarded to Tech Ops forevaluation.Keep this in mind when you are flying in the real world and think you can take on CBs. And remember, CBs spit out hail sometimes up to 15 nm from the cloud itself!

Hail can really mess up an aircraft. I remember reading something about a Southern Airlines DC-9 crash outside Atlanta back in the late 70s. The aircraft was flying from Huntsville, AL to Atlanta, GA when it flew directly through a violent storm cell. Hail penetrated into the cockpit and damaged the engines to the point where they ceased to provide enough power to fly. The pilot reported over the radio that "The windshield's busted out." The plane ended up making an emergency landing on a highway, unfortunately I believe the crew and a number of passengers were killed. They were later investigating and thought that the immense amount of rain might have caused the engine failures, rather than the hail. I'd think it was the hail, but who knows?Just checked airdisaster.com and this was posted as the cause description:After entering a severe hailstorm, both engines failed and the crew was forced to attempt an emergency landing on a two-lane highway. The crew was flying through what was perceived as a 'hole' in the precipitation on the radar, but the investigation into the crash revealed that the 'hole' was actually caused by the radar's inability to draw precipitation of that intensity.Regards,Scott

Oh dear, now that just ain't lookin' good anymore... :-eek

Geez. :-eek I certainly wouldn't want to board that aircraft. ;-)Ryan-Flightpro08 :-coolVATSIM Pilot/ControllerZLA ARTCC Controller 1 (C-1)SAN TRACON Lead [link:www.taxiwaysigns.com]Taxiwaysigns.com Scenery Designer-----------------------------My "Home Made" System Specs:Intel Pentium 4 2.2GHz ProcessorTurbo Gamer ATX Mid-Tower with 420W Power SupplyEPoX 4G4A Motherboard with Intel 845G ChipsetVisiontek XTASY GeForce4 128MB Ti4600 (Det 29.42 WHQL Drivers)512MB PC2100 DDR RAM40GB Matrox 7200RPM Hard DriveWindows XP Home Edition SP1*No CPU or GPU Overclocking*3dMark2001SE Score: 11298

I doubt that rain of any magnitude, unless a tidal wave, could penetrate a cockpit windshield. It had to be hail.