This is enough to make me cry... :'( :'( :'( :'(Here are pictures of the ERAU-DAY planes. Forty aircraft weredestroyed, and $50 million in damage was done to them and otherproperty during the 12/24/06 tornadoes. Unbelievable! :-eekThis sure isn't going to help insurance rates... ;( http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/9047/erau1jz2.jpghttp://img237.imageshack.us/img237/2941/erau2he8.jpghttp://img237.imageshack.us/img237/5210/erau3pl8.jpghttp://img216.imageshack.us/img216/4271/erau4un6.jpghttp://img142.imageshack.us/img142/1408/erau5jm6.jpghttp://img167.imageshack.us/img167/8361/erau6ay6.jpg

Ouch. Lets hope they were well insured. Hope no one was hurt.

I always wonder why pilots when then know abut incoming storm simply fly those planes hundreds of miles away to safer locations. The nature of storms is that they are relatively slow moving and the worst that could happen is that you flew those planes unnecessarily. Current weather forecasts are not yet absolutely perfect but they are good enough to see that probablity of damage might be high enough and warrant a simple 'escape' tactic. Perhpas insurance companies should start questioning pilot-owners whether they even lifted a finger to save their aircraft.Embry Riddle could have offered their student pilots free 'repositioning' flights.Michael J.

Having lived in the Midwest and lived thru several tornados, and also having been in a Florida tornado, if I were to move my plane every time a threat came near I'd go broke. Tornadic storms aren't easy to predict and can be very fast moving--one moved through North Platte NE back in '75 abreast a squall line that moved through at 40 kts with clear air ahead of it. I was caught outside in another F1 twister in '80, and the reason I was caught is five minutes before, not a cloud in the sky. The atmosphere just exploded in an unpredicted event of instability. The F1 twister was strong enough to topple 50 foot pine trees and tear off metal roofs and would have destroyed any plane it came across. And it developed and vanished so quickly, the NWS couldn't confirm it by radar--only those of us caught in it could testify it hit. I was digging dust out of my hair and skin for days afterwards.I agree that storms such as hurricanes which can be tracked and with a certain outcome--get the aircraft out. But fronts come through Florida all the time, any one of which might set up conditions for a Tornado, or might not. That's one area of weather prediction we still haven't gotten to a science.-John

John,Thanks for the insights. I actually am a westerner and have little real life experience with hurricanes, tornados, twisters, etc. More with the earthquakes ;)Michael J.

I wonder if anyone living in the area would have a chance to buy one of the cockpits from the insurance company? And, if they did, whether their better half would allow it in the rumpus room? ;)

Wow, breaks my heart, I've learned to fly just next door (Delta Aviation Academy in Sanford, FL). I wonder why they didn't fly them to safer grounds?! Anytime we had anticipated bad weather all flight instructors had to line up to fly North, the whole fleet.Cheers,Petehttp://members.aol.com/pzsoulman/myhomepage/logo.gifGIGABYTE Light 3D Galaxy II Liquid CoolingENERMAX Galaxy EGA850EWL ATX 850W Power SupplyNVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel MoboCore 2 Duo E6700 1066MHz FSB 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775CORSAIR XMS2 2GB SDRAM DDR2 800GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI ExpressSBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.12 x Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA Raid01 Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/sWinXP Home SP2CH Yoke/Pedals

It was winter break at the school so it would be difficult to gather up enough pilots to ferry 50+ airplanes hundreds of miles in a few hours.

It was a TORNADO, not a hurricane. A tornado gives you what, 15, 20 minutes to prepare? Even if all the students and instructors were on campus, it would take more than a few HOURS to organize the pilots, pre-flight the airplanes, start up, taxi out and take off. How any of you can say that they should have flown the airplanes to safety is beyond me. In all reality, the airplanes were in the safest place they could be under the circumstances; tied down, with no pilots flying them. This was a MAJOR storm system, extending hundreds of miles to the north and south of the airport. If any of them had taken off, chances are pretty good that one, if not more, would have crashed in the storm. I'd rather have 50 mangled airplanes on the ramp than 1 crashed airplane and 1 dead instructor. Watch the video on www.wesh.com and pay close attention to the part that the guy talks about how hurricanes compare to tornadoes.

If you are interested in an old cockpit - google for "Air Salvage"There are many companies in the business and probably one near you.Your biggest cost will be that the metal scrap value might be higher than you are willing to pay, but air salvage folks are mostly pilots and aviation enthusiasts like us flight simmers - and understand the joys of flight.One large company at KLNC has been very supportive when I've talked with them about obtaining a cocipit.However the second half of the question above is currently a major obstacle.

Yeah that is what I was wondering too. All the aviation sites I visit say they could've easily flown them to safety. What are these people thinking? At the most I think the warning would be a hook echo from the radar and I think that is only 30 minutes before the storm. I don't know how Embry-Riddle checks out their airplanes to their students but at the college I am at it would take forever to get everyone preflighted and out of the runup area and into the air. Plus even if you are going to have everyone already in the airplanes and running are you really going to launch an inexperienced pilot (1000 hours and less) into a system that has tornadic activity?

ERAU isn't exactly liked where I go to school because they were very cocky and what not at nationals last year. I wasn't there, but from what I was told they weren't the friendliest people. However, this is really a terrible thing and I hope all Riddle students and faculty are okay and things recover soon.

>Yeah that is what I was wondering too. All the aviation sites>I visit say they could've easily flown them to safety. What>are these people thinking? At the most I think the warning>would be a hook echo from the radar and I think that is only>30 minutes before the storm. I don't know how Embry-Riddle>checks out their airplanes to their students but at the>college I am at it would take forever to get everyone>preflighted and out of the runup area and into the air. Plus>even if you are going to have everyone already in the>airplanes and running are you really going to launch an>inexperienced pilot (1000 hours and less) into a system that>has tornadic activity?You don't consider someone experienced enough until 1000 hours? Here I am wondering if I will ever get to 40 hours :)

>Wow, breaks my heart, I've learned to fly just next door>(Delta Aviation Academy in Sanford, FL). I wonder why they>didn't fly them to safer grounds?! >>Anytime we had anticipated bad weather all flight instructors>had to line up to fly North, the whole fleet.>Sure, if you have a wide-area storm like a hurricane coming. But those tornados can form in 5 minutes, and really there's no defense against them.I guess that's the best reason to carry insurance. Hope rates don't go up for other aircraft owners.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2530 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Maybe engines out of these airplanes will still be recoverable.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/for...argo_hauler.gifhttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg