LCDR Art Schmitt is a friend of mine.  He is one of a select breed of Naval Aviators that is qualified to fly both fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft.  This is no small accomplishment, because helicopters require a completely different set of responses that those that accompany a fixed wing aircraft.  Many pilots cannot make the transistion from fixed to rotary and vice versa.  After a successful career in the Navy, Art received a PhD in phychology and now specializes in post traumatic stress disorder (PSTD).

 

While I was doing SEAL/UDT support missions out of SEA FLOAT/SOLID ANCHOR in 1970, Art was the OIC of Detachment 1, HA(L)-3, the Navy's famous "Seawolves" attack helicopter squadron.  This story takes place before Art became a rotary wing guy.  He was a fixed wing pilot flying a Lockheed P2V-5F "Neptune" patrol bomber out of NAS New Brunswick, Maine.

 

The P2V-5F was a land based patrol bomber first delivered to the Navy in 1946.  The -5F had a wing span of 104 feet, a length of 98 feet, a height of 28 feet, and weighed in at 40 tons with a full fuel load.  It was powered by two Pratt and Whitney R3350-32WA (3,750 hp, water augmented) radial engines and two Westinghouse J-34 turbojets (at 3,400 pounds of thrust each) for extra thrust at takeoff.  Maximum speed was 364 mph with a cruise speed of 204 mph; maximum range was 4,350 miles; maximum ceiling was 18,700 feet.  Payload was 12,000 pounds of mines, bombs, depth charges, rockets, or torpedoes.

 

 

Today's mission started as a routine flight to Halifax, Nova Scottia, and back.  About several hours into the flight, the weather deteriorated into a horrendous thunderstorm.  Now past the point of no return, the Neptune could not climb above the weather or fly below it.  And so the pilot in command, Art Schmitt, was forced to fly through the thunderstorm -- something that pilots try to avoid at all costs. 

 

The Neptune was rattling, shaking, and banging from the ferocious winds inside the storm.  Rain lashed the aircraft as it plowed towards Halifax.  And then there was a searing white light and an explosion in the nose.  The Neptune was struck by lightning!  The plexiglass nose was vaporized; a bolt of white-hot flame shot over Art's right shoulder, though the arcraft, and blew out the back of the fiberglass MAD tailboom.  Now the interior of the aircraft was like flying inside a wind tunnel with rain.  The lightning also fried most of the instrument panel and navigation system.  Fortunately, the radios still worked and the engines kept turning over.  Schmitt called Halifax Approach Control and declared an emergency.  Halifax cleared the wounded Neptune for a straight-in approach.  The Neptune touched down and rolled out, followed by the alerted emergency equipment. 

 

Other than the vaporized plexiglass nose, scrambled insturment panel and navigation systems, and the blown-out tail cone, the Neptune and its crew had survived the lightning strike without a scratch.  Art Schmitt and his crew did some serious celebrating after their brush with death and proved the saying: "That which does not kill us makes us stronger."