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Tornado hits Van's Aurora airport

When I saw this article all I could think of was I hope Scotts plane wasn't one of the ones that flipped! It looks like 2 Cessna's in the pictures. Wow.
 
All The Van's airplanes were inside the hangar with the door closed up tight.
All of the damage seems to have been at the North end of the airport almost a mile away.
We were watching the storm through the shop window and could actually see rotation in the clouds but at the time we didnt know a tornado had formed.
 
I had the XM weather running on a demo EFIS when the storm hit, this was taken after it moved through KUAO.

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Rob Hickman
Advanced Flight Systems
 
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Cool image Rob, and congrats on the EAA Hall of Fame induction. I heard the tornado warning on the radio and called my folks who live about a mile from
your shop. They where unaware, and fine, headed to a volleyball game or something at the HS.
We are in Manzanita now, where the EF2 category tornado went through last year on Oct 14th. That was the first tornado reported on the Oregon Coast in 25 Years and the strongest ever reported. An EF-1 hit Battleground Dec. 2015, about 2 miles from us, so we do get them.
Not quite tornado alley though ;)
 
All the cell phones in the office went off saying tornado on the ground and to take cover, so naturally everyone ran outside to look for it.

Rob Hickman
Advanced Flight Systems
 
All the cell phones in the office went off saying tornado on the ground and to take cover, so naturally everyone ran outside to look for it.

Rob Hickman
Advanced Flight Systems

:D
Yea, we did to, but by the time our phones went off it was already gone towards you guys.....
 
Glad everyone is okay

There?s nothing like a Tornado to cause massive destruction. I live in Tornado Alley (Oklahoma City) and our bad weather season is early-May to mid-June. It?s been several years since we?ve experienced a really bad Tornado season so our time is coming. It appears your season is mid-October.

Glad everyone is okay!
 
All the cell phones in the office went off saying tornado on the ground and to take cover, so naturally everyone ran outside to look for it.

Rob Hickman
Advanced Flight Systems
You definitely are not from the plains or midwest! We take those things very seriously.
 
You definitely are not from the plains or midwest! We take those things very seriously.

We spent 5 years in Birmingham Alabama where they have real thunderstorms and tornado's. When we first moved to Alabama we bought one of those fancy weather radios that would go off and save your life. After a few weeks of it going off in the middle of the night all the time we turned it off.

Rob Hickman
N402RH RV-10
 
We spent 5 years in Birmingham Alabama where they have real thunderstorms and tornado's.

Truth! We live in a newer house in a neighborhood that was wiped off the planet earth by an F5. They just leveled everything and started over it was so bad. All the new houses have built-in tornado shelters in the basement. I store finished airplane parts in ours :D
 
We spent 5 years in Birmingham Alabama where they have real thunderstorms and tornado's. When we first moved to Alabama we bought one of those fancy weather radios that would go off and save your life. After a few weeks of it going off in the middle of the night all the time we turned it off.

Rob Hickman
N402RH RV-10

Got to set the weather radio to alert for tornado warnings only.
 
Got to set the weather radio to alert for tornado warnings only.

It was 20 years ago and would go off for anything within 100 miles, technology has improved. We ended up moving back to Portland where we really don't have any bad weather and you can drive to Van's and pick up your parts :)

When we were in the Sun-n-Fun tornado Foreflight actually drew a tornado on the screen.

Rob Hickman
N402RH RV-10
 
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It was 20 years ago and would go off for anything within 100 miles, technology has improved. We ended up moving back to Portland where we really don't have any bad weather and you can drive to Van's and pick up your parts :)

When we were in the Sun-n-Fun tornado Foreflight actually drew a tornado on the screen.

Rob Hickman
N402RH RV-10

Yep, weather warning tech certainly has improved in the past twenty years. In our area (north Alabama...lots of tornadoes) the weather radios can now be programmed for an area about ten miles in diameter. This has eliminated most nuisance alarms. In spite of being within two miles of multiple massive F4 and F5 tornadoes over the past thirty years, our airport (DCU) has escaped unharmed. We did have a couple of Antonov bipes tear loose from their mooring and take flight across the adjoining soybean field. Anyone need a couple of huge "bent-wing" biplanes? Maybe that North Korean guy can use them in his air force for parts planes. :)
 
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Truth! We live in a newer house in a neighborhood that was wiped off the planet earth by an F5. They just leveled everything and started over it was so bad. All the new houses have built-in tornado shelters in the basement. I store finished airplane parts in ours :D

That sounds pretty cool. Do you have any pictures of tornado shelters that you could share?
 
We have our share here in Indiana. Back in the 80s I owned an ultralight (a Phantom) that survived three. On the worst occasion, I went to the airport to see if there were any remains. There it sat, in the open where a hangar had once stood, tied down with some of the remains of the hangar under its wheels! The ropes were noticeably stretched. After hours of inspection, but very little work, it was in the air again. The other four planes in that hangar row were destroyed or seriously damaged. Only one was salvageable. Luck beyond understanding. Hangar or not, I ALWAYS tie down.

Here, if you want to predict the path of a tornado, just draw a line between airports. Tornado magnets, they are. Glad you guys were lucky, too.

Bob
 
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