[Untamed]

BWAHAHAHA.... um, no. I AM the FBI. ::nods::

I think my most thrilling ride was my three point cross country. Halfway through it just about the entire state of Florida ends up under one giant storm. Imagine that. So I'm stuck at Lakeland, checking with Orlando by phone every thirty minutes for a window, when they finally said there was limited VFR below 2000 AGL (Florida is essentially flat).

I head south, just nick the corner of restricted airspace (cant recall the name, but its north of the lake), end up in the middle of the state over swamp land, before checking in with Miami via radio. They advise IFR conditions and I'm already up in the air with no place to land. So I drop to 500 feet so I can see where the hell I am, find some railroad tracks and follw them roughly eastward back towards Boca Raton.

As I emerge from the center of the state to civilization (anyone who has flown Florida knows that canal that runs north - south) and climb back up to 2000 feet, the sky opens up to the squal line headed east towards the ocean. Thick black clouds... and hellacious cross winds. My Cessna is bouncing all over the place, my map falls into the footwell of the passanger seat and the passanger seat belt flops all over the place, almost clocking me in the head. I dropped 300 feet with the snap of a finger from a downdraft and clutched the yoke like it was a life raft.

Climbing again, I made it out of the wind and out from beneath the clouds to super brilliant sunshine, shaking like a leaf, knuckles white as milk, while trying to keep my voice calm enough to advise Miami that I altered the flight plan - there was no way in hell I was heading to Naples in that weather.

As I look back on it, it was a great experience. Surviving that was the biggest thrill I had flying.