"It was a dark and stormy night."

Well, it was night and overcast clouds made it dark. There was some rain around and widely scattered thunderstorms, but it was a good night for flying. Our airplane was equipped with weather radar and a strike finder taking the unknown out of the situation. If you don't remember the days before the miracle of satellite weather, a strike finder detected lightning and could do that all around the aircraft, unlike radar which could only see ahead.

My colleague and I had been to a meeting at an airport in western Minnesota. Our business had been successfully concluded, and it was time to head home...