Hello all you Simmers,

Way back in the mid-nineties I was flying the 727 from KSTL (Saint Louis) to KICT (Wichita).  The weather was typical summer thunderstorms with a strong line of storms pushed by a potent cold front.  The front was long, stretching from almost Canada down to Texas aligned from the northeast to southwest.  The line was moving fast, being pushed by the cold front.  The forecast was for the front to pass by Wichita before our arrival. 

Wichita was around a one-hour flight from Saint Louis, and I was able to carry enough fuel to give me a lot of options in case the weather did not clear for our arrival time.  We had really good radar on the 727 so we were able to pick our way around the cells as we went through the line and got to the west side of the cold front.  It was very bumpy and there was all kinds of lighting and tall build-ups, but using the radar we were ably to find safe passage through the area.  Once on the west side of the front, the skies were mostly clear with some light turbulence left over from the frontal passage. 

ATC advised us that the front was just passing the airport at KICT and that several planes were getting ready to make approaches.  We were still up at altitude so it would give us a chance to hear how the planes in front of us would make out.
 
We started our decent to get in line for the approach.  ATC advised us that there was windshear reported on the approach, but that planes were landing.  The plane just in front of us was a corporate jet that had very new GPS and inertial systems on board.  In our 727 we had none of the fancy avionics, just old school VOR’s and ILS from the 60’s.  We did have new “X” band radar which was state-of-the-art at that time.  We proceeded with the ILS to RW-14 since the surface wind was strong out of the southeast, we were advised that the plane in front of us reported a strong wind shear on the approach where the wind at altitude was out of the northwest at 30 to 40 knots and that around 500 feet the wind sheared to a headwind of around 25 to 30 knots.

Wow, that was a big deal and now knowing this from the proceeding plane we were well advised and that this would not be a surprise as we flew the ILS.  At around 1,500 feet on the approach, we were in very bumpy air with moderate to heavy rain and a strong tailwind.  This made the vertical speed high to stay on the glideslope since our ground speed was at least 30 knots higher than indicated airspeed.  As we approached 600 feet on the ILS we broke out of the clouds and rain and got hit with the plus windshear.  I reduced power to remain on the glideslope but now the visibility was good and the air much smoother.  Touchdown was normal and we all breath a sigh of relief as we turned off the runway and headed to the gate.

Today in modern planes with inertial systems and other fancy gadgets we would have had a lot more information to ferret out what was happening outside, but I was really glad to have gotten the heads-up from the plane in front of us on the approach.  Without the pilot report from the preceding aircraft, I probably would have gone around since we were in heavy turbulence and rain with a steep glideslope approaching our minimums.

Have fun flying!
Lou