In his early days in the business, aviation expert John Nance used to make “Tornado Alley runs,” as he and other pilots with Braniff Airlines called them. They involved multiple takeoffs and landings in places like Kansas City and Wichita on the way to Minneapolis and back, traversing a Midwest corridor in which weather conditions could become treacherous on short notice.
“There were times that you’d get these massive fronts moving laterally, west to east across the U.S., and we would be having to pick our way through them,” Nance, now an author, speaker, and ABC News aviation analyst, told me. “I’ve been in situations where I had to divert as far west as Denver to get around them coming (back) to Dallas.”
