"I deliberated for a long time whether to publish this account of poor judgment and foolish mistakes. When I read it now, on the ground, three months later, the faulty reasoning is easy to see. But I assure you, that the decisions and events on May 23rd were made to the best of my ability and skills. My hope is that someone will benefit from my errors. It is a fine line between being around to tell a story and not being around.
     This account was originally sent to RAF for their comments. Burt passed it on to Andy Plumper of Lightning Technologies who is reputed to be the foremost lightning expert. Mr. Plumer's comments follows my tale......
     I departed New Orleans Lakefront Airport IFR to El Paso at approximately 9:30 a.m. local on Sunday, May 23rd. had received a thorough weather briefing from Flight Service only 20 minutes earlier and they indicated that westbound I shouldn't have much problems; rain showers and multiple cloud layers with tops at 14,000' to 16,000' MSL with a thin cirrus layer at 25,000'. Live Radar @ FSS painted a line of thunderstorms about 20 miles south but it probably wouldn't arrive at Lakefront for at least an hour. I was cleared to 16,000' and had gone through multiple layers of cloud and picked up some light clear ice after a climb through 12,000'. requested from ATC to hold at 14,(100' for a while since I was between layers and the next ceiling didn't look as thin as advertised. The OAT at 14,000' was +1' C. flew through some heavy rain and more ice accumulated on the plane, especially the canard, elevators and vortilons. The wing did not appear to have much ice on it and I could not see any on the winglets or the intersection between the wing and winglets. Indicated airspeed at 2400 RPM was 122 KIAS. The ice on the canard covered about 20-25% of the chord with some "streamers" that went back to perhaps the 50% chord line. Ice formed below the trailing edge of the elevator about 1/8" thick with a uniform span-wise distribution. The ice on the canard was definitely clear ice but what was below the trailing edge of the elevator looked more like mixed or rime ice.  The elevator position was about 5/16"-3/8" T.E. down. The airplane was very controllable with good elevator responsiveness. I could have easily climbed if I had wanted to so I was not overly concerned.
     ATC was giving me radar vectors to stay clear of any CB's but indicated that contrary to my preflight weather briefing, the "weather west of New Orleans is really wicked with the big boys having trouble going through!" Center advised that the only way they felt would be O.K. would be to deviate approximately 60 nm due North - obviously I followed their recommendation. After a few minutes I was again in cloud and it became increasingly difficult to hear radio transmissions - static was all that came through the headset.
     I started receiving small electrical shocks from the roll trim lever through my jeans and shocks from the microphone to my lips. I became aware of the transparent blue glow that was on the nose and canard. I say blue but somehow it seemed blue with a pink tinge.  The color was similar to the bright blue from a gas welders flame. This halo was about one chord width above the canard and seemed to "move" - it is very difficult to describe in words. I was now getting shocked through the speed brake handle and from the rudder pedals to my ankles (my feet were in the relaxed position forward of the pedals). The B&D tachometer was bouncing erratically from 500 RPM to full scale and both Nav CDI displays were swinging from stop to stop. The electric engine instruments were also useless - I didn't notice what the wet compass was doing. Here I was: IFR conditions, icing, no communication or navigation, thunderstorms and weird light. So far the ride was smooth with no rain or hail in the cloud - the cloud was not a dark, heavy one. The blue (pink) glow increased in intensity and its movement was more rapid. I am not sure but I believe that the blue glow was now inside the cockpit between my face and the instrument panel, but I could still easily read the gages; it was right out of the Twilight Zone.
     I saw a bright flash way ahead of me that seemed to go from left to right that really lit up the cloud I was in; I assumed that it was cloud to cloud lightning and that I was definitely in deep grease! The com was still all static and calls to center were unanswered (or perhaps unheard). I was so scared that I was sure that this would be the way it would all end and Kay (my wife) would be really pissed! I smelled a thick sweet odor, got one good shock from the microphone and then there was a tremendous flash of light and an incredibly loud "crack" - I felt it in my bones and chest as opposed to hearing it.
     I had been looking out at the right wing trying to figure out why the blue halo was not on the wings, only the canard, when the flash occurred. I was temporarily blinded so I removed my hand from the stick hoping I wouldn't enter a spiral dive. When I could see again (10-15 seconds), to my amazement 1) I was still alive and 2) the plane was still level at 14,000" on my last assigned heading of 060'. The blue halo was gone and I heard a transmission on the com for a Delta jet. I called center to see if my radio was blown and they immediately answered my call!  Apparently they had been trying to reach me to give me a new vector and immediately turned me to 330'. The airplane was again between layers and the visibility was good, I could even see patches of ground below. Everything appeared to be working O.K. but the plane still had a lot of ice on it and I didn't think I was in any mental state to fly an approach. The airspeed now read less than 50 knots so 1 knew that the pitot tube had iced over. The weather seemed to be improving rapidly with a broken layer above and below with some beautiful blue sky far in the distance. Since the plane would easily climb with full power and the remaining aft stick I saw no reason to descend and kill myself making a lousy IFR approach after all of this! I then saw several dark patches on the wing and winglet leading edges that upon later inspection were areas where only the glass skin remained. In about 20 minutes all of the ice melted and the elevator position returned to 1/16" T.E. up and the airspeed increased to 140 KIAS at the same power setting of 2400 RPM. The flight continued normally in IFR conditions and I landed at El Paso International four hours later.
     So what is there to learn from this unwanted experience? Probably several things. First, that the invincibility the I felt in 8888EZ contributed to my cavalier attitude in flying in bad weather - this certainly was not "California IFR' that I was used to. After nearly 1100 hours of flying in a plastic cocoon, I had developed a false sense of immortality - after all, the EZ had gotten me through some tough situations before. Also, I learned to never, ever trust ATC and/or FSS - the pilot must make his own decisions and evaluations on when to commence or terminate a flight.
     Another significant revelation is that although the Long-EZ is a great plane and can leap tall buildings with a single bound, it is not suited for hard IFR flights with embedded thunderstorms. I consider myself extremely lucky to have survived this flight - my skill and judgment (or more correctly lack of both) hopefully will serve me better in the future."

Dick Kreidel.      (Mr. Plumer's response follows)

Yours truly,

J.A. Plumer, President
Lightning Technologies, Inc.