The gale-force winds that slammed into me when my windshield shattered instantly ripped off my headset, tore at the skin on my face and strained my ability to focus on anything beyond the immediate sensations assaulting me. One moment I was leveling off my Lancair Evolution at 25,000 feet. The next, I was in the middle of a maelstrom, the power of which few humans have ever experienced.
The noise alone was enough to rival a locomotive. And the cold. The temperature of the air at that height was around minus-15 degrees, and it was raging around my head, given my 310-knot airspeed. Fortunately, glass shards weren’t among the things flying around the cockpit. With a cabin pressure of 6.5 psi pushing against the Plexiglas, any pieces of that material blew outward.
