Well the good flying of winter cold looks like it is once again behind us till fall.

Been dodging thunderstorms the last couple of days.

Anyone have a good glider for sale?

The nice cold weather performance of winter is past, but the sublime summer mornings are here. There's nothing like heading out for an early morning flight that doesn't require wearing gloves and struggling with jackets and getting the cabin heat just right. And my other favorite...flying open cockpit ultralights in shorts and flipflops.

Speaking of thunderstorms and thermals... you ever here of a term called "cloudsuck"? It's just as pertinent to small aircraft, but in the paragliding world it's especially dangerous because the wings are non-rigid and so lightweight that the ability of the glider to descend is overcome by the rapid lift of a gnarly rising cumulus.

Yeah...I was flying a Skyhawk one time when I got into the biggest one I ever encountered. A massive thermal right beneath a giant CN as it was in the building stage.

Nose pointed down and the VSI was still pegged. Felt like a fast elevator ride straight up. Was still making forward progress so eventually flew outside of the updraft. Little scary though. Later that evening the same anvil head dumped some very large hail over the area.

Way back when wasn't there a parachutist that got caught in one of these and remained in the air for like over an hour? When they found him he was frozen rock solid.

I think the record for the longest parachute ride was from a fighter pilot whose aircraft was torn apart in a thunderstorm, or is that just a legend?

The gent in question was a Marine, as I recall, flying a single engine jet fighter, though I can't recall the type. He ejected over top of or at least very near to top of a rapidly developing T-storm.

He descended after his parachute opened automatically some 40 plus minutes after his ejection, which was witnessed by his wingman, so there' no doubt about the timing. Search parties were in the area looking for wreckage when he came floating out of a cloud, unconcious.

He was beaten to heck, but survived, with no major injuries. Ran into a little hail, but his helmet and flight gear protected him from much of the really bad damage that could have happened.

He wrote (or co-authored) a book, called "The Man Who Rode The Thunder". I've forgotten his name, but I'm sure Amazon could find it.

MTV

Lt.Colonel William Rankin, USMC. Flying an F-8. Hydraulic system failure.

MTV

A sucking cloud saved our bacon when we were being pushed into the ground shortly after takeoff from Wells, NV last summer. Severely sinking air was threatening us in a big way until I saw the very well defined dust devil about a half mile off the end of the runway. We cored it and climbed up with the VSI pegged - was even able to turn into the correct side and take advantage of the rotation. The guys at the firebase got out of their lawn chairs to watch.

Keep your eyes open, sometimes this sort of weather can be your friend when you need it the most.