Anyone ever jumped into a thunderstorm ?

[BMFin 0]

Isnt it awsome to see a lightning flash really close to you ?

[ScottishJohn 25]

Read a story once on the web about a USAF pilot who ejected during a thunder storm.
Not a plesent thing to do He was quite high and the convection in the cloud kept taking him upwards into the cloud.
I think he landed in a forrest and was prety beat up.
I cant remember the address but someone else must have read it as well.
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I can smell your noodles !
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[weid14 0]

ummmm, maybe, but the winds, updrafts, hail and temperatures involved you dont' want to be involved with...

[BMFin 0]

Well.. I have done it and I must say I dont regret at all. It was fun.
Ofcourse it was not a hurricane or anything but , there was real lightnings close to us. And the air in the Freefall was so warm !!

[Ernie 0]

I read that too, I think in a Reader's Digest, many, nay years ago in my wuffo days. He lived to tell about. Up and down, many times with hail stones and lightning. Not something any one should do. Don't forget that once you are under canopy beneath the storm, you have the downdrafts and gustfronts to worry about

[faitor 0]

Was it the air that was warm or the piss soaking into you jump gear?

[nacmacfeegle 0]

I've flown over them on long hauls, spectacular.
On the turbulence fronts, it sounds scary......Much rather be on the ground watching it, flying my stunt kite ...
Cya
D
GR# 37
Remember how lucky you are to see and touch the sky; the blind may only dream.

[Scoby 0]

I haven't jumped in a thunderstorm (I've only seen lightning a handful of times since I moved from Miami). However, I've been in lightning storms in planes a few times.
One time, our plane was struck shortly after takeoff from MIA while the pilot was giving his speech. "Uh, we'll be climbing to altitude of 35,000 and cruise at a speed of..." *BOOOM!* ...utter silence for a minute or so, followed by the pilot in a shaky voice explaining that the good folks at Boeing engineered the plane to handle that sort of situation. It was odd, because the pilot really seemed rattled.
Another time, while landing at JFK in a raging storm, our plane acquired some weird glow on the wings. I assume it was electrical in nature. Quite beautiful, really.

[nacmacfeegle 0]

"our plane acquired some weird glow on the wings"
Sounds like a phenomenon known as St Elmo's fire I think
Cya
D
GR# 37
Remember how lucky you are to see and touch the sky; the blind may only dream.

[rgoper 0]

one time. a hop-n-pop from 4k.........never again. i can only remember wanting back inside the otter AFTER i had jumped out. i wasn't impressed with myself at all afterwards.
Richard
"Gravity Is My Friend"

[kallend 1,679]

Saw a tandem get sucked up into a CB at Hastings, MI, last year. Took them about 5 minutes to emerge again. Scary.

[jceman 1]

Quote

Isnt it awsome to see a lightning flash really close to you ?

I have a friend who did that shortly after getting off student status. She jumped and the storm moved in and blew her into power lines near Deland.
She had to be revived and has nasty scarage on her back from the burns.
It may be awesome, but t'ain't worth it, my friends!

[ChrisDykstra 0]

i personally think that you would have to be pretty stupid and pretty irresponsibe to do so. we all know that thunderstorms are dangerous whether you are on the ground or in the air. i wouldn't want to be under canopy or in freefall simply because the danger factor multiplies itself dramatically.
aren't we all supposed to be responsible skydivers with responsible attitudes???
i think that if you are prepared to jump in poor conditions such as storms then you are putting your life in danger...
at least this is my personal view anyway!

[billvon 2,475]

Twice that I can remember.
Once at Quincy - I took a 4-way of low timers up when the sky was pretty clear; in freefall I saw lightning in the distance, and we fell through two cloud layers that weren't there when we took off. We stopped jumping after that. The next day, at around the same time, the clouds started piling up and the wind got odd. I was going to call it, but the group I was with was going to jump anyway, which worried me. Finally Bryan called it, which made me feel a lot better. The gust front hit 5 minutes later.
In Montana, we jumped in a hole in the clouds for a demo. The sun kept coming and going behind cloud layers, and in the distance was this huge thunderstorm (maybe 10 miles) that was headed away from us. Lots of lightning, but gorgeous.
-bill von

[AndyMan 7]

once, at quincy last year.
In the loading area, I saw the storm approaching. I was concerned that we'd run out of time before the storm approached, but everyone I asked mocked me.... I didn't have the confidence to step off the load. I should've.
I actually didn't jump through cloud, the cloud flew over us after I'd opened.... strangely. The lighting was frightingingly close, but worse were the winds at landing. I had been dragged about 20 feet before people helped me, thankfully I'd made the main landing area and people were around to help.
We got my main under control, somebody drove a car out, and I jumped into the backseat... the winds were estimated about 40. Strangely, they picked up right after my feet touched down, so I wasn't backing up.
_Am
ICQ: 5578907
MSN Messenger: andrewdmetcalfe at hotmail dot com
AIM: andrewdmetcalfe
Yahoo IM: ametcalf_1999

[jtval 0]

I never jumped IN a t-storm. but I jumped while they were all around.
they were surrounding us but it was like we were in the EYE OF THE STORM. (no hurricane)
the wind was dead calm it was a sunset jump AND the storms were at bay ALL DAY! they didint interfere with our jumps but OMG it was beautiful.
it was in palatka,fla. during the "fire season" all day we were watching the smoke from the fire in all directions. then the storms were on our minds. but for the sunset jump it was FKN BEAUTIFUL!!
10-way ring, open high. and the red-edged clouds highlighted by the lightning that was starting to get frequent by that time. the smoke from the ground from all around us...but we were totally clear and calm. it was strange. I still remember how awesome it looked
btw it was my first ten way too! it was just a great day all around.
Have fun, Live free, SKYDIVE!!
http://community.webshots.com/user/jtval100

[beau31duke 0]

I was there last year at Quincy when the storm hit. I was over watching people swoop the pond when the storm was approaching. We were going to jump out of a balloon, but because the storm was coming, the afternoon loads were canceld. I hadn't seen the Extreme Team yet and I wanted to watch them. We saw some pretty spectacular swoops.
Mullins boys had been getting on what seemed like every other load when we went over to watch and as the storm came the winds did almost a complete 180. When Jeff came in, he set up the same and did a downwind, he came out of the pond and bleed off most of his speed, but as soon as he took his first step, he slid it out on his belly.
His brother Joel did the same thing and he wasn't wearing a T-shirt. He slid up between two golf carts. J.C. Colclasure was next and I think he realized it to late and he did a cross wind landing and slid it out on his chest. Lugi Cani came in last into the wind and came straight down. People helped him get his canopy under control and he was jumping something pretty small.
There was a lady in a bird man suit that was turned into the wind, she was going backwards so fast it looked like she had her canopy hooked up backwards. There were several tandems that clouds were coming in under them. They would disapear and you could see lightning in the clouds below them. Thankfully they all landed safely.
When we got back to our hotel, the weather channel said the winds were at 25mph with gust up to 40mph. I don't know how fast Jeff and Joel Mullins are going when the come in to land, but downwind with winds this fast, I was glad it was someone that was as good as they were. If it had been someone else, they could have been hurt pretty bad. Joel and Jeff were up walking as soon as they stopped.
Beau Lambert

[E150 0]

I would never jump in a thunder storm.
I have heard some bad stories.
Weather can be very dangerous.
Hail clouds can make you bleed.
The winds up there can do some pretty strange things.

[des 2]

true story.
1986,practice demo for brisbane commonwealth games.
i think 4 people exit at around 3000'.peter nobbs and rick collins both get caught in storm,peter manages to spiral down,rick gets lifted to 14 or 15000',still going up,so cuts away,opens reserve under cloud around 1000',lands somewhere in city.incredibly main is found and returned,(not sure of free bag, but could have been a diaper in 1986).
don't know all details ,(i started jumping 1989),but knew peter nobbs real well,(now deceased),and he swore this was what happened.
another time got a call from the pilots wife, t/storm approaching with high winds.so we called it for a while,then it hit! shit winds must've been 50 or 60 knots,our wind meter was off the gauge.answered the phone, it was a brisbane local asking if we'd lost a skydiver,she saw someone heading toward the cityat a huge speed,under a parachute.
turns out a dz 15 mls away had dropped a s/l student (1st jump),apparently an instructor was chasing him down the hignway at 80 mph,and falling behind! he landed ok and did his second jump a few mths later.
t/storms in qld,australia are particularly vicious,and approach at high speed,always preceeded by very high winds. scary shit.
take care,
des

[nws01 0]

Quote

When we got back to our hotel, the weather channel said the winds were at 25mph with gust up to 40mph.

I did a down winder in these conditions before. It was the stupidist thing I have ever done in my life. I swooped the whole landing area and plf'd it. Walking back to the hanger all of the whuffos thought it was the coolest thing they had ever seen. All the instructors and experienced jumpers knew what I did was stupid but they were happy I was ok. Looking back on it it was fun but I wouldn't ever do it again!Blue Skies,
Nathan

[GrumpySmurf 0]

Here's part of an article I pulled from ipilot.com
..AND IT'S HAPPENED TWICE
In the summer of 1975, over Woodbine Maryland, Mike Mount and two other skydivers jumped from 4500 feet near some threatening
clouds. Though the two others made it back to earth as planned, Mount didn’t. He had a few unplanned elevator rides up and down when
the seemingly-innocent cloud that he intentionally descended into to get to his drop zone turned out to be one of those convective elevators.
His first clues were much colder air, not seeing the ground long after he expected to, followed by a revealing glance at his altimeter.
Though over 25 years ago, Mike clearly recalls the event, the sense of helplessness, the vertigo -- and the wild ride. Though a smaller
storm, he too was swung violently around, his chute collapsing and reopening with violent shocks dozens of times in the inky innards of
the cumulonimbus.
THE FURY
The most significant hazards to flight that can occur in a thunderstorm are severe to extreme turbulence, hail, icing, and lightning. Don't
think that a thunderstorm won't snap your airplane in two, it will. Sudden divergent winds can easily dismember a small airplane.
Even the storm chasing research planes don't fly into their angry hearts.
The strength of a thunderstorm is related to the strength of the updrafts, which are generally most severe 10 to 15
thousand feet above the ground and can exceed 100 mph. This is enough to lift grapefruit sized hail, much like a ping pong ball
suspended over a hair dryer.
The strongest downdrafts are generally below 10,000 feet. Hail, occurring most often at the mature stage of a thunderstorm,
can pummel and mutilate an airframe in seconds -- especially when the hail is three-fourths of an inch or more across.
Severe to extreme icing shows up in the-mid level of the thunderstorm where the temperatures are between 0 and -20
degrees C.
Finally, lightning can be a deadly hazard to aircraft (as well as those on the ground). Lightning discharges occur most
frequently at the 32-degree Fahrenheit and 15-degree Fahrenheit levels in the thunderstorm. Incidentally, flash rates approaching
once per second have been correlated with over 90-mph updrafts.
The fickle finger of fate gave these two men an up close and personal look at the inside of a thunderstorm, and Col. Rankin even wrote a
book about it, called The Man Who Rode the Thunder -- which, unfortunately, is no longer in print.
Editor's Note: These men were *very* lucky. A very few daring, though misguided, hang glider pilots have been sucked into developing
thunderclouds only to reappear hundreds of miles away, burnt and frozen solid, with the wreckage of their craft.

[prepheckt 0]

After reading this thread, I now have a healthy respect for thundersorms....
Blue ones

[AggieDave 6]

I've jumped with a thunderstorm about 5-7 miles west of the airport, that was blowing in. We didn't make altitude for fear of it coming on top of us, but I did see lightening in the distance as I was in freefall. That was beautiful, wouldn't want to be closer then I was, though, scary winds and the thought of getting hit by lightening in the air is freaky. No, your cypress would probably NOT survive and you would have to enjoy the last freefall of your life (maybe).
We got down and back to the hanger just before the rain hit, so it was pretty cool, actually. Aerials
So up high
When you free your lives (the) eternal prize

[effinjump 0]

over a florida DZ i once fell close to a rain cloud and was able to 'dip' into the wall of rain and get wet, then back out into the dry air again. it was raining everywhere under the cloud, which is where i was when i deployed.

[Lindsey 0]

Rain is not my favorite thing to feel in freefall, but that's still a pretty cool story.....
Ya' know Smack-water Jack he bought a shotgun
'cause he was in the mood for a little con-fron-ta-tion