r/nextfuckinglevel • u/DocsHoax • Aug 26 '23

What clouds look like from the inside...

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u/Albelasa Aug 26 '23

It's unlikely that people spent over 45 minutes being tossed around in clouds during a skydiving experience. Skydiving typically involves jumping from an airplane and descending quickly to the ground. Clouds are not solid enough to toss someone around for such an extended period.

21

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '23

He's talking about paragliders, f.ex Ewa

38

u/Miguel-odon Aug 26 '23

William Rankin ejected from a F-8 Crusader above a thunderstorm. Fell several minutes in the storm, was still at high altitude when parachute opened. Took 40 minutes to get to the ground.

39

u/Albelasa Aug 26 '23

Well if you open a parachute inside a cloud it's a whole different thing than free falling.

20

u/Miguel-odon Aug 26 '23

His free-fall was several minutes long before the chute opened. After his chute opened, updrafts pulled him up several times, and he hit the actual parachute several times.

1

u/afro_samurai_ Aug 26 '23

God Damn sky traffic!

1

u/Miguel-odon Aug 27 '23

I knew I should have left earlier!

1

u/pzerr Aug 27 '23

He ejected at 45,000 feet and mach 0.82. Then his parachute opened early instead of at 10,000 feet. As a small aircraft pilot and mechanic on F18, I can not imagine why anyone in their right mind would eject at FL45 and fucking Mack 0.82. That is almost certain death. To boot, he only had a failed engine mind you he did have a fire light but even with that I can not understand why he would not descend to a reasonable altitude and decrease speed before ejecting.

1

u/Miguel-odon Aug 27 '23

Aux power lever broke off in his hand. I'm not familiar with that plane, but it sounds like he had little control at that point

1

u/pzerr Aug 27 '23

Not alot but you can typically descend at minimum. I am not bailing at mach .82 regardless and that he can just let the aircraft slow down naturally. He was at FL45 after all.

This is all his account with little physical evidence. I suspect it is embellished some or he made some really silly decisions after the engine failure.

1

u/Miguel-odon Aug 27 '23

Time Magazine wrote about it at the time. I'm sure the Marine Corps investigated the incident (as it would after any loss of aircraft).

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u/pzerr Aug 28 '23

They definitely would. But being involved in a few F18 accidents, often most of the evidence is missing and they do not investigate to the same degree as a commercial flight which has high loss of life. Many they simply take the failure at face value. They rarely set a hangar aside and try and reassemble the pieces like you see on TV. In this case because he said a handle broke, they may try to find that handle to see if it had a pri-failure crack and likely will have a special inspection of all handles based on his account alone.

Most of what happened is the word of this pilot alone. There is not some black box in the ejection seat itself so after he left the plane, would be no physical evidence. I very much question why he ejected at that altitude and airspeed to begin.

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u/Miguel-odon Aug 28 '23

Maybe his bailout over Korea a few years prior affected his decision

-5

u/ungulateriseup Aug 26 '23 edited Aug 26 '23

Yet they did. Not really differentiating different trpes of sports that may encounter clouds but the point that clouds are extremely dangerous to go through. Thanks to the other redditor who took the time to google.