Link Request - Awesome Story

[Stephen Levine]

Sometime late last year or early this year, there was an awesome post here written by a fellow in CO who parachutted or paraglided into a developing thunderstorm. It included photos.

I have spent much time searching the archives for this story, and did find the one about the Australian incident, but not the Colorado one.

Does anyone know what happened to or where I might find this story?
It was absolutely haunting when I read it, and the images stayed with me for a night or two when going to bed.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Im not sure if this is the same story or not but I once read about the "Human Hailstone"

It happened in Germany as military pilots were doing routine excercises, one of them ejected and got pulled into a thunderstorm updraft and then fell back to earth frozen as a "human hailstone"

Truly a bizzare and crazy story indeed.

http://tierra.rediris.es/megacryometeors/forceofthewind.pdf

 

[Stephen Levine]

Thanks for the suggestion. Actually the report of the Human Hailstone incident from Germany is not the same story.

The Colorado fellow who I referred to wrote in a reply to the story about the Australian glider contest and the woman who was sucked up to 31K feet high and lived to talk about it.
He was sucked into or jumped into a developing TCU and described the gradation from light to darkness and his descent through types of prec.
Not long after he was able to get out of this cloud and reach the ground, it had graduated to a severe-warned thunderstorm. Very eerie.

 

[Dick McGowan]

I found this thread, although I'm not sure if that's what you are talking about?

Chris Collura would know, I'm sure.

Here's what he said :

In the book "The Man Who Rode The Wind", a true story of a pilot who ejected into a thunderstorm at 45,000 feet is described. He ejected from an F8 Crusader and descended into the developing storm until his parachute deployed at 10,000 feet. He became caught in the storm updraft and actually re-ascended under his chute to 26,000 feet. Thin air caused him to pass out and the cold caused intense frost bite during his ride up and down the inside of the storm. The water inside the cloud nearly made him drown in mid air!

He was constantly slammed around by the extreme turbulence and at one point his body appeared to be ABOVE his parachute. Finally, the storm weakened and he descended back to earth 30 minutes later. A person found him in a field, severely injured but alive. This storm was not even a severe storm, just a strong summer 30-45 minute long storm.