Even if you are not a thrill-seeker and do not skydive, during a flight on an airplane you have surely wondered what it would be like – to reach out and touch the clouds.
And what about flying all the way through those clouds, the way skydivers do, exposed to the elements?
As experts say, the sensations can vary depending on the type of cloud, your protective gear, and the weather conditions.
Since skydivers jump from an altitude of give or take 4,000 meters, they are most likely to encounter stratus and cumulus clouds. The former are the «fluffy» ones you see on an overcast day. The latter are flat and soft. Both types consist mainly of water molecules.
Ryan Kutchmar, a skydiving instructor from Utah with more than 10,000 jumps to his name, first of all stressed that people should not deliberately skydive through clouds. After all, if you cannot see where you are heading, you will not be able to track potential dangers, including other skydivers or airplanes. But sometimes it happens anyway. «We try to dodge the clouds, sometimes we miss and end up going right through one, – said Kutchmar.
And here is how poetically he described it. «It’s like nothing else. It’s as if you enter a white room, and then pop out the bottom. But if the clouds are dark, thick, or dense, it will be like hitting a speed bump, and you’ll get soaked to the bone».
Also, while flying through a cloud, you can get quite cold. According to the accounts of those who have had this experience, ice even forms on the gear.
The most extreme cases of skydiving in bad weather involve thunderstorms. Inside a thundercloud, warm air can rise at a speed of more than 160 km/h. At high altitudes these particles feel the force of gravity and descend in the form of rain or hail.
But the most dangerous thing is that most of the lightning that occurs during thunderstorms strikes inside the clouds or between them.
It is known that only two people have survived a journey through a thundercloud carrying lightning. In 1959 U.S. Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Rankin ejected from his fighter jet in foul weather and spent 40 minutes spinning inside a thundercloud, suffering frostbite and nearly drowning before he was «spat out» and landed in a tree.
Decades later, in 2007, German paraglider Ewa Wiśnierska accidentally got caught in a thunderstorm while preparing for the paragliding world championship. She lost consciousness due to a lack of oxygen and, several hours later, landed 60 km from her intended destination.
By the way, if you want to experience something similar to flying through a cloud, try stepping out of the house into very dense fog. «Fog is a stratus cloud, only on the ground. This cool, dense air gives you an idea of what skydivers face as they fall through clouds toward the Earth», instructors say.
