White Puffies

[Krishan 0]

Have any of you read the "Puffy" aritcle on the home page. If not, you definitely should. Who ever wrote it painted one hell of a picture and made is sound like soooo much fun. I would definitely like to try that someday only, isnt that illegal according to the FAA. Also seems like there would/could be some serious turbulence in rising cumulus clouds like the one's she described. Still sounds amazing though, especially with a few people flying in a line.
Anyway, what do y'all think?
Blues

[propblast 0]

Krishan,
This story was orig. put on this board by Freeflyfreaky on 4/9/01 there were some replies to it there. Check it out you might find some of your answers there. I dont remember.
-e
Propblast

[FreeFlyFreaky 0]

Hey Krishan,
Thanks for the comments and yeah, it was way fun....I'm a he not a she however...LOL
You know I don't think anything we did was illegal per FAA regs, but I'm not sure about that. We weren't flying through the clouds but skirting the edges. I've spoken to lots of folks who have also done 'cloud dives". Since our pilot's butt was on the line (of course he didn't know I was going to have an article published about it) I'm guessing everything was kosher. Anybody out there know the rules here?
As far as turbulence, there really wasn't any near the clouds. On days like this there is usually a zone at around 1000' where it gets bumpy. I've had a couple of ball tightening drops, thankfully at altitude...it's that last 30 feet that has me worried. I'm in Florida, jumping next to Lake Okeechobee.
Whit Baker

[Krishan 0]

Well I know we are supposed to stay 1 mile away from clouds above 10,000 msl, and 2 miles away below 5000 msl (I think).
I was under the impression that you went inside them. Even then, that sound soooo cool. I am definitely going to try that sometime soon.
Thanks for the reply. Oh and sorry for the he/she think. DOH!!!

[cdunham 0]

Nice writing!
So I had a cloud experience at Lake Okeechobee. Not nearly as cool, but somewhat unusual. This was a Clewiston, as I recall. All around the area there are sugar plantations, and at that time of year they had harvested (farm people, excuse my use of the "lingo") the sugar cane, and were burning the leftovers (chaff?). During a solo jump I noticed a tiny little isolated cloud below me, so I aimed for it, of course.
Darned thing actually smelled sweet!

[miked10270 0]

Whoops... Sorry.... When I saw the title "White Puffies" I assumed it was another post about Texans (hi Jessica...).
ANyway, since it's about clouds.... Yeah, I've jumped through cloud once or twice & it's best described as indescribable, wonderful, & wierd! It's just a shame that if done deliberately it's illegal.
Perhaps "deliberate" cloud jumps should be made (administratively) possible in the smae way as night jumps. Personally I'd love to jump (with GPS) in a zero visibility environment once!
Mike D10270.

[mountainman 0]

Quote

Perhaps "deliberate" cloud jumps should be made (administratively) possible in the smae way as night jumps.

That is a pretty sweet idea! They have night jumps down to where you can jump pretty safely at night. I would think you would just need the ceiling, air traffic and good load seperation to do it. Maybe you should get ahold of some USPA/FAA people and get the ball rolling!NEW AND IMPROVED!!!
http://home.woh.rr.com/brandonandlaura/

[huffermoose 0]

I remember jumping through cloud (not intentionnaly) while i was doing my consuls, it was in march and the cloud was full of ice, it felt like my face was getting sand blasted with all the crystals in the air. all the rest of them did not have a problem the just sit flew and took it in the arse (no pun intended)
amber liquid blue skies
Allan