You think thunderstorms are scary?

Try ejecting from your fighter jet into one. Yikes.

(h/t +Yonatan Zunger)

Originally shared by +Ralf Haring:

"As the parachute opened, he felt the familiar tug upwards. Except instead of a slow descent, he experienced a rapid ascent. The powerful updraft filled his parachute like a sail and rocketed him vertically thousands of feet at a velocity of nearly 100 mph. During his ascent, he could see hail stones forming around him. The lightning was described by him as “blue blades several feet thick” and incredibly close. The thunder was so loud, he could feel it resonating in his chest cavity and remembered this more so than how loud it was. At one point, the lightning lit up his parachute leading him to believe he had died. The rain would pelt him from all directions, and at times was so intense, he had to hold his breath for fear of drowning. But this was only half the agony — the other half being the downdrafts."

"Once the updraft exhausted itself, the associated downdraft would ensue. It was during this phase of his journey that he truly thought he would die. His parachute would collapse around him, much like a wet blanket, and plunge him into a rapid free fall towards earth. The odds of his parachute re-inflating correctly were slim, but not only did it do so once, it did numerous times through a multitude of updraft and downdraft cycles."

"What seemed like an eternity later, Colonel Rankin noticed the violent updraft and downdraft cycles were becoming less intense and the rain was consistently falling from above instead of pelting him from every direction. He was also starting to regain sensation in his frozen limbs, indicating the temperature was starting to warm. A few moments later, he descended from beneath the thunderstorm and found himself above the flat uninhabited expanse of North Carolina. However, the thunderstorm wasn’t quite finished and with one last dying breath, a gust of wind blew Colonel Rankin into a tree and thicket of bushes were his parachute became ensnared. Upon looking at his watch, approximately 40 minutes had passed since he first ejected from his F-8 Crusader."

Lt. Col William Rankin – Ejects Into a Thunderstorm
The year was 1959. Lt Colonel William Rankin, an experienced and veteran pilot of both World War II and Korea, was flying his F-8 Crusader on a routine flight from South Weymouth Naval Air Station, Massachusetts to Beaufort, North Carolina with his wing-man Lt. Herbert Nolan.

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