On Tuesday, September 1, 2020 at 2:19:22 PM UTC-4, ProfJ wrote:
Typing this with my fireproof suit on...last weekend I tried to duck between two rainy cumulus clouds on my glide back to home base. As I went through the gap it became filled with virga and I was sucked rapidly upwards, probably would have been about 10m/s if I had not had the nose well down. This was not tranquil, but not terrifying either (I was about 3000 ft below cloudbase) and added some useful height and speed.

So here's the question: would you (do you?) deliberately head into virga if you needed the boost, or is this a truly dumb thing to do? Same for rain clouds (assuming you are in updraft not downdraft zone), how close would you get?

Not looking for legal technicalities here, this was good VFR at all times - just trying to calibrate risk.

I flew with one of the local icons in Moriarty, NM a few years ago and he showed me the same effect. I did it since then a few times by myself with good success. Smooth, strong lift in light rain. Sounds almost counter-intuitive but it works. Not sure why, though.
However, I would have to caution against doing it, if there is already lightning activity visible.

Uli
'AS'