"Glider only" ratings, you mean? Usually, "pure" means no motor in the
glider.

yea sorry about that, you know what i meant.

seem to think that any encounter with
clouds must result in an immediate loss of control. Properly
instrumented and most importantly, properly trained,

Kind of begs the question, doesn't? "You won't have problems if you do
everything right".

Yep.

it really is no
problem.

Turbulence, icing, lightning, hypoxia, other gliders and airplanes - no
problem?

Well this is where cloud flying has gotten its bad rap. Turbulence is
a given, its going to be there in almost any type of soaring you do.
Icing is avoidable, Lightning is avoidable. Im not talking about
using a Tstorm to get diamond altitude a la Piggot. Ive got a
stronger self preservation gene than that. Hypoxia is avoidable.
There is a way to be smart about this type of operation.
Unfortunately it seems that the ones who perhaps havent been quite so
much have spoiled it for the rest of us.

Twins, Airliners, and even many single engine planes that
are not certified for spins fly in IMC every day with no problems.

How much thermalling near stall do they do ;) ? And isn't flight into
IMC where lots of those single engine planes have the most problems?

haha very clever. This goes back to being smart about the operation.
typical flying speeds in cloud are higher, in fact much higher than
normal thermalling speeds. for one thing the lift is so much stronger
that the low speed really isnt necessary. second, and most
importantly it gives you a good cushion on stalling. And the power
traffic regularly slows to within 1.3 times the stall speed on
approach. Id say that most of the problems "those single engine
planes" encounter during IMC are pilot problems, not airplane.

I'm looking forward to Shawn's presentation at the convention. I've read
many of the stories from the older Sailplane and Gliding magazines about
cloud flight back before GPS, and it sounded like a quite an adventure.
I particularly enjoyed the ones that had sentences like this: "As I
exited the cloud at 14,000', I looked down to see nothing but water...".

Usually meant the English Channel. Not a happy place in a 30:1 glider
with iced up wings.

Can't wait to meet you there.

Tony
2000 miles from any water that a ice cube couldnt glide across