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William Rankin. Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Rankin (October 16, 1920 – July 6, 2009) was the first person to survive a fall from the top of a cumulonimbus thunderstorm cloud. [1] He was a pilot in the United States Marine Corps and a World War II and Korean War veteran. He was flying an F-8 Crusader jet fighter over a cumulonimbus cloud ...
Jul 17, 2023 · After being forced to eject from his F-8 Crusader, Lt. Col. William Rankin soon found himself amid a thunderstorm — 40,000 feet above ground. Lt. Col. William Henry Rankin was falling. Or, at least, he was trying to fall. A U.S. Marine pilot, Rankin was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. Yet it was on July 26, 1959, that he ...
Jul 26, 2020 · In May of 1957, Lt. Col. William Rankin became commander of the first F-8U Crusader squadron in the Marines, Marine Fighter Squadron 122 (VMF-122). It was the first time the U.S. Marines had their ...
Feb 12, 2015 · The thunder riding incident happened on 26 July 1959. Rankin and wingman Herbert Nolan were flying a pair of F-8 Crusaders from the Naval Air Station at South Weymouth, Massachusetts to the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina. To keep above some nasty looking storm clouds that peaked somewhere around 45,000 feet (13,716 m ...
Jul 18, 2023 · Lt. Col. William Henry Rankin was falling. Or, at least, he was trying to fall. A U.S. Marine pilot, Rankin was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War.
Oct 2, 2023 · William Rankin: The Man Who Fell Through a Thundercloud. Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Rankin gently pulled back the stick of his F-8 Crusader to put the single-engine supersonic fighter jet on a steady climb. His goal was to go over the ominous looking cumulonimbus thunderstorm cloud that was forming just ahead of him.
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Jun 17, 2016 · 4 minute read. When Marine Lt. Col. William Henry Rankin ejected at 40,000 feet after his F-8 Crusader malfunctioned, things didn’t seem like they could get much worse. Then he fell through a ...
