"good grief" wrote in message
...
"climbing" would be some sort of altitude violation (or at the very least a
violation of the laws of physics.) ;-)
Of course I could be wrong......

You are wrong (well, sort of). My gliding instructor was also an avid
skydiver. He took great delight in guiding his jump plane upwind of the
best thermals before he jumped so he could fly into them and circle within
them . He was able to greatly prolong his parachute "flights" and on
occasion, actually climb back up to cloudbase; just like he taught me to do
in the sailplane.

Vaughn