In article
,
"vaughn" wrote:

"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.

And there is of course an entire sport dedicated to this called
paragliding. I believe their parachutes are somewhat different, but that
just means it's harder to thermal a skydiving parachute, not impossible.


Climbing *before* you open the chute, on the other hand, is going to
require some pretty "interesting" conditions....

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon