Originally Posted by
blind pew
In the 70s the daily telegraph sponsored uk gliding..there was a character who was a member of airways gliding club, an organisation which was under the umbrella of the two corporations, who achieved a world record for gain of height. The telegraph carried the article which included his description of the flight and so called facial burns from the oxygen mask. He told the story of climbing in a thunderstorm then soaring in wave several thousand feet above its top in wave. I had flown up to Glasgow and back in a Trident that day and whilst there were thunderstorms they were nowhere as tall as he described.
Turned out it was a “tall” story as the barograph trace was examined by forensics and discovered he had used a divider to scratch the sooted aluminium graph. IIRC that sounded the death knolls for the sponsorship.
I remember that tall story. I seem to recall it was the second dubious height claim by the same character. After that second event, very careful analysis of the earlier claim showed that it could not have happened as traced, without time running backwards. It is believed that trace was produced in a pressure chamber. The height record claim was disallowed.