Originally Posted by island_airphoto
Question for heavy metal pilots from a light metal pilot:
Many posts seem to be something like "a thunderstorm should not be able to take down a modern jet".
I knew that would come up, which is why I previously posted the case where an SR-71 failed to out-climb a thunderstorm and was destroyed, plus the case in Japan of an A-4 caught in clear air turbulence that was nearly destroyed. A thunderstorm can best any production aircraft ever made. I think the airframe of Chuck Yeager's X-1 was stressed to 25 g, I guess it could survive most things but it's not a production aircraft.