William Rankin, a pilot in the United States Marine Corps, is The Man Who Rode Thunder when he ejected from his F8 Crusader on top of a cumulonimbus thunderstorm cloud. He had a very bad day that summer of 1959 by any pilot’s standard as not only did his engine fail but his parachute deployed in the middle of the thunder storm. Surviving an ejection from 47,000 feet into a thunderstorm is truly amazing.
