What is a cloud?

Any time that you cannot maintain standard VFR minimums : http://www.faasafety.gov/files/gslac/courses/content/25/185/VFR Weather Minimums.pdf

you are required to follow IFR rules. Case closed


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Well, it's definitely daytime, and we don't know the class of airspace. It's over mountains, so don't assume Class E is 1200 AGL. There are a lot of places where it is higher.

Given that the video is now "private" we can make some guesses. But they aren't more than that.
 
Maybe I'm supposed to know this but I don't and always wondered.

Can I go VFR barreling through that small whitish puffy little thing hanging out by its lonesome on a cavu day? You know one of those that you're only going to be "in" for a second or two? Or Do I have to play dodgeball while descending through a 50' thick scattered layer?

If you can see through it, it's not a cloud. Personally I like playing dodge ball and slaloming through a layer.
 
If you can see through it, it's not a cloud. Personally I like playing dodge ball and slaloming through a layer.

It makes me nervous when I hear "if you can see through it, it is not a cloud". From personal experience, different people have different ideas of what "seeing through a cloud" is. I once had a safety pilot who happily had us blasting through a broken layer. I saw a glimpse of the clouds at the edge of my hood, whipped it off and asked WTF we were doing? His answer? "I could see through them so they are not clouds". To me? It was a broken layer of CLOUDS. Define looking through a cloud? What level of transparency is allowed?

I play with clouds but legally. Besides the block altitude you can also ask for left and right deviations if you're right at a layer of cumulus clouds. That is huge fun. Just ask "request left and right deviations for weather". (When flying IFR of course).
 
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It makes me nervous when I hear "if you can see through it, it is not a cloud". From personal experience, different people have different ideas of what "seeing through a cloud" is. I once had a safety pilot who happily had us blasting through a broken layer. I saw a glimpse of the clouds at the edge of my hood, whipped it off and asked WTF we were doing? His answer? "I could see through them so they are not clouds". To me? It was a broken layer of CLOUDS. Define looking through a cloud? What level of transparency is allowed?

I play with clouds but legally. Besides the block altitude you can also ask for left and right deviations if you're right at a layer of cumulus clouds. That is huge fun. Just ask "request left and right deviations for weather". (When flying IFR of course).

A level of definition in detail that would allow you to see traffic on the other side, I thought that would be simple enough to figure out since the reason for the prohibition is the inability to 'see and avoid'.:dunno:
 
The Cloud by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
 
[Gameshow Host Voice]

Ladies and Gentleman, it is time for a game of:

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[Applause]

Alright, take a look at the following 7 images of "clouds" and answer the questions:

1. Is it a cloud?
2. Would you fly through it?

Feel free to note if airspace would affect your answer one way or another.

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All contestants will receive a free cached image of the logo as well as the clouds in the image above.
 
1-4 yes, except 1 because I don't fly anything that gets that high. Now if someone wants to sponsor a recip rocket engine I might be able to get through it and set a recip engine altitude record.:D the rest I would not fly through. In reality though I wouldn't fly through any of them, since I hand fly all the time, it's no factor to avoid the little ones, the broken layer I'll go through a clear hole, and any solid or near solid layer I'll just call for a pop up.
 
This was the most dense layer I have gone through. This is more broken than scattered but there were massive clearings that I could see while on top.

1621794_10203361808752875_1404953629_n.jpg
 
The girl video went private! HAHAHAHAHAHA
 
A little snooping in the google cache shows it was entitled "I went flying & played in the clouds" by Faris Jaclyn. Only aviation video apparently in her collection of animal videos.
 
IIRC someone over on the red board got busted as a result of similar videos...

If you are going to flaunt the rules, don't post it to youtube.

Flaunting the rules is perfectly OK. Many people do it here on the forum, and no one has ever been busted for it.
 
I'd drop or climb through that (in the clear) any time.

Through the holes where the plane is over right now yes. The rest of it? Those are clouds pure and simple and no way you can tell me you can see traffic below that for sure. All I can say is that there are VFR pilots thinking it is okay to go through that then the big sky concept is what is saving you. Enjoy.
 
I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions i recall.
I really don't know clouds at all.


- Joni Mitchell
 
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