February 16, 2017 at 8:22 am
From the book..
The Silken Angels by Martin Caidin
The book was published in America and Caidin was from California so it could be Martin B-57 BUT he explicitly says Canberra and I a thinking RAF Far East ?
Published 1964
Page 15
Not too long ago, two pilots in a powerful Canberra jet bomber entered a true giant of a thundercloud. They flew into the cloud at 14,000 feet, and, in their own words, “The world went stark, raving mad.” The storm ripped control of their machine from their hands. In seconds, it inundated the jet engines with torrents of water flamed them out. Hail smashed the nose and the leading edges of the wings and cracked their curving Plexiglas canopy into jagged shards. They were flung about madly—and when they could once again see, their fear was so great they could not speak..
That storm hurled their heavy bomber straight up for nearly ten miles! The giant cumulo-nimbus cloud spit them from its innards in a disdainful stroke of good fortune at more than 60,000 feet. The airplane came out of the storm upside down, without power, looking as though it had been mauled for an hour by a battering ram. The pressure cabin gaped open, and only the pressure suits that squeezed the bodies of the men kept them alive. Miraculously, they regained control at about 25,000 feet and managed to bring their airplane in deadstick —at an emergency field.
Thanks Paul