Still sick as a dog, but at least now I'm coherent. I did some research on wind shear and potential damage caused by mid-air lightning strikes. The Blue Ridge WILL Want to climb out of its cloud cover sooner, rather than later. (As a side note; the Macon, previously mentioned in this thread, was severely damaged by wind shear, which eventually led to its destruction in a costal storm; Macon was [IRL] half the size of the Blue Ridge, but most anyone with knowledge of how a Zepp works knows that going through a storm is most decidedly not good for the ship)