Exploring in three dimensions rather than being limited to making observations from the ground was a revelation to me.

The clouds in the tropics around the Gulf of Mexico are huge, and being in the sky with them really brought home the vast scale of the forces at work.

We were able to travel over, under and through these monsters, revealing that clouds are about as far from the popular image of light and fluffy floating puffs of cotton wool as you can get!

They are dense and heavy and full of destructive energy.

I remember looking down at the cloud layer from a plane as a child, and daydreaming about exploring this new world of unknown places, so I was very excited the first time we flew straight through a cloud.

I leaned out of the airship as far as I dared into the heart of a cloud and found that it was a dark, damp mass of floating fog (of course!) – no mysterious worlds – my childhood fantasies were crushed!

However, as a meteorologist I loved the dramatic weather of southern Texas.

The airship was grounded but the team stood on the airfield watching as powerful squalls passed through.

The weather maps showed some of the storm cells begin to circulate, a warning of potential tornadoes.

I was desperate to see a tornado but for the sake of the expedition (and the airship) we were lucky none came too close.

The stormy weather was great for cloud spotting and an opportunity to use some of the wonderful words used in meteorology: cumulonimbus capillatus, altostratus mammatus, crepuscular rays…

I was looking forward to seeing some awesome lenticular clouds as we flew through the Rocky Mountains – these are smooth rounded clouds that often take on the shape of flying saucers, or stacks of dinner plates.

They are caused by high winds flowing over obstacles such as mountain ranges and after days of looking out for them, we saw the most amazing display in New Mexico.

But it was on the one day we weren’t filming!

Getting over the Rocky Mountains turned out to be one of the most challenging parts of the whole journey.

It was difficult for the airship to gain sufficient altitude to clear the mountains without venting expensive quantities of valuable helium, so we had to shed weight instead.

First we took most of the seats and equipment out of the airship, then the sound man had to get off, followed by the director until eventually it was just me, the cameraman and the pilots!

Luckily we just made it over the top, with a few hundred feet to spare.

Felicity Aston is one of the presenters of Operation Cloud Lab: Secrets Of The Skies

Operation Cloud Lab: Secrets Of The Skies is on Wednesday, 16 July at 8pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programmes times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Watch Jem's pedalling power test

In some ways it's great but you don't half feel the responsibility.

Often the first chance we get to properly test a completed item is the day the cameras arrive. And I know that all the effort that we've put into it will mean very little if I don't somehow get it to perform on the day.

Designing and making a plane that works on pedal power took the most amount of resources we'd ever put into a job.

Before dawn on the day of our attempted flight even the boss of the programme was at Lasham airfield along with the camera crew.

There was also a crowd of pilots, photographers and eminent aero engineers who very much liked the look of the machine we'd constructed.

But Lasham is a working airfield and I knew that we only had a two hour window to try getting our plane airborne before the real planes started to come in and we had to stop.

If nothing happened in that time all we'd have really managed was to build a very odd looking bicycle.

Almost everything else we'd ever built for Bang Goes The Theory were things that I'd been thinking about for months or sometimes years until I felt they were ready.

In all that time however, an image of a one man aircraft that had to be pedalled into the sky had never once crossed my mind - until this series when Alex our producer planted it in there very firmly.

Also whilst filming at the new Olympic velodrome in Stratford for episode six there were a bunch of interviews with British Olympians being played out on the big screen behind us.

Over half of them said that the superpower they would most like to have was to be able to fly.

The thing is by then I knew that they all actually had enough muscle power to do it they just needed someone to build the correct exoskeleton - and that's what we were on to. (In some ways it's a plane but in many ways it really is just the exoskeleton a human being needs to put on in order to give them the power of flight.)

Back at the airfield with me in the cockpit, the first attempts didn't look good at all.

Jem and the Bang team start the experiment at dawn

Although the early morning was almost as still as you could hope for, there was a breath of wind and we couldn't risk that flipping the lightweight plane.

So I had to pedal into the wind, which meant across the width - rather than down the length - of the runway.

With only a few metres of tarmac to gather speed we had no idea if I'd be quick enough to take off.

Pedalling uphill to avoid that side wind I couldn't seem to get any decent roll control. You have to turn towards the upward wing so the other wing effectively speeds up, gets more lift and evens things out - great in theory. Grrr.

The aeroplane turned uncontrollably, ploughing its precious and delicate wing into the ground.

I bailed out to try to minimise the impact on the airframe but luckily we discovered that if handled thoughtfully the craft seemed more robust than we'd ever hoped.

Now massively feeling the pressure we headed for an old part of the runway.

With a little headwind and flatter ground I got a small hop. I could tell because the sound of the wheels on tarmac suddenly went briefly silent.

At this point though some of the amassed eminent figures in aviation were questioning my piloting - was that really the reason it was almost bound to the ground?

We decided to put a pretty fit and phenomenally experienced pilot in the hot seat.

He too only managed a very small hop but crucially he was able to give me definite advice on using our homemade control system.

Success! Jem manages a few seconds in the air. Image copyright: Arthur Willmer

I took on board everything he said and cycled into a sensation that I simply didn't know existed. It's literally like being plucked from the ground.

Flying in a pedal-powered aeroplane feels like you've just dragged something out of the world of cartoons and into the fringes of reality.

It wasn't a huge flight - seconds long and 30 yards at best - but we'd definitely made an aircraft.

An aircraft powered by a fairly ordinary human.

In the history of the world it's highly likely that man is by far the heaviest creature ever to fly using muscle power alone. I now hope it happens far more often and gets easier with every attempt.

Jem Stansfield is a presenter of Bang Goes The Theory.

You can watch the human-powered plane take flight in episode seven of Bang Goes The Theory on Monday, 30 April at 7.30pm on BBC One and BBC One HD in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. Viewers in Wales can watch on the same day at 8pm on BBC Two. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Tomasz demonstrates how to make a rain gauge

I think our national obsession comes from the weather being so changeable and our seasons seeming to be so unpredictable.

I'm struggling to think of a country in Europe which can have a gloriously hot April but a cool and miserable June. Let's face it, our seasons seem to have gone bananas.

One of the reasons why I studied meteorology is because I wanted to understand why the atmosphere does go bananas.

Sometimes it's hard to imagine that a storm quite literally pops out of thin air.

Giving a weather forecast on the news is one thing, but explaining the physics of why things "pop out of thin air" to a live audience will be a new challenge for me.

I always believed that, in this day and age, entertainment value is almost as important as the science itself.

So, in the show, we will attempt a range of fun and bizarre experiments, some of which can be recreated at home using household items.

It's an interactive show so we're counting on you, the audience, to get involved.

We will attempt to create a snapshot of the weather across the whole country as you show us what the weather is like in your location, live on air.

We will, of course, be at the mercy of the traditional British summer, which is exactly the point of having the show live - the crazier the weather the better.

Alexander Armstrong will be hosting the show, along with Carol Kirkwood and Chris Hollins.

Other familiar faces, such as Michael Fish, Bill Giles and John Kettley, will also make guest appearances.

Tomasz Schafernaker

The impact of the weather in British history will also be discussed.

D-Day was an incredibly complex wartime operation that needed a specific combination of weather factors in order to be successful.

In fact, weather information was so vital in those days it was actually classified information, as whether or not to invade would be based almost entirely on the weather forecast.

We will also try to explain how it can rain frogs and fish, while Chris Hollins goes fishing for sharks and Carol Kirkwood attempts to see the inside of a cloud.

The first episode is live from St Ives, which is on the edge of the Gulf Stream.

It's the most southern tip of the nation and one of the first places to get blown to bits and drenched with rain, as weather systems march in off the Atlantic.

We'll also be broadcasting from the Lake District, Scotland and London. Whatever the weather, we'll be there!

Tomasz Schafernaker is the meteorological reporter for The Great British Weather.

The Great British Weather is on BBC One at 7.30pm on Wednesday, 13 July.

If you use Twitter, you can follow the show @BBCbritweather or use the hashtag #bbcgbw.

The Great British Weather team want your weather pictures - you can send them to greatbritishweather@bbc.co.uk. Please visit the show's site for terms and conditions.

Find out more about the science behind popular weather myths from Tomasz at the BBC News Magazine.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.