WIND and lenticulars

Jeanie

Jeanie

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Jeanie
Check this out: Wednesday...Partly cloudy with isolated showers. Windy. Highs around 60. Southwest winds 20 to 30 mph increasing to 30 to 35 mph with gusts to around 50 mph in the afternoon. Above 6000 feet...southwest winds 25 to 35 mph increasing to 40 to 50 mph with gusts near 70 mph in the afternoon. :yikes:

Wednesday Night...Partly cloudy. Windy. Lows 32 to 41. West winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts to around 50 mph decreasing to 15 to 20 mph after midnight.

~~~~~~~~~ won't be flying on Wednesday! :frown2:

So, with that wind maybe we'll see some lennies?
What makes lenticulars look like lenticulars? stable air above and below thats moving in a wave? ... I can read about it but I just don't grok it.
 
You getting any glider time with Burt in Marfa?
 
wby0nder said:
You getting any glider time with Burt in Marfa?
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I took some glider time w/ Burt but decided it's not for me. I like to point the plane where I want to go and just go.

I guess you met John Bird when you were out here? I have stood out at the airport with him looking at weather that was hazardous in my mind and he just grinned and said Oh it would be perfect for me in a glider!

Ya'll are crazy perhaps?
 
Jeanie said:
I took some glider time w/ Burt but decided it's not for me. I like to point the plane where I want to go and just go.

I guess you met John Bird when you were out here? I have stood out at the airport with him looking at weather that was hazardous in my mind and he just grinned and said Oh it would be perfect for me in a glider!

Ya'll are crazy perhaps?
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we're only a little crazy. i often point my glider where i want to go (usually in any direction AWAY from the airport). Burt emailed us yesterday and said there were lennies aloft with not too bad surface winds. one of the guys tried to thermal into the wave but it wasn't in the cards.
 
tonycondon said:
we're only a little crazy. i often point my glider where i want to go (usually in any direction AWAY from the airport). Burt emailed us yesterday and said there were lennies aloft with not too bad surface winds. one of the guys tried to thermal into the wave but it wasn't in the cards.
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There will be plenty of wave manana, methinks
 
Jeanie said:
I took some glider time w/ Burt but decided it's not for me. I like to point the plane where I want to go and just go.

I guess you met John Bird when you were out here? I have stood out at the airport with him looking at weather that was hazardous in my mind and he just grinned and said Oh it would be perfect for me in a glider!

Ya'll are crazy perhaps?
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Not crazy. Enthusiastic about the sky. Both soaring and motoring have their attractions. I enjoy both. Keep an open mind. You live in one of the best places on the planet for experiencing as aspect of aviation that many envy.
 
wby0nder said:
Not crazy. Enthusiastic about the sky. Both soaring and motoring have their attractions. I enjoy both. Keep an open mind. You live in one of the best places on the planet for experiencing as aspect of aviation that many envy.
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Oh, I know it's great out here for gliders/flying. Maybe one day I can take a ride w/ a glider pilot and actually leave the airport environment and see what it's really about. That would have probably been a better way to start than to take a couple of lessons -
 
Burt may want to have some front seat ballast for the DG-1000 once it comes back on line. I think it would be a real treat for both of you to do some XC flying in that beautiful ship...
 
vontresc said:
Burt may want to have some front seat ballast for the DG-1000 once it comes back on line. I think it would be a real treat for both of you to do some XC flying in that beautiful ship...
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I'll ask him about that - afterall I have my own parachute now :smile: and I make pretty good ballast :D
 
Jeanie said:
--- and go around and around the tomatoe farm :)
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Hey don't knock the tomato farm. I hit a 12kt boomer (on the averager!) over it. Unfortunately I didn't fill the O2 tank, and had to quit at 13,500', but man what a ride!
 
vontresc said:
Hey don't knock the tomato farm. I hit a 12kt boomer (on the averager!) over it. Unfortunately I didn't fill the O2 tank, and had to quit at 13,500', but man what a ride!
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Very cool --- when are you headed back this way?
 
To get back to your original question, I'll tell you how I conceptualize it and others can educate the both of us.

Think about the wave activity, we have a laminar updraft on the windward side that peaks a bit downwind of the mountain peak then a downdraft that hits the ground and bounces.

As the updraft cools the air to the dewpoint the moisture condenses and the cloud forms. As the air drops it warms and the droplets evaporate. So the lenny is constantly being replenished by the cooling updrafts.

Joe
 
Areeda said:
To get back to your original question, I'll tell you how I conceptualize it and others can educate the both of us.

Think about the wave activity, we have a laminar updraft on the windward side that peaks a bit downwind of the mountain peak then a downdraft that hits the ground and bounces.

As the updraft cools the air to the dewpoint the moisture condenses and the cloud forms. As the air drops it warms and the droplets evaporate. So the lenny is constantly being replenished by the cooling updrafts.

Joe
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~~~ Thanks, Joe, that makes sense to me- I just couldn't see it before- I was thinking of it as a cloud that wasn't moving as opposed to a cloud that was reforming and being replenished from the air mass.
 
Jeanie said:
Very cool --- when are you headed back this way?
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Hopefully I will be back in April. I really need to do some more flying, and I have a hankering for some Pizza Foundation as well :)
 
be sure to let me know when you're heading this way - and we can visit... who knows by then I may have a Super Decathlon and we can do some loops and rolls :)
 
Jeanie said:
Oh, I know it's great out here for gliders/flying. Maybe one day I can take a ride w/ a glider pilot and actually leave the airport environment and see what it's really about. That would have probably been a better way to start than to take a couple of lessons -
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My glider instructor was smart... on our second flight, on a day when the sky was really popping, he put me to work in earnest, and we were up for about 1.5 hrs. We could have gone somewhere else easily, but recovering the trainer would have messed up the day for others waiting to fly. It really made the potential clear to me, and got me hankering to get into the 1-seater (which I will probably do right after the check ride).

I don't compare soaring, really, to powered flight... to me, they are two aspects of the same thing. :D
 
rottydaddy said:
My glider instructor was smart... on our second flight, on a day when the sky was really popping, he put me to work in earnest, and we were up for about 1.5 hrs. We could have gone somewhere else easily, but recovering the trainer would have messed up the day for others waiting to fly. It really made the potential clear to me, and got me hankering to get into the 1-seater (which I will probably do right after the check ride).

I don't compare soaring, really, to powered flight... to me, they are two aspects of the same thing. :D
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That's the way to do it. My CFI-G did exactly the same thing. I think it was my second flight in the 2-33, and we stayed up for as long as his bad back could take it. We were hitting WI boomers of 4-5 kts :) and that's when I got this stupid ass grin on my face. It is seriously cool when you realze that you can climb without an engine.

That said I will NOT turn down that aero ride in the Decathlon. Should I bring my own chute, or did you get two????
 
on my first flight in the Blanik with matt we gained a measly 600 feet in a weak late october iowa thermal. now look at me. im turning into a clearinghouse for old wood gliders.

pete - you still have that stupid ass grin on your face, btw :)
 
Several of us glider bums will be at Marfa April 17-24. Hope to meet you!
 
Thanks, Scott, I was hoping .....

that you would find this and answer the question. I think I'm more able to understand it now.
We get some beautiful lenticulars out here and I'm always marveling at them.
 
vontresc said:
That's the way to do it. My CFI-G did exactly the same thing. I think it was my second flight in the 2-33, and we stayed up for as long as his bad back could take it. We were hitting WI boomers of 4-5 kts :) and that's when I got this stupid ass grin on my face. It is seriously cool when you realze that you can climb without an engine.

That said I will NOT turn down that aero ride in the Decathlon. Should I bring my own chute, or did you get two????
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~~~~~~~~~ well, I don't have the SD yet. But I might by April :yesnod: - but I won't have an extra parachute by then necessarily - so yeah, bring your own and we'll see what happens.
 
scottd said:
Joe,

Mountain waves don't necessarily have to make contact with the ground. In some cases, they do - producing very strong winds at the surface on the lee side of the ridge. In most cases, the descending air on the lee side of the ridge hits the unstable air below and finds itself in a positive buoyancy situation. It's the oscillation of the prevailing wind between the stable air aloft and unstable air below that produces the wave activity. Clouds can appear at the crest of these waves assuming there's enough moisture to do so. Some waves become trapped and others propagate vertically, sometimes well into the upper flight levels.
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Thanks Scott - I knew my understanding was incomplete.
 
Areeda said:
Thanks Scott - I knew my understanding was incomplete.
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If you've ever seen "cloud streets" running roughly perpendicular to the wind direction aloft you've seen the effects of this over a fairly small but well elevated altitude.
 
gismo said:
If you've ever seen "cloud streets" running roughly perpendicular to the wind direction aloft you've seen the effects of this over a fairly small but well elevated altitude.
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Here is my version of "cloud streets".
 

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Jeanie said:
~~~ Thanks, Joe, that makes sense to me- I just couldn't see it before- I was thinking of it as a cloud that wasn't moving as opposed to a cloud that was reforming and being replenished from the air mass.
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A cap cloud is a lenticular that's low enough to cap the mountain that formed the wave. (The dewpoint determines the level at which the cloud will form.) Here's a video of one showing the constant flux:

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/<object width=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPW1vpBgHEo

Danhttp://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/<object width=
 
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