Who needs a bump to dynamic soar????

[rparigoris]

Who needs a bump to dynamic soar????

http://www.bnl.gov/weather/

Ron Parigoris

[Daemon]

In the vein of that tower picture.. I have been considering a way to
maybe see what the wind is up to without attracting the local
fire department or park rangers.

http://www.backyardartillery.com/bubbles/

Puts out a continuous stream of small bubbles. Turn it on,
hold it up high above the front side lip, and see where the
bubbles go.

ian

[Ade]

We were up one of our DS sites at the weekend and the cloud base was a little low. You could really see what was going on.

That tower picture is quite impressive... what was causing it?

Ade

[rparigoris]

Hey Ade

Not quite sure what caused, but can perhaps add some food for thought.

The photo is shot on Long Island NY. The Island is bout 12 miles wide at this point. I am not sure wich direction the winds are.

I fly Balloons on the Island. Especial on the right day in the winter, you can get an inversion thet has it alot colder 50 feet up as compared to right on the surface.

In the afternoon, especial in the summer, you can get a Seabreeze happening. Sometimes it ooches from the south to the North sometimes it comes in like Blockbusters.

This site is a bit closer to the south shore than the North Shore. In the Early Morning, especial in the Winter when the air is colder than the water, you can get a Land Breeze, where on the North Shore the wind starts to come from the South and on the South Shore the wind starts to come from the North.

Since this is the time when you general fly balloons, you really need to be in tune.

Anyway put that in the head and see if you can come up with anything that may explain.

Hey, it could be photo munipulation or the source of the lower one is not at the Tower. It does look like the lower smoke is tighter at the tower though.

It does look like lower is slower and first up there is turbulance. My guess is that there is a severe inversion, where lower is slower. Now it also looks like wind is not exact 180 degrees opposed. General as speed increases in Northern Hemisphere you turn right (if in a Balloon, Coriolous effect), so when you go up, you turn right, at first perhaps 270 degrees, then if you notice on the 3rd high smoke even more right. Now you can add to this fool talk, Land or sea breeze, and local low altitude effect (like air right at surface channeling a bit between trees and there you have it.

Too many words that describe probably not which is happening.

Ron Parigoris

BTW what you have here is classic conditions that can send a balloon into something inhospitable. Real good idea to always send up a piBall (Small helium Balloon) right before Take off if you are anywhere near something you do not want to hit.

Contrary to what you may think, Archimedes (Boyancy) is not the only thing that affects a balloon. Berneuli (aerodynamic lift) plays an important part. If you tried launching in these conditions, air over the top of the balloon would be greater at the top than at the bottom. Hence when you were ready to fly, a part would be Berneuli. Now once you launch, you will begin to accelerate to Mach Zero, which means you lose Berneuli. In addition, your balloon will get squeezed a bit and you will lose a bit of hot air, and not only that but till you get accelerated to the speed of the upper wind there will be air rushing around the balloon and cooling it. Hence you can not maintain altitude and will begin to either descend or perhaps get stuck on going sideways. These in majority are the cases when you see a launch and a balloon goes quite far and flies into something quite far away from launch.