Hi Dave
Photo has been widely circulated since the unfortunate events of 14
Feb. Apart from the 11 or so paragliders who obviously have not
recognised the danger they are in, the interesting thing is the
little wisps of cloud forming to the right of the picture (and no
doubt very quickly spiralling up into the main cloud mass.)
However, they are neither flying towards the cloud not flying above
it - probably circling under a patch just ahead of the photographer
and some a little higher than he was. The original site was a
Norwegian team site, and the full sequence of 13 photos starts on the
launch and ends with the pilot having landed and with rain not far away.
A bit similar to the scenario in Germany at the 1929/30 meet where 5
gliders were sucked into cloud and only 1 pilot survived. That led
to the development of speed-limiting airbrakes and a respect for CB
clouds that mostly survives to this day. However in a craft that
cannot so easily escape the cloud-suck there is discussion in hang
gliding and paragliding circles as to how close to such a cloud you
can safely go. Simple answer is that sometimes these clouds grow
faster than you can fly away - so keep an eye on their development
and land if they start to develop. Problem is that if you are
underneath them at that time you can't see what is going on.
That is mainly the reason why there have been no tasks set on 4 of
the 6 days since the World Paragliding Championships began at Manilla
last Sunday - and there has been a lot of rain there to prove the old
adage that if you want o break a drought you should organise a
gliding / hang gliding / ballooning contest - the more significant
the greater the drought-breaking qualities.
Wombat
At 18:14 2/03/2007, you wrote:
Hi Michael,
Attached is a photo of the cloud that the visiting paraglider pilots were
sucked up into recently. Note the number of paragliders heading towards the
cloud, and the number of paragliders that are above the cloud.
Photos of clouds never look as bad as they are in real life, so this one
must have been really scary!!
Regards,
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Texler,
Michael
Sent: Friday, 2 March 2007 5:00 PM
To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.
Subject: [Aus-soaring] Lightning and flying.
There was a special about lightning on the ABC last night, did anyone watch
it?
Much of it waffled on, but there was some spectacular footage taken from
insight a research fighter jet that flew inside a Cumulonimbus (Cb) for the
sole intention of being struck by lightning (to research its effect upon
aircraft). Plus footage of a jumbo jet being struck by lightning shortly
after takeoff.
I know that there has been the oft quoted lightning strike to an ASK21 in
England resulting in an aircraft breakup inflight (with both occupants
parachuting to safety, thus opening up the "do we or do we not wear
parachutes" on training flights debate).
http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~cline/ASK%20lightning%20strike/ASK%20accident%
20report.htm
Embedded Cb are particularly troublesome, i.e. whereby there is an overcast
with the storm cells embedded within the cloud layer. The only indication
that an active storm is present is when you start seeing the lightning
coming out of a smooth cloud-base along with precipitation.
I recall one day when flying in a friendly comp from AUGC Lochiel airfield
in a wooden aircraft, an ES59 Arrow (28th Feb 1999). It was a hot day with
rough scratchy thermals, but then the day took off. Towering Cu's formed
around the task area after we had all left on task. I was heading to Crystal
Brook (about 60km from home) when the day became overdeveloped, cloudbase
was 9,000' and the lift had been working well. Then there were reports of
hail falling near Brinkworth, hence the task was abandoned and we all went
running for home. I was at Crystal Brook at 8,000' and then followed under a
wide, dark, flat bottomed cloud street back home, actually gaining height in
straight line flight, it got to the point that I had to deploy full airbrake
and fly at max rough air to prevent going up. I could see microbursts
hitting the ground east of track north of Snowtown. Dennis Medlow was in
front of me in Boomerang QZ and can vouch for the conditions. Soon after,
there were two lig!
htning bolts either side of my intended path, hence I immediately altered
course 90 degrees to the right heading towards the blue sky west of the
cloud.
Once in the blue and looking back at the cloud was an impressive line of
Cb's embedded in a mid-level overcast stretching from the Adelaide plains to
the Southern Flinders Ranges.
I managed to cover 120km in less than 2hours, with an average speed of
80km/h in the ES59 Arrow.
A memorable be somewhat unnerving flight.
I am sure that many subscribers on this list have their own lightning/Cb
related story.
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