Weather at drone height is local. Wind tumbles over buildings and ridges, sun-heated ground sends up thermals, lakes make their own breeze, and inversions trap haze. Watch the air move, then click to drop your drone and read the turbulence where you'd fly.
Each card ties one test idea to something you can change above.
Wind speeds up between buildings and over rooftops, and tumbles into gusty, swirling eddies on the downwind (lee) side. Near the ground behind a building the wind can even blow backwards.
Drop your drone just downwind of the tall tower.
Air flows smoothly up the windward slope, then pours down the lee side into rotors and downdrafts. Strong wind over ridges makes mountain waves, sometimes marked by lens-shaped lenticular clouds.
Raise the ridge wind to 25 kt and look downwind.
Pavement, sand and plowed fields heat fast and send up rising air. Water and forests stay cooler and the air above them sinks. The result is bumpy air on sunny afternoons, worst over parking lots.
Slide the time from morning to 2 pm.
By day the land heats faster than the water, so a cool breeze blows onshore from the water. At night it reverses into a weaker land breeze.
In Thermals, compare 2 pm and 2 am.
Normally air cools with height. In an inversion it warms with height, so the air is very stable: smooth, but smoke and haze get trapped underneath and visibility drops. Morning radiation inversions usually burn off by late morning.
In Inversion, move the clock from 6 am to noon.
A sudden change in wind speed or direction over a short distance. Look for it at the top of an inversion, around buildings and ridges, and near thunderstorms. It can jolt a drone or rob it of lift.
Put your drone right at the top of the haze layer.
Practice questions written for this app.