Above the clouds…
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Some of us have the privilege to spot clouds from above such as frequent travellers or pilots. So please post pictures and stories from above the clouds! Have you been eye to eye with some cirrus clouds in the setting sun? Perhaps you have seen a glory around the shadow of an aeroplane in which you are a passenger? A towering cumulus from above?
We´ll start with a thin and vanishing layer of valley stratus just touching the belly of the helicopter. The picture is taken an early summer morning in the Patjelanta national park in northern Sweden.
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That’s a great idea for a topic, Bastian. The window of a plane is a fantastic place for cloudspotting. We’d love to see what people post.
Here are some of the above-the-clouds photographs from the gallery for inspiration:
“Above The Clouds”-
Wonderful stuff in your gallery, GP-P. Another way to search it is to track a particular person e.g. here at random Captain Richard Ghorbal:
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Hi,
An excellent idea indeed…!I took this shot of La Palma when en route to Tenerife last year. The maximum altitude of La Palma is ~2400 metres, so this gives an idea of height scale.
Below are the rafts of stratocumulus that form at the temperature inversion and above is a solid lump of altocumulus.
cheers,
Bill. -
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One of my favourite UK cloud gliding pics from 2009:
See Gliding 2015 Pictures for my latest pics.
-Mike
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Oh, I knew I had one more!
Here’s a flight away from Atlanta later that week. You can see some really neat stratus undulatus clouds all lined up nice and neat.
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A cell phone on airplane mode and the LapseIt App (http://www.lapseit.com/)
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This last week I’ve been busy processing a zillion pics from a gliding expedition last week to the Pyrenees. At its best I was soaring high on mountain wave, passing and climbing above lenticular clouds on my way up to a best height of 19,500 feet. The trip was cloudspotter eye candy with lots of lenticulars of all shapes, rotor clouds, as well as the more humble stratus, cumulus, cirrus, etc. Even the Ryanair flight in and out of there was fun with snow showers over the pyrenees on the way in, and a sky full of lenticulars on the way out before we ascended into cirrostratus and lost sight of it all.
Now if only my (so far dismal) UK gliding season could finally get going then that would be great!
A few pics were added to the Lasham Expeditions blog at http://lashamexpeditions.blogspot.co.uk/ – one of my favourite shots was posted on Week 4 Day 4 (from Thursday 26th March 2015) as we descended from 19,500 feet, still above some exsquisite sculpted lenticular wave bars.
This is the pic, probably in the region of 15,000 feet above sea level, Pyrenees peaks (snow caps hiding behind the lenticular wave bar) and France beyond to the right, Spain (Aragon) and Santa Cilia / Jaca to the left:
I have already removed the blue colour cast from the glider canopy tint since this was posted so on my own site it will look better.-Mike
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Skyfaring (book)
The link below looks very odd but seems to work. It is meant not to recommend the book, but for the marketing pictures above the clouds.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=skyfaring&biw=1067&bih=631&tbm=isch&imgil=wqhRCVRYvjF4yM%253A%253BrjCmlA_oKJUu2M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.skyfaring.com%25252Fotherwriting%25252Fnyt%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=wqhRCVRYvjF4yM%253A%252CrjCmlA_oKJUu2M%252C_&usg=__P3LeOb7pm275deBloQ7pkFWwaiM%3D&dpr=1.05&ved=0CGAQyjc&ei=wvwiVbKzMaTU7AajpYCIAQ#imgrc=wqhRCVRYvjF4yM%253A%3BrjCmlA_oKJUu2M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fstatic1.squarespace.com%252Fstatic%252F540486f6e4b0bc1fe0ff044b%252Ft%252F54b1573fe4b0c4db65f87809%252F1420908360365%252FSkyfaring%252B2.jpg%253Fformat%253D1500w%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.skyfaring.com%252Fotherwriting%252Fnyt%252F%3B1500%3B1125The author seems good at publicity. An extract in The Independent is strong on beacon-spotting. An interview with GQ mag includes much Sky Music e.g. ‘”Nuvole Bianche” (White Clouds) by Ludovico Einaudi.’ and says ‘Music has the curious alchemy of salt; it improves a thing not by changing it, but by making it more itself.’
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That book Skyfaring is BBC Radio’s Book of the Week if you fancy listening to a few extracts:
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A little self indulgence from a couple of flights between London and Tokyo:
Frost/condensation in an airplane window at sunrise
Chemtr… I mean contrail, obviously [sarcasm, BTW]
I liked this one, with a blue-white sky above white stratus. It’s restful enough to be my wallpaper.
The sea below the clouds below
Tons of hardware above the clouds
The sea below the clouds below turns golden. This was the coast of Japan. I’m not sure over which part precisely, but generally this was part of the sea-area that rose up in tsunami form 4 years ago.
The mountains of Japan -
It’s nice to have an indulgence on a long flight, Poth, and you avoided the problems Atoptics mentioned.
Here’s another well grounded above the clouds picture
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For some reason my posts weren’t appearing. Maybe the forum doesn’t like images in links? (was trying to make the pics clickable linking to the pic on my CAS album.)
A few new pics from my Spanish Gliding expedition:
Soaring above the Spanish Pyrenees on 25th March 2015. Clouds from the French side flowing over the peaks and down the Spanish valleys.
Wave soaring above the Spanish Pyrenees on 26th March 2015. This wave bar took us all the way to the airspace ceiling at 19,500 feet.
Clouds over the Yesa Reservoir in Northern Spain on 27th March 2015. Seen while climbing in wave over Santa Cilia.I have a Facebook album up at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152736154607797.1073741848.648887796&type=1&l=7cf6bf0797 and eventually far more pics will go on my website. :)
-Mike
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Thanks H. :)
The full set of images are now uploaded onto my own website at http://www.flybywire.org.uk/pictures/Jaca2015.html – The Facebook album is a subset of this album (294 pictures in total). More lennies, sunset shots and other goodies from the ground and in the air.
Cheers!
-Mike
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Fly-by-Wire RE: The 3rd. photo above -I’ve several times seen since the Icelandic volcanic eruption thin dark greystreaks of cloud at between 5 & 9 thousand feet which to my (meteorologists) eye- a) should NOT be grey as they’re not in shadow from the sun, b) are two thin for their base-length and therefore indicate ‘heavier’ condensation particles and c) don’t behave in accordance with the sort of stratiform cloud I’d expect at that low/mid level. CONCLUSION – these are based on nuclei of volcanic dust, giving them their distinctive colour and shape. Good job you didn’t have an engine to get clogged up!!! Glad to see you are still getting airborne & having fun with clouds. I am planning to re-live my youth by enjoying a flight in a small ‘plane this year to celebrate a ‘significant’ birthday with a nought at the end. Do my CAS pals know anyone in Ireland with a taildragger? GWW/Granny Weatherwitch in Tipperary,Ireland
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Huh? That sky looks in the pic and was indeed crystal clear and very clean. (A week in such clean fresh air was very tiring!) No volcanic eruptions within 5000 miles upwind as far as I know. That was a very long range shot of Yesa too as it was many miles away. Looks perfectly clean to me! Even the cleanest air has some dust particles (or else clouds would not form) and over such long distances they are bound to have a scattering effect on the light.
Clouds do not have to be white and fluffy to be clean. They will appear grey if viewed at the right angle even if they are in sunlight. Especially thin lenticulars (thin simply because it is a thin layer of moisture at that location). The building clouds look whiter because they are thicker and have more angle to them. I’ve seen these effects many times from oblique angles in both dirty and super clean air.
-Mike
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This afternoon over Hampshire after climbing 2000 feet up the inside of a large cloud (6kt thermal in there): https://youtu.be/epz8SRwLqX4
“After having fun in a Lasham Gliding Society Discus near a shower cloud in the Newbury area I took a cloud climb 4km East of the town of Kingsclere. Cloudbase was about FL45 (4500 feet). I topped out at the airspace ceiling of FL65 (6500 feet) after climbing at about 6kts most of the way. Then after a long period inside a large cloud I emerged somewhere closer to Basingstoke, where I couldn’t resist a new video clip. Alas I forgot to turn off macro mode on my camera. Despite that, apart from one section of malfocussed video (which I edited out) it didn’t come out too badly. Phew! Easily my best cloud eye candy of the year so far in the UK. The town visible in the clip is Basingstoke, as I am headed back towards Lasham. I was still close to the 4-4500 foot cloudbase when I approach Lasham well after the video ends.”
I also got some lovely shots on the way of the ‘skirt of clouds around the shower, seen from above, before I went climbing up into the adjacent cloud.
Still floating gently back to earth…
-Mike
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Here are some pictures from the 5th July flight around the shower cloud and from above cloudbase:
I was at 4500 feet at the main cloudbase in a glider just South of Greenham Common. I was under a towering cumulus with a shower under it. The moisture from it was causing low clouds to form below me on the edge of the rain:
Shower at Greenham Common / Newbury
Shower at Greenham Common / NewburyI took a 2000 foot cloud climb just East of Kingsclere, Hampshire to FL65 (6500 feet). As I was flying Southwards to find my way out of the cloud I flew through a small gap between towering cumulus. It was like being in a giant crevice! :
Flying through a small gap between two towering cumulus clouds.I was gliding back to Lasham Airfield after popping out of the side of the towering cumulus clouds. As I passed Basingstoke I was still well above the 4500 foot cloudbase (I was well below the local airspace ceiling of 5500 feet):
Above Cloudbase near BasingstokeA full set of pictures will eventually appear on my gliding page at http://www.flybywire.org.uk/pictures/gliding2015.html.
Cheers!
-Mike
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A few in this BBC gallery on Fog are above the cloud.
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Reposted from the Odds and Ends thread. Would have done it on Dec 31st but the website went down?
I took an aerotow above the clouds yesterday. Here’s a 29 second timelapse of the launch. That was great fun! Playing around with a GoPro Hero 4 Silver I got for my birthday. What a fantastic little camera!
-Mike
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This is how I get those nice cloud shots at close quarters:
Pic in the CAS albums: https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/members/FlyByWire/my-clouds/picture/317/
-Mike
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Two new home made gliding / cloud videos have been put online.
On 29th December 2015 I took two winch launches above the clouds while experimenting with a brand new GoPro Hero 4 Silver. I combined clips to make it look like one flight, while highlighting the best parts of the flights. Cloudbase started off at 1100 feet above the ground while I was able to launch (on runway 23) to 1700-1800 feet. This gave me the chance to buzz the clouds from above. It also gave an unusual landing perspective too.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0c4rzpdxtk
Then I took an aerotow launch. I decided to record the launch as a 2 frames per second timelapse. The results were better than I could have imagined. Cloudbase was about 1200-1500 feet above the ground. I towed all the way to 4000 feet above the ground (4600 feet QNH). The second half of the tow above the larger cumulus clouds was spectacular! Upwind of me showers were building so my timing was excellent. I recorded video during the flight itself too. On the way down, after some spectacular flying amongst the clouds, I even managed to find some rare December thermals under the incoming shower clouds that extended my flight by 10 minutes. I did land with slightly wet wings from the shower but that was no problem. One of my best ever winter flights to end a month of almost constant gloomy extensive low cloud.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAbkjaLM03A
My first goes at edited videos. The 2nd one with a nice dreamy soundtrack.
-Mike
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A few pics from 24th February 2016:
More at http://www.flybywire.org.uk/pictures/gliding2016.html
-Mike
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Haven´t been here for a while…
FlyByWire, your glider pictures use to be fantastic, but your latest two posts are outstanding!! What a unique selfie!! And your panorama- and cockpit pictures…
@Grant Butler – amazing picture! What a privilege to be able to see this at work! Working on an ambulance-/EMS-helicopter I sometimes feel ashamed to get paid for this ;-)Here some new pictures from the swedish mountains.
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Spotted this video on YouTube of GoPro footage from an airline passenger as his plane flies through turbulenty towering cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OaYhByvjEI
-Mike
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