Dan Gravage <<email>> writes:

Quite a number of years ago my flying partner launched into an unforeseen dust devil. The resulting yaw and crash put him the the hospital with a broken pelvis. I thought of that incident when I came across this new instrument: http://www.catchthewindinc.com/products/vindicator.

A quote from the web page "Using concepts of Doppler radar, with light as the medium of detection, the Vindicator® system quickly senses air particle movement. The system processor analyzes the air particle movement producing speed and direction data for wind field determination. The first production variant of the Vindicator® system will sense the wind out to 300 meters; as industry learns how to utilize and integrate this new technology into various applications, longer ranges can be incorporated."

"Various applications". I'm sure they mean like hang gliding launch sites and such. They just don't realize it yet, maybe. Still, this could be a little peek into the future. And it could be just the ticket to curing those "launch potato in front of you blues".

Yes, for windmills. Maybe someday hang gliding.

Twenty one years ago we convinced a friend to not erect his windmill at the edge of the bluff, explaining the "lift-band" hitting the blades wrong. We showed him where the wind returns to laminar, back a ways. Of course it also saved a section of ridge from ruin, as seen here a couple of days ago (my son and his buddy). Maybe we can talk him into one of those Vindicators now.