Understanding the Sky Reviews
First May Issue 1992 of General Aviation News & Flyer
"Understanding the Sky" studies weather indepth
MINGOVILLE, Pennsylvania -- Understanding the Sky: A Sport Pilot's Guide to
Flying Conditions is the newest book from Sport Aviation Publications.
The book is intended for sport aviators -- ultralight, sailplane and hang
glider pilots, as well as balloonists, RC modelers and parachutists -- who want
to learn the esoteric things they may have missed during general weather
courses.
Matters such as reverse gradients, lowlevel shears, thermals, daily
variations, upslope breezes, down-bursts and gust fronts are described.
Sport Aviation Publications said it believes the chapter on thunderstorm
judgment and prediction is alone worth the price of the book.
Understanding the Sky covers large-scale weather, explaining the message of
the sky and the structure of the atmosphere in several chapters; the rest of the
book is devoted to more local effects.
The author, Dennis Pagen, is a pilot with 19 years of experience in various
fast and slow aircraft. He has previously written 10 "how-to" books on sport
aviation. This latest book is a culmination of years of research that Pagen says
he hopes will benefit all pilots who wish to know more about the air in which
they travel.
Understanding the Sky comes with 12 chapters, 288 pages, more than 260 photos
and illustrations, five appendices, a glossary and a complete index. The book is
available from aviation bookstores for $19.95, or from Sport Aviation
Publications add $2.95 for postage POBox 101, Mingoville, PA 16856.
Winter 1992 issue of the Whole Earth Catalog
What's going on up there a weather book by one of sport aviation's best
teachers, who has looked at clouds from both sides. Whether you're watching from
the ground or the air, the sky has plenty of puzzling features. Dennis Pagen has
seen and explained more than any other writer I know. -- Hank Roberts
1993 issue of the Whole Earth Catalog
There is no better way to feel out local weather than in a small airplane (or
reincarnated as a red-tailed hawk). This is the most lucid book on the messages
of the clouds, the patterns of the local winds, thunderstorms, and thermal lore.
The life-or-death nature of the information has produced good prose and great
illustrations. Pagen also includes the big picture how storm fronts carry your
watershed news from the arctic or the equator. -- PW
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