Most people don't spend much time defining wind, or thinking about wind at all. Sailors, pilots or others whose profession involves wind will be an exception, because for ordinary people the average wind has little effect on their daily life and, as a rule, they do not notice any minor changes.
There are different types of kites. The kite-wind connection itself is a system in which the wind is the engine, no engine - no flight.
Experienced pilots, and those who are directly involved with the wind, have the habit of watching the wind almost constantly, even when not flying. They look at flags, trees, circles on water and other signs of air movement in space.
Wind awareness is what transforms you from a wind enthusiast to an experienced flyer. Therefore, regardless of your level of training, we want to warn you that the wind is not to blame for anything! Many began to think that the wind should listen to them and do what they say, but we will disappoint you, everything is exactly the opposite, it is you who must “listen” to the wind, predict its behavior, because the wind is on its own, and it has the right to do whatever he pleases. If you learn to cope with the energy of the wind and direct it in the right direction, then you will become one of the best air conquerors.
So start observing the wind, become one of those thoughtful observers who always notice the slightest change in the wind.
Wind has two characteristics: Smoothness (smoothness) and Strength!
Let's talk first of all about SMOOTHNESS (SMOOTHNESS)
Finding a smooth wind for flying is as important as finding a smooth road for a comfortable ride. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a “steady breeze,” just as there are no absolutely perfect roads without bumps and holes. Although it seems to you that the wind is often stable and even, and that it is just a mass of air moving from one place to another, there are still a lot of nuances. The wind is influenced by many factors, such as friction with the ground, which slows down its movement, and obstacles such as trees, buildings and hills create quite a few barriers to the wind, including temperature changes, which also greatly influence the wind regime.
Let's look at the wind in the pictures, the direction of the arrow will indicate the direction of the wind, and the length of the arrow will indicate its speed.
If the earth were completely flat, the wind would look like this:
Friction of air with the surface of the earth causes air near the ground to move more slowly than in the upper layers, even if the wind is quite strong.
You can even test this for yourself; on a windy day, you can simply take a horizontal position in relation to the ground and feel how much the wind force has changed. In other words, the closer the wind is to the ground, the more it slows down, this phenomenon creates the so-called boundary layer - the area from ground level to the level at which the wind is no longer affected by friction. Everything above the boundary layer is called free flow or free flow.
Here's what you need to know about the boundary layer; its thickness varies. And, as a rule, the kite is best kept in free layers, since boundary layers are less stable.
The boundary layer is the layer that we cannot change, but we can learn to work with it. But there is such a thing as Turbulence, and it's definitely bad news.
Turbulence is caused by anything that gets in the way of the wind, be it a rock, a tree, a building or any other obstacle, even your kite generates some turbulence. Turbulence downwind of an obstacle is called its aerodynamic shadow. All wind shadows gradually disappear, depending on the distance from the obstacle, but this does not happen immediately.
For example, the shadow of an ordinary tree extends for several hundred meters, while a large building can leave a shadow one and a half kilometers long.
The difficulty with flying in turbulent conditions is that you will experience sudden and unpredictable changes in wind direction and strength. Depending on the severity of the turbulence, it will be either easy or, in extreme cases, impossible to cope with.
STRENGTH is another important characteristic of wind
When defining wind and talking about wind strength, let's immediately determine the average value of wind force, and often this figure is 5 m/s. At one time or another, the strength of the wind, in other words, its speed will change.
Probably for a better understanding of the wind strength you should look at the Beaufort table. It was developed by Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort in 1806 as a standard guide for describing wind force on sailing ships.