Hard to find a good photo, but sailplane pilots know them well.
Much more violent than they look, like a (slow) horizontal tornado:
Hard to find a good photo, but sailplane pilots know them well.
Much more violent than they look, like a (slow) horizontal tornado:
Bingo, you got it. Especially because of the reports of high winds, it is likely that they encountered a rotor. While the mountain wave itself is smooth as glass, the rotors that accompany the wave are incredibly violent.
They're not that hard to avoid, though, because the rotors sit underneath the wave crests, indicated by lenticular clouds. Avoid flying directly below the lenticulars (or sometimes a little downwind of them), and you won't encounter a rotor.
I am a sailplane pilot, though not current these days. I used to fly at the old Black Forest Gliderport northeast of Colorado Springs. That place was really special and I miss it to this day. It was also known for high altitude flights in the Pikes Peak wave. In fact, the women's world altitude record was set there in the late 70's, a record that still stands today (over 41,000').
Sorry about the tangent. I still miss that place.