On 9/21/2012 2:22 PM, Tony wrote:
On Thursday, September 20, 2012 7:35:02 PM UTC-5, Eric Greenwell
Have you found the NWS lapse rate forecasts
inadequate? http://rucsoundings.noaa.gov/ -- Eric Greenwell -
Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)

Usually the soundings there are pretty good but we've also gone
through spells where we had inversions that the models just weren't
catching. Sometimes this has gone on for weeks, like for 2 or 3 weeks
last June when the models were all predicting great soaring when in
fact there was a hard inversion at about 5000 MSL and it totally
sucked.

I think there is some real benefit to having actual measured real
life data instead of a computer model. At 150 per unit, especially if
you can reliably retrieve the transmitter, I think it would be worth
it.

Maybe you could talk an ultralight pilot into doing it for the gas
money. They like to fly in the morning anyway, and having a mission
would delight the ones I know. There are $60-$100 USB temperature and
humidity recorders that could easily carried (a few oz.), downloaded to
a PC after landing, then the file emailed to you.

Here are some examples:

http://www.thermoworks.com/products/...b_loggers.html

The trick is selecting one with a proper response time to get an OK
lapse rate. The one I have is about a minute - too slow for a climbing
aircraft measurement - but I saw one of 20 seconds (probably OK for a
500fpm climb rate). That would give a decent lapse rate.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)