Word: cumulus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...feet, the soaring plane skirted a cumulus cloud, was instantly sucked up into it by powerful air currents. Airman Udo Fischer got panicky. At 5,000 feet he bailed out. Minutes later he landed in a farmer's field near Big Flats, N. Y., unhurt but out of the running for the Elmira Soaring Contest's annual $1,500 trophy...
...Robert M. Stanley of Pensacola's naval air base. Fortnight ago he had upped the U. S. altitude record to 13,400 feet (world record: German Captain Walter Drechsel's 23,196 feet). Last week, skilfully riding the air currents, he darted deliberately into just such a cumulus as had made Udo Fischer abandon his plane, bettered his own record by 3,194 feet...
...sailplane--one of those white gull-winged ones that soar so silently over the countryside, miraculously holding itself off from the sordid earth beneath. Vag shoots into the air, makes use of several tricky thermals, then skillfully maneuvers the ship in a tight spiral under a great heavy cumulus cloud...
...standing beside a shallow coffin in which lies a dead soldier. They are all in white with white headdresses and the bier is covered with delicate, almost transparent white linen. Rows of white crosses converge toward a hill crowned with a church set against a little pile of distant cumulus clouds. For a modern counterpart of this scene St. Nicholas parishioners can look on the other wall, opposite the Crucifixion. Under a black, apocalyptic sky, a young miner lies on ground covered with coal rubble. Weeping women in violet robes at his head and feet avert their eyes...
Thunderheads are cumulus clouds which mark the top of a rising column of air. The expansion and cooling of the air as it rises condenses atmospheric moisture, forms the cloud. The air in and around thunderheads is often gusty enough to toss a glider around like a canoe in heavy surf. The top of the cloud is charged with negative electricity, the bottom with positive. When this difference of potential becomes high enough a stroke of lightning cancels it. A direct hit by lightning has never been definitely shown to be the cause of an airplane wreck, but there...