Dennis Pagen's Understanding the Sky is the world's best-selling meteorology book for sport aviation pilots. The author has nearly fifty years of flying experience and has served in several roles at CIVL and the FAI, the world air sports federation. Its strength lies in micrometeorology — the local, small-scale effects a paraglider pilot meets every day, and the part most general weather books skip over. The Vietnamese edition was translated by pilot Dang Van My. Paperback, black and white, 274 pages. Available only from Mebayluon Paragliding.
📚 Table of contents: 12 chapters and 5 appendices
- Chapter I — The Air Around Us: the structure and properties of air, pressure, temperature, solar heating, daily and seasonal changes, humidity, latent heat
- Chapter II — The Living Atmosphere: the lapse rate, stability and instability, the standard atmosphere, density altitude, the Coriolis effect
- Chapter III — The Message of the Clouds: dew point and cloud base, how clouds form and age, cloud types, what clouds tell us, flying in clouds
- Chapter IV — The Big Picture: General Meteorology: air masses, cold and warm fronts, high and low pressure systems, isobars, circulation aloft, the jet stream, tropical weather
- Chapter V — Wind Patterns: measuring and watching the wind, prevailing winds, winds around fronts and pressure systems, wind gradient, winds aloft, daily wind changes, low-level jets
- Chapter VI — Turbulence: Unsteady Flow: what causes turbulence, vortex turbulence, rotors, wind shadow, flying in turbulence
- Chapter VII — Local Winds: sea and land breezes, heat fronts, upslope and downslope winds, magic air, valley winds
- Chapter VIII — Soaring Conditions: Lifting Air: ridge lift, canyons and gaps, ridge soaring, mountain waves, convergence lift, frontal lift, lift indicators
- Chapter IX — Instability and Thermals: the birth and triggering of thermals, thermal sources, house thermals, thermal cycles, dust devils, thermal sink
- Chapter X — Thermal Lore: thermal size, strength and height, thermals in wind, thermal spacing, cloud streets, locating thermals, blue holes
- Chapter XI — Thunderstorms: how thunderstorms form and develop, downdrafts and gust fronts, judging thunderstorms, escaping a storm, tornadoes
- Chapter XII — Watching the Weather: weather cycles, the barometer, weather information sources and maps, soaring forecasts, reading an area, site examples
- Five appendices (density changes in the atmosphere, the Coriolis effect, drying winds, thermal buoyancy, trigger temperature) and a glossary
👤 Who this book is for
- Paraglider pilots already flying solo who want to understand wind, thermals and clouds so they can climb higher, stay up longer and fly more safely
- Paragliding students who want a solid grounding in weather from the start, rather than relying on word-of-mouth rules of thumb
- Pilots getting ready for cross-country (XC) flying who need to read cloudbase, cloud streets and soaring forecasts, and recognise thunderstorms
- Hang glider, sailplane, paramotor, balloon, skydiving and RC model pilots — the book is written for every air sport
- Instructors and site coordinators who need a weather reference in Vietnamese for teaching and for judging flying conditions
