Beware of these clouds!

The AOPA Air Safety Foundation offers an interesting series of online safety courses targeted, seemingly, toward airplane pilots who were sound asleep during their basic training. I took the course entitled Mountain Flying, hoping to learn something about mountain waves.

I learned that all the classic misconceptions are alive and well in the power pilot community. Rather than list them all, I present some of the more egregious. Here is a diagram and a photo from the course (click to enlarge). The diagram shows an upside down lenticular all by itself out in front of the rest (I guess they had to draw it upside down, because this very special cloud has sink at its leading edge).


I especially like the warning: "Beware of these clouds! They almost always indicate severe turbulence." Yeah, right. Sort of like "Beware of automobiles. They almost always contain flammable liquids." Someone should inform these guys that the smoothest air on the planet can be found in the vicinity of lenticular clouds. The actual location of the wave's turbulence receives no mention at all in this tutorial. And speaking of rotors, did you notice that they're turning backwards?

In the caption to the photo, the first sentence contradicts the second, and the bit about condensation is at odds with the upside down lenticular cloud. The photo itself shows three different types of clouds.

It is disappointing to learn that the AOPA Air Safety Foundation has no more understanding of mountain waves than the FAA. Their advice to the pilot is to avoid mountain waves entirely, which, I suppose, is good advice if you haven't got a clue about what's going on.