Wind shear is best described as what?

Wind shear is a change in wind speed or direction over a short distance, either vertically or horizontally, and its danger lies in the suddenness rather than the magnitude. A gradual increase in wind with height is normal and an aircraft adapts to it continuously; a sharp change means the aircraft passes from one air mass into another and experiences an abrupt change in relative airflow before the flight controller can compensate. For a small unmanned aircraft that shows up as a sudden loss or gain of altitude, an unexpected drift, or a lurch, and it is most dangerous close to obstacles or the ground where there is no room to absorb it. The conditions that produce it are worth knowing: temperature inversions with a layer of faster-moving air above, frontal passages, thunderstorm outflow, and mechanical shear around buildings and terrain — the last being the case a remote pilot meets most often, when an aircraft climbing past a roofline exits the building's wind shadow into full wind.

Wind shear is a sudden change in wind speed or direction over a short distance, producing an abrupt change in the airflow the aircraft experiences before the controller can compensate.

Wind shear is a sudden change in wind speed or direction over a short distance, vertically or horizontally. Causes include temperature inversions, frontal passage, thunderstorm outflow and mechanical effects around buildings and terrain.

Sudden, Not Strong. It is the abruptness that gets you, not the wind speed.

The most common case for a remote pilot is climbing out of a building's wind shadow into full wind. Anticipate it at the roofline.

• •Equating shear with strong wind
• •Overlooking mechanical shear around buildings and terrain
• •Climbing rapidly through a boundary rather than easing through it