The Air Stinks

The summer air stinks around here. It smells of ozone and smog. You probably don't notice it. But on a summer day, when you fly up above the base of the clouds:

you fly where the air is cool and smooth. If you've trimmed up your airplane properly (and if it is in rig), you can just fly along without touching the controls.

But once you descend below the base of those puffy cumulus clouds, the first thing you notice is that the air stinks. You'll only smell it for a little bit before your nose adapts, but the smell is distinctive. Then, because the lower air is heated and turbulent, you have to keep correcting the airplane's flight path. A wing will be jostled up or down. You'll hit updrafts (which make birds and sailplane pilots happy) and downdrafts so that keeping to your desired course and altitude takes work. If you have passengers, they may not appreciate riding over an aerial washboard.

In the summer, when I take people up who are new to small airplanes, I do it either in the early morning or in the evening. There is no point in taking someone up and subjecting them to a miserable ride.