The lift band is like an elevator shaft that tilts into the wind. At extreme heights, soaring pilots can sometimes look straight down on the peak that caused their wave. Rotor clouds spin beneath the smooth bottom of lenticulars. In most cases they cause turbulence that's unpleasant but not deadly. But they can tear a plane to smithereens.
Rotors are the suspected cause of several unexplained airline crashes.
Round on the top and flat on the bottom, they have been occasionally mistaken for flying saucers. But a mountain's shape also influences the wave's size. Mountains with a gradual slope on the upwind side and a sheer cliff on the downwind side make the most dramatic waves. An incredulous Symons shut off his engines and watched as his seven-ton fighter kept climbing. Maybe he cut it too close.