Suppose I'm flying along straight and level and I feel
the left wingtip rise. Where is the thermal? Is it
on the left and is it lifting the wing?

Or, is the right wing in sink and the wing is being
pushed down?

Does that mean there is a thermal further to the right
and the sink that pushed my wing down is the sink that
surrounds the thermal?

Which way should I turn?

For me, the answer is sometimes straight forward:
Turn the way my friends are turning because they got
there sooner than me!

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

At 10:48 06 September 2006, Flying_Monkey wrote:
Yes, Frank, please explain this to us. I never heard
that that there
was any other theory than turn toward the uplifted
wing. Sure, there's
lots of theories about what to do after that. Bob
Wander's 'book' has
the 4-circle search method, and it seems like I read
something in
Knauff's stuff somewhere, maybe in 'Breaking the Apron
Strings.' I'm
still early in the learning process, and seem to have
the best results
with 'tighten the turn in decreasing lift, loosen the
turn in
increasing lift. This works so well that I'm frequently
seeing people
in roughly equal gliders climbing past me, so I'm always
looking for a
better way. Enlighten us.

Thanks,
Ed

wrote:
Really? I had never heard of the 'turn away from
the thermal' school
of thought.



Frank Whiteley wrote:
Regarding apparent rising wings, that may not indicate
anything
regarding the direction of the core of the thermal,
other than a turn
may indicated.

That is, there is another school of thought on which
way to turn,
especially if the goal is to center as quickly as
possible in a
thermal.

Frank Whiteley