At 16:28 29 September 2012, AGL wrote:

One good reason is fiberglass construction, modern airfoils, and
heavy=20
gliders. Fly slowly at 1-26 or K-6 speeds, and even a pellet vario
can=20
work well. Blast through the thermal at 90-100 knots, full of water ...
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to=20
=20

So, the question becomes, what software is best for what conditions?
This
=
post assumes that the varios input to the software shows true lift
without
=
gusts etc.

The PC SeeYou stats showed that on 200 km of distance yesterday, with
overd=
eveloped cloudbases as low as 2500 ft AGL, average climbs were as low as
1
=
knot or zero, getting blown home on wind. Most "circles" showed lift and
4=
knot gusts at opposite sides of the circle, and sink everywhere else.
Mov=
ing to one direction to the other resulted in the same thing with a
differe=
nt set of short term lift bubbles. That's trying both slow 45 degree
banks=
, or back and forth sniffing in the bubbly area that had more lift than
sin=
k. When you're that low you have to do what you have to do.

Other people's flights on the OLC that day showed pretty mush the same
cond=
itions/results, but I didn't see anyone doing the "sniff around" method.

Sometimes you just have to fly around a bubbly area that has more lift
than=
sink, and a 1 minute average lift option on a very weak bubble day would
h=
elp. That's about the size of a "sniff around" area, which isn't a
thermal=
at all even if there is more lift than sink. "Last thermal" stats on
soft=
ware I've used/seen so far stops working as soon as you go straight for
any=
length of time.

So, what I'm saying is that the software development and discussion seems
t=
o be optimized for classic Texas lift silos on nice days, not for
overdevel=
oped low weak days when you'r relying on the circulation from latent heat
o=
f liquidization just under cloudbase.

The suggested XCSOAR thermal assistant screen
http://bugs.xcsoar.org/raw-at=
tachment/ticket/2148/modifiedthermalassistant.png would work well for
these=
conditions if it would show a one mile sniffing area with bubble
clusters,=
even if you're flying back and forth rather than circling. The outer
ring=
would still work for the classic thermal situation.

So, I would suggest that Tobias' proposal works for more situations than
An=
drzej's objection, since not all of us can assume classic thermal silos
of
=
lift on non-classic lift days.


Try an LX8000 with track set to display vario (colour coding). Great for
sniffing around as you describe, and thermals that shift as you climb.

Mike