Walt:

So if I got this right, DoD is paying for someone to develop an expensive piece of hardware that will weigh in around 10 Kgs and do electronically what we now spend years learning to do with the human brain? Look out the window and figure out where the next source of lift is likely to be located?

If it works as well as Ramy's finely honed skills it will kill the sport. Or at least change it beyond recognition.

When I first came into this sport there was discussion of a device called THEMI that was supposed to tell us which way to turn in order to core a thermal. Some 35 years later I don't hear anything at all about that technology.

I'm not saying the developers should stop taking DoD's coin to make the Global Hawk stay in the air longer, just wondering if this will go the way of THEMI. snark off