The thermal helper in XCSoar gives a pretty good depiction of the relative
strengths around a thermal. It's definitely not circular!

I learned a long time ago to tighten up when lift falls off and ease up a
bit on the bank when the lift goes up. With practice, you'll get it and
won't need a graphical depiction of a thermal.


"BobW" wrote in message
...
On 7/29/2013 10:03 AM, Luke Szczepaniak wrote:
On 07/29/2013 12:00 PM, son_of_flubber wrote:
I'm starting to think that the textbook circular thermal is primarily a
flatland phenomena.

Not even in the flat lands - the textbook circular thermal is an
approximation!

Cheers,
Luke

People like Son of Flubber tick me off. He seems to have learned "circular
thermal" closely approximates an oxymoron far more quickly than I ever
did. In any event, "What Luke said!"

"Circular thermal" is a great place to start in book-learnin' terms.
Reality, on the other hand...

Bob - :-) - W.