On Oct 23, 4:26*pm, Bill D wrote:
Even with PowerFLARM on "stealth" pilots may soon have another way to find the next thermal. *The DARPA "One Shot" initiative will develop a rifle scope which uses LIDAR to detect and correct for crosswind "windage". *The Israeli Soreq Nuclear Research Center has already been granted a patent on the LIDAR technology.

http://www.accurateshooter.com/optic...0d40d64c7cc251

Rotate the 'scope 90 degrees and you have a thermal detector which directly reads vertical velocity. *Presumably, if the system can be miniaturized to fit in a rifle scope and be powered by man-packable batteries, fitting it into a sailplane shouldn't be that difficult - costs aside.

The Israeli solution, iirc, uses speckle backscatter from the target,
not aerosol backscatter, so you'd have to have a buddy fly about half
a kilometer beside you and look for thermals in between.