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I maybe mistaken, but I think there is something on the competition rules
that forbids the use of tools to "see" thermals ahead of the glider at a distance of more than a wingspan or so... So it could be good for centering thermals maybe, like the Themi, but probably not more than that. "Bill Daniels" wrote in message news:2Tuhc.171468$gA5.1991465@attbi_s03... "Hank Nixon" wrote in message Famous modeler Maynard Hill studied varying electric charge related to thermals about 25 or 30 years ago. As I recall he found that there was a horizontal differential related to thermals. So- he built a device to sense this and steer the model into the thermal- so cool! Then he tested it- When turned on it would not turn aircraft into the thermal and in fact kept the wings absolutely level. Darn! Why? It turns out that the vertical voltage potential around the earth is far stronger than the horizontal one due to thermals. The good news- He invented the electrostatic wing leveler. UH It's fascinating that after decades of looking at thermals with the entire electromagnetic spectrum, sampling the chemistry, listening to the sounds and using every known sensing technology, the one consistent characteristic is that they are updrafts! The effect of air motion on a glider is still the only way they can be detected reliably. LIDAR might open a tiny window for remote sensing. I have thought of a low power, short range LIDAR that would sweep left and right of a line angled down 45 degrees from the horizontal. It would look for bubbles rising from below out to 100 meters or so to the front and left or right of the glider. This would be enough to have a major impact on the probability of encountering lift. It would also be a great help in centering the best lift as it swept the sky to the outside of the thermalling turn looking for stronger cores. At the moment, I know of no way the weight and power consumption would allow a LIDAR to fit in a glider. Bill Daniels |
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