Self Fly Gliders

"Thermals tend to form in the same place repeatedly, often over tarmac or bare rock which soaks up the sun better than the surrounding terrain. So the researchers gave ALOFT a memory of where it had found a thermal before."

Wow - who would have thought of that - looking for thermals where they've formed before! Maybe we should try that! Oh, that's right, we already do!

Mike

I'd rather be soaring.

T8

First flight of the ALOFT glider was probably in 2007 or 2008. Transfering to full scale gliders might already have happened by now... ;-)

Aldo Cernezzi

On Thursday, October 20, 2016 at 7:56:07 AM UTC-4, Tango Eight wrote:
I'd rather be soaring.

T8

Me too!

As one who helped make this particular sausage (though the mapping work was done by another grad student in the lab), I can assure you that it won't be contending for a world title any time soon -- if you think student pilots are tough to teach, try computers.

That said, it was great fun to have our aircraft flying with Dan and ALOFT and the mapping is a neat capability. We had good maps of the house thermals and their likelihood after a few days' soaring. By the end of the week the plane had places that it "liked" and would go right to them after launch, just like that nice rocky spot I head to at Ridge Soaring...

John Bird