On Friday, September 11, 2020 at 9:20:28 AM UTC-7, Matthew Scutter wrote:
On Friday, 11 September 2020 at 3:22:37 pm UTC+2, Nick Kennedy wrote:
Ok.
Thats alot of stuff in one title.
I was at a camp in Salida last week and fellow Soaring pilot Doug Levy encouraged me to load up the Skysight weather on my Oudie everyday. I was using the convergence and winds aloft features. I was really impressed! While not perfect everyday it was/ is dang close. Well worth the 10 minutes it takes to load. We had a fast internet connection at the airport and it worked great, never glitched out once. I'll be doing this every flight in the future.

Another topic of discussion came up and it centered around " what ever became of the thermal location files". I bought Winpilot Pro back when it first came out and I remember pilots working on creating likely thermal locations based on past/ others IGC files. Did anything ever become of this this endeavor?
Are they available today?
Nick
T
Glad to hear SkySight is working well on the Oudie for you.

I think thermal databases fell out of vogue because the signal-to-noise ratio was so poor. You could convince me they work in the mountains if they're tailored for wind direction and sun angle, but in the flats I think it's tea-leaves.

Glad to hear it worked out for you Nick. I've been pleased with the Skysight / Oudie convergence information. It's been very useful when soaring over unfamiliar terrain.
Down load times can be very long without a good internet connection. Wish the file sizes could be smaller and cover smaller areas that will be used for each day.
I've had flights following clouds and the convergence data was correct. Other times the data seemed to parallel the clouds by a few miles. I've had flights not finding lift under some clouds, I changed course to where the display recommended and found good lift. Not always perfect but better than my guessing where to go to next.
Nice bunch of pilots and friends in Salida. Soaring the Rockies was an incredible experience. The scenery near Telluride was one of my most amazing soaring experiences.