Two proposals to explore Dynamic Soaring

One other scenario that might be practical is trying to make it home
late in the day when the wind is up and the thermals have died or been
broken up. One might use DS to fly perpendicular to the wind without
loosing altitude to get to the field.

Matt.

I've thought of this one a bit too. It's most likely to work pretty
late, when the atmosphere has decoupled, i.e. the ground is cooling
fast. The biggest problem for me at least is that you'd need a vast
area of very landable terrain!

John Cochrane

BB wrote:
One other scenario that might be practical is trying to make it home
late in the day when the wind is up and the thermals have died or been
broken up. One might use DS to fly perpendicular to the wind without
loosing altitude to get to the field.

Matt.

I've thought of this one a bit too. It's most likely to work pretty
late, when the atmosphere has decoupled, i.e. the ground is cooling
fast.

This is a common condition for us in the winter when we have wave
flying. It can be like that all day sometimes.

The biggest problem for me at least is that you'd need a vast
area of very landable terrain!

We have several miles of landable area crosswind to the airport, so it
could be tried safely. Because I have a motor, I can easily make several
attempts on the days the shear zone is greater than 1000' AGL or so.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

BB wrote:

I've thought of this one a bit too. It's most likely to work pretty
late, when the atmosphere has decoupled, i.e. the ground is cooling
fast. The biggest problem for me at least is that you'd need a vast
area of very landable terrain!


As in NE IL, for example?


Jack