Tumbleweed at Cloudbase

With our best Arizona soaring day this year so far ( a 500 km day with
some 7-knot thermals), I was astonished to meet a tumbleweed at
cloudbase (about 7,500 feet AGL). I've seen some funny stuff sucked up
in thermals before, but this was the biggest and heaviest.

That got me wondering what other folks might have met in thermals?

Mike

Air mattress at 5000', no bathing beauty on it, however.


Mike the Strike wrote:
With our best Arizona soaring day this year so far ( a 500 km day with
some 7-knot thermals), I was astonished to meet a tumbleweed at
cloudbase (about 7,500 feet AGL). I've seen some funny stuff sucked up
in thermals before, but this was the biggest and heaviest.

That got me wondering what other folks might have met in thermals?

Mike

On different flights I have seen:

A newspaper at over a mile up.

A plastic shopping bag at several thousand feet.

A flight of toy balloons tied together at over 4000 ft.

Tumbleweeds: many many times.

Two young eagles, talons locked, tumbling down at 10,000 ft.

But Eric Greenwell once ran into a kite string at (I think) over 4000
ft. He didn't see the kite though.

Rudy
Mike the Strike wrote:


That got me wondering what other folks might have met in thermals?

Mike

That got me wondering what other folks might have met in thermals?




Of course, the requisite corn husk in Uvalde, several times.



Larry

"01" USA

Didn't seen a tumbleweed, but flying through the same skies you did
yesterday, I saw at various times a kid's ballon over Carefree, a
plastic grocery bag over Wickenburg, and unidentifiable garbage two
other times.

But the prettiest thing I met in a thermal was a Standard Libelle over
Moreton.

~ted/2NO

Moving from rubbish to animals, I have met a bunch
of Swans at 14000ft in some strong wave, and I have
heard reports of them flying higher too.

I also met a wasp, which had made itself a stowaway
until about 200feet on the aerotow and thought it funny
to buzz around in my face. Must apolgise to the tuggie
for some eratic flying...

Funniest thing I ever saw was Al in a PW-5

"Funniest thing I ever saw was Al in a PW-5 "

I was traumatized for weeks after flying that POS.

I once saw hay.... Lots of hay at cloudbase..
Just loose hay picked up from a field but it was like a funnel of it
for about 200ft below cloudbase.

Al

Rudy Allemann 7Y wrote:

But Eric Greenwell once ran into a kite string at (I think) over 4000
ft. He didn't see the kite though.


Saw the kite, didn't reconize it as such, flew towards it, and
discovered a thick string on the leading edge of my Ka-6E. It broke
about the time I realized it was a large box kite I had encountered, but
not without sawing into the wood leading edge a bit.


--
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

www.motorglider.org - Download "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane
Operation"

Did anybody fly a 500km task or was it just a good-looking day?

Snagged a sheet of newspaper on my LP-46 wing years ago. A redtail in
the same thermal had snagged and shaken the sheet a couple of times,
seemingly daring me to try. I finally succeeded.

Rolf