Tom Johnson

My Feedback: (2)

Our club had our Field Opening Day last week, and since I didn't have any of my powered planes ready, I decided to toss my old beater Spirit ARF in the truck and at least spend a couple of minutes in the air. The weather was about 45 deg with a 5-10mph wind and not a cloud in the sky (pretty unusual for Ohio in March). When I got to the field I was excited to see the shimmer of heat coming off the dark dirt where the farmer had tilled last fall, and I thought there might be enough lift to at least give me some 5 minute flights. Of course the rest of the guys laughed and asked if I was nuts looking for thermals on a day when a winter jacket was standard issue. I just mumbled something about playing with the CG and ballast and went off to set up my hi-start.

Well, on my second launch I caught hold of one of the best thermals I had ever had at that field. About 15 minutes later I had just about specked out and there were five or six guys standing around pointing at the white dot in the sky. With the fairly brisk wind I was getting pretty far downwind by now and figured I should try to get back home. I was just about overhead at maybe 300-400 ft when I picked up another one! This went on a couple of more times and when I got to about an hour my hands were all but frozen and I decided to come on home.

Was this just an incredibly lucky day, or are cold weather thermals really all that common? I know it can't be my piloting skills, I've just been flying gliders for a year and I've only had two other hour-long flights. I know one thing, the weather this weekend is supposed to be just like last, and I can't wait to see if it was just a fluke!

How many other guys have had experiences like this? I thought soaring was just for summer, but boy was I wrong!

hattend

My Feedback: (20)

I have flown R/C gliders for 30 years and hanggliders for 20 years. I can assure you that winter thermals indeed exist. As you found out all you need is a contrast in ground temperature to create a good possiblility that a thermal will break loose and start rising.

You need good insolation (sunshine), contrast (dark field or cleared parking lot next to snow or cooler water), a trigger (winds greater than 5 mph), and an unstable airmass so the thermal, once it's triggered will continue to rise. If you have a strong inversion present your thermals will be shutdown without getting a lot of vertical height.

You can fly year round contrary to what some people think...enjoy!

Don

soarrich

My Feedback: (98)

Cold nights, warm days=THERMALS.

RRW_SOAR

Thermals are produced from temperature differences. Cold, warm o hot days are not important as a gradient of temperature in the atmosphere. Even with snow you can have thermals.

Regards.

da Rock

Look for what hattend said about the ground being different colors. What you're really looking for is ground that gets hot versus ground that stays cool. And they need to be close to each other obviously.

Thermals work all year round. But they need the different ground types to happen strongly enough for us to use them.

I used to live in Minnesnowta. The only problem that place had was that in winter, you won't find too many days where EVERYTHING around your flying site isn't white EVERYWHERE.... Won't be another color but white anywhere except your eyeballs and your clothes. But then, what you do is you put on another 8 layers of clothes and go TO THE SLOPES!!!

(BTW, at the slopes in the winter up there it's a good idea to wear something to shield your eyes from the wind. I've frozen off some of my eyelashes and damn near got frostbitten eyelids and around my eyes from sloping in a nice breeze.... that was something like 15 below.)

sawdust

My Feedback: (7)

I live in Northern Indiana. Today was in the high 30s to low 40s, 80 percent cloud cover, low ceiling ,wind at 10-15 mph and there were thermals. My transmitter mitten kept my hands warm.

I flew my new 2 meter Aspire with a Phasor 30/3, 10 x 6 folder, and an 8 cell 3300 mah nimh battery. The first flight was about 45 minutes and the second was 30 minutes. They could have been longer but the cloud cover was too low and I had to back out of several very strong thermals. Good flights considering the weight of the battery.

Yes there are thermals in cold-weather.

But get a transmitter mitten.

bob