Artificial Thermals and Updrafts

[dustn]

Have any of you successfully flown with anything other than mother nature's providings?

I was thinking like from A/C units and things like that... either small home-size ones or a big cluster on the side of a school...

what about fires? a bon fire makes quite a draft... may make your plane smell funny tho (and dont fly too low!)

I suppose flying over black or metal roofs counts as well.

any other ideas?

[Radian]

Have any of you successfully flown with anything other than mother nature's providings?

I was thinking like from A/C units and things like that... either small home-size ones or a big cluster on the side of a school...

what about fires? a bon fire makes quite a draft... may make your plane smell funny tho (and dont fly too low!)

I suppose flying over black or metal roofs counts as well.

any other ideas?

I fly off a landfill in south Florida. When the wind is from the North West, we can fly off the slope near the on site power plant. We have used the "thermals" that form off of its cooling towers, however they are very turbulent. You need to pay extra attention to what you are doing or you can be flipped upside down very easily. No one has yet dared to actually fly directly through the steam columns just through the updrafts above them.

Radian

[amike_321]

I have flown my tiger moth above an A/C unit fan to get some lift. It is kinda turbulent though, the plane would rise real quick and then fall. I tried to circle but the tiger moth is too light to actually "penetrate"

[TLyttle]

Most buildings work fine, particularly with flat roofs; they are normally covered in black tar, perfect for generating thermals. I flew a trainer over a school for nearly an hour, quit because it got boring. The thermal was not high enough to give you any travel distance, but that would have worked if I was flying a proper sailplane. The other advantage is that the thermal is constant with very little cycling.

Thermals are where you find them!

[Ben Diss]

One contest morning, the fog was too heavy to start the rounds so a few guys were messing around HLGs. Phil Barnes and a few others managed to keep aloft over the exhaust heat of the little generator used to charge the winch batteries.

[TLyttle]

NICE picture!!! If it was me, however, I would be on my second coffee, or another hour's sleep, or... At the WCs in Belgium (79), the locals tried to show off their electric models during the fog (electrics were really new then), but the results were, shall we say, not great. I think it was Milke that launched, immediately lost sight of it, followed by hummmm-thump. Not much left, but we all learned two things: don't fly in the fog, and electrics were on the way.

[dustn]

eep! losing sight of a plane like that is a horrible feeling!

i havent been able to try the black roof thing yet, we have been having rain here recently :(

[solo6796]

We sometimes have fun catching a thermal over our club President at the field. Works best when he's bragging again!

AJ

(Only a joke, Jack!)

[TLyttle]

HAW, HAW, HAW! We had a couple of guys like that too, and I imagine that I generated my share as well... Seems to me that before the electronic thermal trackers and pocket weather stations showed up in FAI f/f sailplanes, if a model was coming down before max, they would have the whole team under the model whirling their towels, jackets, whatever, trying to bust forth the heat near the ground and keep the model aloft for those critical seconds.

Thermals are where you find 'em, or make 'em.