Smoke, Glitter, or Bubbles for thermal visualization?

[Jim_Marconnet]

Saw a local club fly TD sailplanes yesterday and realized one practical reason the planes are so big is so you can see them.

Thought about augmenting the visibility of a smaller plane with smoke. The smoke trail would always point to the plane.

Realized that smoke emitted from the plane would also possibly make a thermal much more visible. Got thinking about how to generate smoke on demand. That's a real tough one.

But there might be visible alternatives, like glitter or bubbles. Run a servo to rotate a glitter bottle with a hole in it or turn a wheel with holes thru bubble solution. Saw a $10 battery-operated bubble maker earlier this year at Wal*Mart, but it's a little big to carry on a plane, and was sold out before I got back to buy it.

Found a rather old post (2004) about smoke and visible thermal http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1760321&postcount=55

Any recent activity on practical controllable sailplane-generation/distribution of smoke, glitter, bubbles, whatever that might make thermals much more visible? Not to mention making the plane more visible when that is desired :D

[rdwoebke]

My rocket club has a number of those bubble machines. We put them on the ground and use them to "see" lift to decide when to launch the rockets.

Ryan

[Tim Wolff]

My rocket club has a number of those bubble machines. We put them on the ground and use them to "see" lift to decide when to launch the rockets.

Ryan

I saw a rocket get carried off by a thermal in Utica MI back in the 70's.

Do you use the bubble machines to help prevent that? Or are you trying to launch into lift for max altitude?

[rdwoebke]

We have duration events. They end up being mostly free flight but some we also have RC rocket gliders. Anyhow, we use the bubble machines/thermal poles/"feel"/and sometimes RC electrics to scout out lift to try to launch our parachute or rocket glider into a big thermal. This of course results in a bit of a chase (and sometimes a lost model).

Here are some pictures. Some tiny models that boost about 150 feet and pop out a little parachute to try to thermal. And a RC rocket glider on boost. That is not me in the rocket picture (I took the picture) but that is my glider model on boost (I could not take that picture as I was flying the model).

Ryan