Chaff for detecting thermals?

[Dax]

Ok, so admitidly I don't know what I am talking about, and this is a bit of a stupid idea....

Would it be possible (or helpful) to rig up a "bomb drop" mechnism on a glider that you could release with a 5th channel that would drop a bunch of "chaff" or confetti into the air so you could visualize the thermals in the area? I know it would be littering, which is why its a stupid idea. But would it help? What about using those little parachute men from the dollar store and then collecting them afterwards?

Just a random thought when reading a thermaling article. Feel free to mock me.

[jbeanelliott]

It might be very entertaining even if it was not useful for detecting thermals.

For $3 you could adapt this hand powered confetti gun.
http://www.mikefeinbergcompany.com/copogun.html
This confetti popper gun is great for celebrations and parties. Load up the gun with a confetti bullet and fire in the sky. Shoots a colorful burst of confetti or streamer while making a loud pop. Comes with 5 confetti bullets.

For $49 you could adapt this CO2 powered confetti gun.
http://www.starlight.com/confettihand.html
This exciting kit packs a punch - capable of shooting streamers 20 feet or more. Small in size, yet powerful. Launcher is only 6" long, great for concealing on stage or makes a great party favor. Dancers, musicians and magicians will find multiple uses for this intriguing effect. This is a small, personal launcher, and does not use lifting cups or backpressure caps. Makes a small burst of confetti around the performer, but not lrge enough for shooting large loads into an audience. Kit includes: Confetti gun, ramming stick, assorted confetti, turbofetti and streamers and 3 Co2 cylinders.

[Dax]

I just read about using bubble machines to detect thermals, sounds better for the environment. I wonder how I could make a glider mounted bubble maker, lol.

[Oldcoot2]

Interesting concept! However, if we are going to use this in competition we need to figure out a way to make the chaff visible only to an individual. Hmm, don't you think that would be one heck of a tipoff to a CD when you commence your flight and slip on your Elton John shades? ;)
Gerald

[Andy W]

free flight use bubble machines, as mentioned above..

[schrederman]

Oddly, I was thinking about this last night, after hearing of the death of an old soaring (full-scale) friend. He was a real story teller and I was impressed by that when I was a kid. He talked about taking several boxes of Kleenex tissues with him and would continually pull them off and drop them out the window where he thought lift was present. He'd do a 180 and circle where the tissues were going up... Then came variometers... :p

Jack

[TheAdrian]

I can see the fun of attaching a bubble machine to my Easy Glider. Just rig up a loop of wire to dip into a tank of soap solution and let the slipstream blow the bubble. But how do we stop it all spilling if we depart from straight and level flight?

[Oldcoot2]

Darth
I have a box of Kleenex and a pair of scissors....how many teenie weeny tissues do you need, pard? Surely you have another receiver plug open to attach your "Flinger" for dispensing them. :rolleyes:

Gerald

[Norm Furutani]

Free flighters are all into detecting thermals from the ground.

For visual detection we use:
1. A field of mylar streamers on 20-30ft. poles. VCR tape is OK. The streamers indicate wind direction and intensity. Wind blows toward a thermal.
2. Dry cat tails (plants, not kittys!). They turn into a cloud of fluff and rise with the slightest lift.
3. Bubble machines. use like the cat tails.

Fast acting thermometers (thermisters) indicate the building of heat and signal the release of the thermal by a drop in temp.

The best is to piggy back off someone else. Ultimately, it's knowing how to read your own sailplane.

- Norm

[davidjensen]

Confetti??? How about smoke generators on the wing tips.

[Bark065]

At the last free flight contest I went to, a friend of mine was using the dry cat tails to detect thermals. They work. He said he put them in the microwave for a couple of minutes to kill the seeds so they don't germinate later on. I need to google this to see if its true.

[scaflock]

LOL I like this thread! It shows me that I'm not the only one here to have really really strange yet oddly practicle ideas! ;)

I think the smoke idea would be the best one at higher altitude as far as visibility goes. The only problem I see with it is a heat source that wouldn't fry your plane. Hummmm..... cold smoke from a chemical reaction of some sort? Come on all you lab rats, help us out on this one. ;)

The confetti idea could also work if you could get reflective confetti so you could see it. Bubbles? Have you ever tried to see small bubbles at high altitude?

OK... I can see that I"m going to have to give this some serious thought and see what I can come up with. LOL I love designing odd-ball stuff.

Jeff

[Vince inTX.]

One possible answer to the "smoke" question is talcum powder. Used in model rockets to keep the parachute from sticking together...it also gives a very nice puff of "smoke" when the chute opens to help spot the plumeting rocket. Eliminates the heat source problem ...but dispensing could be an issue. Then there is the weight........there are some cold chemical reactions that create smoke but it has been a looooooong time since I played with my Junior Chemist chemistry set.

Vince

[prodjx]

Dax, you have to get a copy of Dave Thornberg's Old Buzzard's Soaring Book what many people consider the Bible of model gliding. He even show's an extreamly light parachute using a dry cleaning bag some sewing thread and a penny, I always refer back to it, it's also quite funny. Dave.

[BMatthews]

At the last free flight contest I went to, a friend of mine was using the dry cat tails to detect thermals. They work. He said he put them in the microwave for a couple of minutes to kill the seeds so they don't germinate later on. I need to google this to see if its true.

I've used dried cattail fluffies quite often. In the areas I use them they are commonly found in the ditches that are wet enough to support them and since those produce more than enough on their own I don't feel guilty at all about blowing a few more up into the air.

The parachute guys are far too heavy to use and you'd need hundreds of them.

What you want would be a big ball of powder or fluffies but good luck seeing it from the ground. Or if you do carry enough of it to see the "cloud" then good luck picking up your model to launch it. A fist sized ejection of powder or fluffies wouldn't be visible for more than a couple of seconds and then it would be gone. It's different at ground level where I use them for finding the thermal that's right over my head or close enough to that. But even there the fluffies dissapear from view by the time they are about 50 to 70 feet away.

Far easier to just learn to concentrate on the model and read the model's response to local air disturbances and thermal. It's passing through the same air that you're suggesting to shoot the fluff or powder out into anyway.

Or find the special 3D thermal imaging thermal detection glasses that you send away 6 cerial boxtops for.... :D Actually if there was a thermal detecting vision adapter it may just help look for warmer and colder zones in the air. Not sure if such a thing exists though.

[spinolio]

I would think that a CD would say "SHED PARTS" no landing points. :eek:

[AMBeck]

This reminds me of a friend who flew a 1-26 (full size). One day he had the same bright idea, and took off with three or four rolls of toilet paper stuffed under his knees. He flew for several miles throwing little wads of TP out the clear view panel in the canopy. When he turned around after his run, expecting to see a trail marking all the lift, all he saw was empty sky. They were so hard to see that he never spotted more than a couple, way down against the green woods. When he landed, we found several bits wrapped around the leading edges of the tail. We had quite a good time with that!

[bobthenuke]

Yeah, let's figure out ways to dump even more crap into the environment.

I vote for sticking with the free flight guys and using mylar streamers and bubble machines, *if* you have to use anything at all.

Flying full scale it's not all that difficult to develop a sense of where some lift may be and, of course, there are guidelines that every pilot should be aware of to put the odds for lift in your favor.

For models, as was previously mentioned by another poster, some of these indicators are similar and developing a knowledge of the model and it's "signaling" of lift and learning how to use it is a more exciting and rewarding (IMHO) method of maintaining flight than using external and un-natural methods to detect lift (I'll exclude a variometer from that statement as I believe that a full size sailplane is more difficult to detect lift in than visual indications with a model). But then, as regards model sailplanes, I'm into flying more than winning.

...bob

[rdeis]

I think the smoke idea would be the best one at higher altitude as far as visibility goes. The only problem I see with it is a heat source that wouldn't fry your plane.

Suitable smoke bombs aren't hard to come by, my dad has used them to map the shape and behavior of different types of thermals while doing research. Thermals come in many different forms, and the best trim for using the lift can vary in the different types.

On-board smoke isn't terribly useful for finding new lift. On-board smoke can't go anywhere that the airplane hasn't already been, and if the airplane's been there it's already told you about the lift!

But it *can* help confirm what the airplane's behavior is telling you during practise.

...If someone is helping you by taking pictures of the smoke trails.

... And you're logging the flight carefully so you have something to compare against the pictures.

... And you're studying the flight log and pictures later.

All of which are useful practise even without the smoke. (:

[KickAce]

I do most of my flying alone for there are no rc sailplane clubs in my area... closest one is a two hour drive one-way...

I think that next flying season that I will get a slingshot and a case of smoke bombs and launch them up wind in a fan pattern and see if I can locate potential lift that would be heading my way... After all it is the lift that is closer to the ground that I would need to detect and ride up to the higher reaches of the atmosphere where riding the lift is easier for the bubble/column has expanded… Once used up they are degradable… Do check your local ordinances for some will not even allow those, out in the country this is not as much of an issue…
Kevin