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Suggestion - a house thermal


ManuelL

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Looking in the ATC forum it makes sense to limit the glider pattern to the south of the airfield. However, this places quite a large portion of the glider pattern over the lake where usually no lift can be expected. With older gliders it might get difficult to find a suitable thermal using CumulusX alone, as you can't move away too far from the pattern.

I would therefore suggest to add 1 or 2 house thermals that might make it easier for gliders to climb out. One location which looks quite reasonalbe to me might be a little quarry southwest of the glider field - although the surface area might be a bit small to generate a good lift.

What do you think?

Kind regards

Manuel

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Yes, I would suggest a thermal in a fixed location near the airfield (similar to the thermals included with Emma Field).

It is also not so uncommon in real life that some locations will produce a quite reliable lift (provided you have weather conditions that can produce lift at all). I would find the quarry in the picture quite suitable as it is oriented in south direction and the sand will heat up quite well. However, I am not an expert for metereology. Maybe someone else wants to give their comment as well.

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But surely the whole idea of gliding (and Joachim will put me right) is the searching for thermals after the launch. Therefore, I state we want no fixed thermals.

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But surely the whole idea of gliding (and Joachim will put me right) is the searching for thermals after the launch. Therefore, I state we want no fixed thermals.

I can place random thermals which may change place and intensity at each update.

If you really need it of course...

But: doing thermals is extremely simple in FSX, so perhaps someone among you, who truly knows what and where is needed could also do an often changing small bgl file.

Andras

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I can place random thermals which may change place and intensity at each update.

If you really need it of course...

But: doing thermals is extremely simple in FSX, so perhaps someone among you, who truly knows what and where is needed could also do an often changing small bgl file.

Andras

Hmmm, I like the idea of changing thermal positions except for the randomness, as in real life thermal positions are not random but highly dependent on the ground surface. For example you will normally get no lift over the lake. There are a lot of fields in the area that would be good candidates though. I also didn't want to suggest planting lots of thermals in the area. I was thinking just 1 or 2 thermals would be nice to give the wooden gliders a better chance to get away from the airport and to "connect" to cumulus x without intersecting with the other traffic patterns.

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Ahmm... house thermal?

Sorry, this destroys the idea of gliding completely.

There are places in real life, where thermals occure more often than in other places, but there is absolutely no place, where you have always a thermal. Even hughe powerplants are not always on, and produce thermals.

Look at Peter Lürkes CumulusX!

It is by far the best thermal program you can find and makes thermals for you complete with clouds and so on.

Built in scenery-thermals would be very disturbing. FSX thermals are extremely unrealistic

And btw, it is not unreal to get a thermal above a lake. Thermals are not that ground dependent, theory tells you.

bests Joachim

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I just took the Discus for a flight from the grass strip of AF.

Didn't find any thermals, so ended back up on the field very soon.

Was the first time I used CumulusX though, so there may be some problems with setting that up etc.

But I agree that the basic point of gliding is finding the thermals in the first place,

so adding them static, may be easy, but is unrealistic and defeats that point.

but on the other hand, the placing of the grass strip doesn't make it easy either: a large runway on one side (have to stay away from traffic there) and a large body of water on the other.

Even if there are thermals over the water, I'd prefer not to take my chances there, should I miss and have to land out... :P

I have to see if I can get CumulusX etc set up properly before I really say yes or no (just my opinion of course).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Normally cumulusX! is set up correctly when you download it as an average for Germany...

Don't worry, if you don't find a thermal on your first flight. Even the best pilots in the world don't find thermaly on each flight.

The water is no problem, because you never search for thermals lower that the traffic cirquit for gliders. That means, that you stop at 150m AGL and go for a landing.

The problem with the water is, that water normally does not PRODUCE thermals. there can be thermals over the lake leaning in the wind and higher but in your normal altitude after take off it is difficult. This makes the whole thing a bit more challenging. But there are always options. Make an aerotow or a self launch, to get away. Winch shouln't be the first choice.

Bests Joachim

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  • 2 months later...

Hello,

Looking at the Andras field from above, the runway and other roads & taxiways around it should produce very reliable thermals, I don't know if FSX models thermals that way, It Should, and also, I don't know how the real winds are in the area, like in Florida we have mostly easterly winds most of the time except in winter, but if the winds are mostly northerly in that area then there should be tremendous lift on the slopes to the south of the airpark from the winds hitting the mountains and shooting upward at an even faster rate than the wind speed itself, and if the wind is 15 knots and above it should produce very strong lift to thousands of feet ASL. Does CumulusX model this? I just started using it last night. It seems to work pretty good. I need to read more about it to learn how to adjust the settings. In the same respect if the winds are coming from the south across the mountains we could expect turbulence and rotor effect in the Andras area. But I think we could reliably have a thermal producing lift from the airport itself, and it would be realistic to some degree.

Rockitglider

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