Ways to stay airborne in a glider

I think it´s time to talk a bit more about soaring, since my last five posts were all about photography. If  you have ever wondered how all these gliders,flex-wings, and hang gliders are able to stay airborne for such a long time, you´ll find your answers in this post.

Basically there are 3 kinds of up-winds that a glider is able to use, there are some more but they are either to close to the ground to or occur to rarely to be used by a glider.

• Thermal up-winds

I´ll start off with the thermal up-winds ,because they are the most common ones.They are streams of rising air that are formed on the ground through the warming by sunlight . The warm air rises untis it reaches the

inversion that stops the warm air from rising higher.Here often form cumuli that indicate that underneath them a up-wind is located.In these thermal up-winds it´s neccesary to fly narrow circles at a slow speed to stay in it.The climb-rate depends how good your plane, your up-wind and especcialy where you are flying.

Here in germany my best climb-rate  was about 3m/s,but in tropical areas or deserts around the equator 

your climbrate can reach about 5-6m/s.

• Ridge lift

When the wind blows on to the side of a hill it drifts it drifts upwards.Flying in this up-wind doesnt get you very high but if the wind blows day and night very seadily it´s possible to stay up there 24/7.There were many record attempts but nowadays they are forbidden because of the danger of exhaustion.

• Wave lift

Ok now to my favourite, the wave lift.I´ve never tryed this but I will definitely have to check it out.

The powerfully rising and sinking air in mountain waves was discovered by glider pilot, Wolf Hirth, in 1933.Gliders can sometimes climb in these waves to great altitudes, although pilots must use supplementary oxygen to avoid hypoxia.

This lift is often marked by long, stationary lenticular (lens-shaped) clouds lying perpendicular to the wind.Mountain wave was used to set the current altitude record of 15,453 metres (50,699 ft) on 29 August 2006 over El Calafate, Argentina. The pilots, Steve Fossett and Einar Enevoldson, wore pressure suits. The current world distance record of 3,008 kilometres (1,869 mi) by Klaus Ohlmann (set on 21 January 2003)was also flown using mountain waves in South America.

Thats a lenticular cloud it stays extremely steady