KRONFELD ON GLIDING AND SOARING.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CLOUD AND THUNDERSTORM SOARING 225
The finest thing about thunderstorm flying is that it
affords us the best means of rendering ourselves entirely
independent of the hill slopes. Often it is unnecessary
to fly backwards and forwards or tack before the slope ;
we just fly straight out, without the slightest turn, along the
front of the roller. We are sky-high above the slope, which
has lost all its influence on us ; as long as the storm travels
and as far as it extends, we can travel with it.
Nevertheless the very finest flight possibilities are to be
obtained by a skilful combination of all the various forms
of flight. It is easy to imagine how we may take advantage
of all the different kinds of soaring on a single
flight.
The pilot starts from a hillside slope, having flown along
it as far as he can. At the end of it he waits till the chance
comes to fly under a cloud to the next mountain range which
is no great distance away. From this he flies off again,
and soon finds himself confronted by a great gap which it is
impossible to cross unless he can gain height considerably.
This he does by waiting for a mighty cloud, which he climbs
through ; he then flies with and above it over the broad plain
to his next point of support. If he has started off on a day
on which the weather forecast indicates the probability
of a thunderstorm, he has hit upon the very happiest
conditions for long distance flight which can possibly be
expected from our present knowledge of soaring flight.
If he actually succeeds in getting into contact with the
thunderstorm and in flying with it across country, and if he
is capable of steady endurance, then this flight is bound to
develop into a prodigious exploit. It is often possible
to spend a whole day in the plane by making use of the
successive changes in the weather conditions.
We see how the methods of high efficiency soaring flight
have been built up by experience gained in endurance
flights, slope soaring, cloud flying and thunderstorm flying,
and we must learn to take advantage of all these, singly and
in combination, according to our needs. The possibilities
of these various kinds of flying, particularly as regards cloud
and thunderstorm flights, are by no means completely
exhausted. By making use of our present knowledge of
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