Glossary
Defining all of the soaring terminology that’s fit to print.
Dynamic Soaring
There’s a good chance you are already familiar with dynamic soaring (DS) but may not know it. Seabirds like the albatross and the pelican use DS to fly for long distances across the ocean without much if any flapping of their wings. By skimming very close to the waves on the surface of the ocean, the superbly adapted birds expertly extract minute scraps of energy from the variations in wind velocity they find at or near the wave crests.
The R/C soaring incarnation of DS involves counterintuitively flying on the lee side of the slope, away from the prevailing wind — the exact opposite of traditional slope soaring. The fundamental mechanism of DS is to fly rapidly through the wind velocity gradient from the top of the lee slope to the bottom. A highly experienced pilot can fly from the relatively low velocity wind at the bottom to the higher velocity at the top of the slope and in doing so, extract a little energy to accelerate the aircraft. With repeated circuits through the wind velocity gradient, a positive feedback loop develops and ultimately accelerates the aircraft to phenomenal final velocities. The current record stands at 882 km/h (548 mph) set by Spencer Lisenby at Parker Mountain on January 19th, 2021.
The tantalizing but still elusive goal for some future R/C pilot may well be to emulate the hyper-efficient, almost magical distance flying capabilities of the seabirds for whom DS is simply built into their DNA.
©2021 The NEW R/C Soaring Digest
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