Exploration by sailplanes of the structure of thermals

Abstract

Attempts have been made to meaasure the temperature excess of thermals by means of a sailplane and to correlate this with the size and the  rate of rise of a thermal. A Slingsby Skylark 2 was used, the only instrument carried in addition to the standard ones was a sensitive temperature indicatior which was capable of measuring the wet and dry bulb temperatures to 0.01 C. A miniture wire recorder was carried on  which was transcribed readings of altitude, temperature, time, rate of climb and visual observatins.