"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote in message
. 4.170...
"Jim Wilkins" fired this volley in
news:mnef03$841
:

They rose slowly on thermals and glistened like
polished metal from the sun and cloud reflections as they drifted
out
of sight over the distant treetops.


Did the same in 1958, Jim! It was chancy, whether or not you could
find
a thermal, but in Florida, they're common, especially if you knew
what to
look for in the trees nearby. So I had about a 3-4% success rate.

It got better when I started launching them wrapped up from a huge
slingshot! G

L

I used the round cans that Scotch tape came in for the catapulted
parachutes, with the opening delay set by how I wound the shrouds
around the can, but the thermal chutes were too light to open by
themselves. I dragged them open and then flipped the mass of air they
contained upwards to get them started.

The thermals aren's so strong in NH, our thunderstorms can't compare
to Florida's. They are driven by the lower adiabatic lapse rate of
saturated vs drier air, ie wet air becomes more buoyant the higher it
rises because it doesn't cool as fast as the dry air around it. Thus
we have thermal updrafts and thunderstorms.

-jsw