Identification and Use of Air Lift for Heavier than Air Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed for automatically detecting better lift and using the lift to stay aloft longer, provide recommendation to the aerial vehicle's pilot or fully controlling the flight of the aerial vehicle. The disclosed techniques pertain to aerial vehicles such as airplanes or model airplanes, gliders or model gliders, sailplanes or model sailplanes, hang-gliders, paragliders, speedflying, parafoils etc. The invention uses sensors located on the aerial vehicle to gauge air lift (updraft, thermal, ridge lift etc.) to extend the time the aerial vehicle may be kept aloft. The data flowing from the sensors is fed into a computer, that may provide recommendations to the pilot or to the autopilot (Computer) of the best path to take, to find better lift and to stay aloft.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.