Thermal Assistant

What does thermal assistant do?

Thermal assistant is a feature of Oudie which should help you to climb better.

It analyses the lift in your thermal, calculates the average and assesses how strongly the vario values change in each circle. You may choose between Bubbles or a  Zoomed map to show the best lift zone. 

Note: By default, Zooming is enabled, while Bubbles are disabled. 

It uses three ways to catch your attention and convey information. 

• Zoomed Map or Snail Trailis the most useful display feature. The colour of the trail indicates the relative strength of the lift. Colours higher up the spectrum (towards pink/ infrared) indicate stronger lift, lower down the spectrum (towards blue/ultraviolet) indicate weaker lift or sink.

Red is better than MC, blue is > 0.5m/s less than MC, yellow is in between.

The arrow points towards the maximum lift in the previous 360. The arrow is longer where the variance is larger, therefore the length of the arrow tells you how “strong” the advice is to move your circle elsewhere.

• Thermal assistant bubbles is displayed if the variance for displaying the thermal assistant is large enough (see Settings – Thermal). The size of the bubbles represents the amount of lift. The colour of the bubble is relative to the MacCready setting.
• Thermal Assistant audio warning goes off if the variance is large enough (see Settings > Thermal).  It whistles the number of seconds or degrees (see Settings > Thermal) before the glider will reach the area where maximum lift was reached in the previous 360. 

Note: due to the difference in airspeed this feature tends to be much more useful for Gliders and faster Hang gliders and less useful for Paragliders.

We were not trying to develop a Thermal Wizard, just an Assistant for the times when you are tired or have better things to do than focus 100% on the thermal.

It will only sound a warning if the thermal varies significantly in strength.

Your job:

• find a thermal
• start circling
• look outside
• observe the thermal clues
• observe traffic in your vicinity
• make use of Thermal Assistant’s suggestion

Assistant’s job:

• analyze the thermal
• find the strongest lift in the circle
• make audio and visual suggestions

If you would like to display Thermal assistant regardless of the current vario variation, feel free to navigate to the Menu and press the Thermal Assistant button, if it is a feature you enjoy regularly you can also assign an action (to the Vario for example) to call up the assistant. 

If you find Thermal Asstant is obscuring the view even if screen is locked you can cancel it with a simple press anywhere on the screen.

It will stay hidden until you next begin circling.

How do I turn off Thermal Assistant?

Pressing anywhere on the screen whilst in Thermal Assistant view will return the device to Map view.