What is thermal soaring?
It’s soaring using big bubbles and currents of warm air that float upwards like an invisible hot air balloon. If conditions are right, the bubbles are so big and their rate of rise is so high that gliders flying in circles within them are lifted up. You can’t see thermals, but you can often see where they are – because birds circle in them and climb without flapping their wings. And the tops of thermals are also often marked by puffy, cotton wool like, clouds in a blue sky. As the thermal air rises it cools. If it cools enough, the water vapour contained in it condenses, forming a cloud.
