Windicators

[Flyonline]

I thought a few of you might be interested in some of the playing around with windicators for the past little while I've been doing.

Firstly, I fly RC gliders a bit (a lot more in the past), so reading winds and thermals has been instilled in me for quite a few years. When you've got a couple of thousand $$ riding on which way you read the wind, it gets kind of important….

Now while I never used anything other than a strip of wool on the end of my antenna or on a couple of poles further away, there are other ways of reading the wind - body hair is sensitive enough to pick up at least a general direction (especially light winds), watching grass or trees waving in the breeze (or not), seeing spider-webs being caught up in rising thermals, watching birds facing into the breeze along with others. All these are good when you're on top of a windswept clear hill, or open grasslands but not much help when you're 1km up a tight gully with thick bush all around you. We're all familiar with the old windicator - a puff of white chalk dust from a shaker bottle, but I've been experimenting with other options lately for a bit more info.

Traditional Windicator
We use a filter medium at work that is super light and very white, so I grabbed some to try out. It's much lighter than chalk dust but still only lasts a few seconds so really only gives you a wind direction and strength in the immediate vicinity i.e. less than a few meters. It's quick and easy though, unless it blows back into your face. It does give some info on wind strength also.

Bubbles
Yep, break out the kids toys and grab the bubble tube. Bubbles are great because it is possible to create a long stream of them which gives an indication of direction over time, as well as how the stream downwind can break up and disperse. They're also good in bright light as the sun shines off them. The downsides are smell (it's soap after all) and the light/movement. I don't use these a lot, but they can be interesting and fun to try. Some of the RC guys use them constantly to give readings on wind direction and thermal behaviour (two different things).

Bullrush/Cumbungi
I came on to this via hearing some yanks talk about using milkweed. My first idea was dandelion, but it would take a lot of work to get enough to be useful. I also thought of thistles, but they're a serious pest and I don't want to be spreading any around further! Then one day I was walking with my family along a creek and noticed the drifts of bullrush seeds. I mucked around with a handful of heads, and found that when dry they produce prodigious amounts of seed fluff - so much so that I strongly suggest anyone contemplating using them make sure they are contained at all times when you're inside, and don't break them up where you don't want a mess!!! Honestly, 1 big seed head would give you enough for a lifetimes use. There is an invasive species along with native ones, so as I was unsure as to what I had, I took the precaution of microwaving the seeds to death before using them. I put a head inside a plastic pipe to microwave it, then transferred it to a little tube with a cap. It's simple enough to strip a few out and toss into the wind. They are amazingly light and will fly forever, I've been constantly surprised by how many come blowing back past me 30sec or a minute later. It's really interesting standing at the top of a gully and watching a stream of these slide down the hill, or watch most of them drift off in one direction while a few suddenly hit a thermal or sink patch and head off at 90 degrees to the main wind. I tend to use these more to get longer range info rather than all the time e.g. coming to a split in the gully which way is the wind more likely to head or does a slight cross gully breeze carry my scent over the ridge into the next gully or continue to follow the flow of the land? These are also good because they're working until you can't see them, be it 5sec or 5min. The windicator disperses quickly and bubbles pop after a while also. The only downsides I can find so far are preparation and they are a little more difficult to get out once the first few cm's or so are used up and the tube is a little bulky. I've also found it really useful to simply take the top off and blow across the tube which disperses a puff of seeds which then drift off in the direction of the wind. I originally had them in a ziploc bag with a corner cut off, but they became compressed and really no better than the windicator dust until I found the tube trick (an old urine sample tube in my case as they have wide necks).

White Thread Taped to Barrel
While I've not used this on my rifle yet, I used it all the time when flying RC by having a long VCR/Tape streamer attached to my transmitter antenna but it really only gives a very localised wind direction and strength. It can be handy to track the average wind over time though, or matching your local conditions with observations further away - I used to use it to predict incoming thermals from the patterns in the grass or water below.

Cigarette Lighter
The ol' ubiquitous cigarette lighter is something that's never tempted me. That horrible scratching metallic or clicking sound plus a bright light in lowlight conditions seems kind of counterproductive to me, but if it works why not?

I used to use the traditional windicator dust, but since finding the bullrush, I've switched to using it a lot more as it does give a fair bit more info. It is a little more complicated to prepare, but the benefits are far outweighed by the results on the ground, though I still do carry both the bullrush and the windicator in my bino rig.

[bigpete]

That bulrush idea is pretty good might give it a go myself

[Oldbloke]

Interesting.
How do you prepare it?

I'm guessing you have seen this. Don't use it often myself.

Screenshot_20250102-151016_Gallery.jpg (195.12 KiB) Viewed 2599 times

[Oldbloke]

Well, this could get interesting.
I've always used some corn flour in an old puffer bottle. (probably not often enough) Sometimes cotton on the end of the barrel.

I did the google and I found:

Milk weed seeds. (NFI what it is)
Bullrush (seeds)
Dandelion seeds
Thistle seeds
A pinch of a cotton ball (sounds smart & easy)
Cut up feathers.

[bigpete]

Milk weed is what monarch butterfly caterpillars feed on. Has a seed pod full.of fluffy seeds

[Flyonline]

That bulrush idea is pretty good might give it a go myself

Send me a PM with your address.......

Interesting.
How do you prepare it?

I'm guessing you have seen this. Don't use it often myself.

Screenshot_20250102-151016_Gallery.jpg

Bullrush? Microwave in a PVC pipe to kill the viability of seeds.

Yep have seen that before when flying RC stuff. Useless really for shooting I think

Sen me a PM with address if you want to try some.


I should have posted this a few months ago as I think, (going from locally) that the seed heads are now dried and exploded so will need to be harvested next year ~spring/early summer.

[bigpete]

Thanks for the offer mate but I'm surrounded by swamps and water ways full of bulrushes

[Oldbloke]

Thx. I have a few creeks nearby. I'll check k them out next spring.

[Fester]

Lots of great ideas, I never put a thought into it.
I had a hard enough time finding a powder as light as the original indicator.
Got a bag of the power that weight lifters use but forgot to compare it with my bought bottle of Windicator.

[Oldbloke]

Been thinking of alternatives.

Rabbit fur
Fox fur
Pink bats

[Oldbloke]

Sooo, drove past a dam today. Had bulrushes.
Picked a couple of cigars, but they are hard, no fluff. What's the go?


Out of curiosity I tried:
Roof Insulation, rockwool I think. Poor
Cotton. Poor
Plain flour, tends to clump. Corn flour is Def better.

[bigpete]

You gotta break them up. But they may also be too early

[Flyonline]

I noticed new seed pods yesterday also, maybe they have 2 lots of flowers/seeds? Or maybe they take ages to dry out before splitting?

Yeah, they have to be dry. You should start to see drifts of the seeds around when they’re ready, and you should be able to break them apart pretty easily.

As I said, do this outside!!

[Oldbloke]

The ones I got are native, not the introduced type. Female part had flowered already.

Yeh, I was thinking perhaps too early in the season for them.

I'll set these aside to dry and see what happens.
Also check where I got them in about 2 weeks.

[Wapiti]

How many of you guys watch the long grass?
If you have it around, that is.

When mates and I had more time on the farm, we used to shoot on a 1500m range I made. By made, I mean I stuck star pickets at every 100m mark out to there, along a straight bit of track with a ridge as a backstop. The 0 point was under a big shady box tree. We just used tarps and bipods.
Because game shooting ranges are never at a distance that with adequate calibres, wind matters even slightly for us we had no idea.

We did research and all the experts used electronic wind meters, but we found when looking across our "range" at the grass, little dips or influences to the sides moved the grass differently in different ranges, sometimes left and right 4-500m apart. Some spots breeze, some nothing. Sometimes under our tree we had wind, out at the target or halfway nothing.

So we ditched the gadgets and learned to read the grasses, including right at our front. We had surprising results, only positive. In the end, we could judge almost spot on, at least a hit on our party balloon targets every time. I remember having some girlfriends out that had never shot a rifle over 22LR when kids, shoot my TRG 338 Lapua off the biped at 500m, 5 out of 5 hits each on balloons stapled to a log there. I remember saying, aim at the right edge of the balloons, its a "half a balloon" wind.
Balloons are head sized. Or blown up to that best approximation.

I guess on a rifle range, the wind might also be different at a few distances out there, even to the point of cancelling itself out. I'd imagine most ranges are slashed, so no long grass, and those ribbons/flags would replace it, make it way easier I'd imagine.
But in the real world if suddenly needing to hit a small balloon sized target anywhere at way out, there aren't flags. So we just got time looking at what was around us, even when stalking.