Years ago, I made a collapsible streamer stick which stores in my harness side pocket. When collapsed, it's about 14" long and has a loop handle at the top. The collapsed stick is in a tubular sleeve tethered inside the pocket - all I need do is unzip the pocket just a bit, grab the handle and pull it out. I have a small bungee attached to hold the stick in the collapsed position. With a flick of my thumb, the stick opens and automatically assembles itself, guided by an internal bungee which holds it all together in tension. When assembled, the stick is about 56" long.
The two streamers are nearly 3' long. One is fluorescent orange - the typical flagging tape. The second is a thin mylar "space tape" - highly reflective silver prisms. Between the two, I have a high-visibility streamer, which tells me wind direction the entire time it's deployed, not just in the moment it comes to earth. I can see it and determine wind direction from as high as 1000' AGL.
I rarely use it, preferring to use any available ground-based resources (trees, bushes, grasses, water, etc.) the vast majority of the time. It's been a couple of years since I've needed it, for example. I also only use it when landing in very rural fields at the end of an XC flight. On the occasions when I've needed it however, it's been terrific.
RM
Add description Streamer Collapsed.JPG (91.91 KiB) Viewed 2463 times
Add description Streamer Deployed 2.JPG (6.46 MiB) Viewed 2463 times