On Dec 16, 8:29*pm, wrote:
I'm a happy use of SoarPilot. *On course I use it in "track up" mode
because that gives me
the most screen space along my path of flight. *I'm not interested in
what's 90 degrees off
the course line (not usually anyway). *While thermalling I'm not
looking at the PDA much;
the color coding that SP does for the lift is usually too far behind
what I'm doing, and it's too
hard to see. *All I look at is the average lift calculation so I know
when the lift is petering out
(I leave when the 20sec average drops below that bottom-top average,
which usually means
the thermal is down to 80% of its best). *Well, I do look at the
course line, but again
the depiction is usually a couple seconds out of date so it's easy to
overshoot the
course line if I depend on the PDA. *Instead, I try to pick out
landmarks in the direction
I want to go so I stay oriented, and then pick out lift sources in the
last several times around
in the thermal. *As far as looking at the map (I refer to that too) I
use that both "course-up"
and "north-up" depending on whether I want to find landmarks or read
the text printed on
the map.

-- Matt


Track up for me - makes it easier to align what's on the map with the
view out the window, particularly for course deviations, finding
alternates, picking MAT turnpoints, etc.

9B