On Feb 28, 3:53*pm, staylo wrote:
On Feb 28, 3:19*pm, "Dan Marotta" wrote:

Just as soon as I start needing to fly coupled Cat III ILSs to minimums, I'm
gonna snag me one of those... *Imagine - instead of simply penetrating a
turn cylinder, you can now set up a holding pattern over the turn point and
have a cuppa joe while you wait for your competitors to catch up!

I guess a bit of skepticism is appropriate now that we've got the
likes of synthetic vision pitched at the GA / gliding market...

I'm not a competition pilot (barely a pilot these days!), but turning
a turnpoint cylinder efficiently seems to involve trying to clip the
very edge of an imaginary point in space, one which can only be
perceived using electronic equipment - and this while competitors are
attempting to accomplish the same. A good HUD indicator could
potentially allow the pilot to complete that task without breaking
their lookout scan.

Granted that's not much benefit to Dan and his clean set of heels, but
might save the rest of the pack from an uncommanded coffee cup
inversion somewhere down the line!

Can't wait 'till my panel costs more than my glider.

Did the age of pneumatics give a smaller competitive gap between top
end and low end hardware? I'd be surprised if glider instrumentation
has ever benefitted from mass-production equipment to such a degree as
now... with the possible exception of the yawstring...

My wife tells people I bought a $50,000 piece of yarn. The thing it
was attached to was free...

I tell people that the piece of yarn is the only instrument I have
that doesn't lie to me.

(In a related story - I started the take-off roll at Uvalde this past
summer and my trusty yaw-string departed! My first and only flight
without one and I felt naked!)

Derek