I asked Steve Hill at Moriarty airport today and he told me that it was
useful for determining wind during essentially straight flight, as in ridge
or wave soaring. Luke also sent me a nice email with the same explanation
so I now understand.

Personally, I don't need to know the wind direction/speed when I can simply
change heading to achieve the effect I want. Also, I wouldn't know how to
use it efficiently in real time. As an Air Force student pilot I learned to
use the rusty, trusty E-6b computer to graphically calculate crab angles for
450 KTAS or thereabouts.

Now, having said the above, I recall folks asking me why I wanted an outside
air temperature gauge. I just wanted to know the temperature, so I also
understand folks wanting to know what the wind is doing.

I learned "variation", in the Air Force; my wife and I both learned
"declination" while working as radar systems engineers. Which is correct so
long as you know what you're talking about? Who cares?

Oh, yeah - reading my flight manual the other day I discovered that an OAT
gauge is mandatory in my glider when carrying water ballast. Go figure.

BTW, using the magnetic compass in a jet is considered an emergency
procedure. At least it was in the 70s...


"Pam Howarth" wrote in message
...

Hmm...the whiskey (whisky) compass eh? Next you'll be saying why have a
flight director at all when a couple of pith balls worked so well? The
LX7007 requires you to fly a couple (or more) of nice concentric circles
before it can calculate the wind; few thermals, especially in the
mountains, seem to be nice round columns. You may also have noticed that
the whiskey compass (and yes I do have one) is pretty useless when banked
over in a thermal?
Real wind information is available (Butterfly Vario, Clearnav etc) and I
think it is valuable but it comes with a multi thousand Euro price tag so
upgrading my "old" (and perhaps not very reliable) technology is an
option.
Your "declination" & "variation" comments are a joke, yes?

At 16:24 15 October 2013, Dan Marotta wrote:
Whatever happened to what we old-timers used to call the "whiskey
compass"?

Why would you have to buy a compass module for your flight computer when
you
(should) have a simple, reliable, cheap magnetic compass on the panel?

And, assuming you have a GPS, doesn't ground track work well enough? Do
you
really need magnetic heading? Don't forget to subtract variation
(declination for mon-military types). Oh, that's probably add variation
if

you're in the eastern half of the world.


"Charlie Papa" wrote in message
...
On Monday, October 14, 2013 2:59:33 PM UTC-4, Pam Howarth wrote:
Does anyone have first hand experience of the LX7007 coupled to the "LX

Compass module"? Specifically at how good it is at calculating the wind

direction/speed?

By itself the LX7007 is less than convincing whilst the Oudie is quite

hopeless. As LX want �480 just for the "Compass module" I thought
some

first hand feedback would be helpful?

The "money no object" solution seems to be the Butterfly vario, but
again

there seems to be little pilot feedback on the web.

The LX 7007 is the most cogent argument I have encountered against gun
control, - although the collateral damage to the glider might be a
balancing
argument for elniency.

But, if the compass modue functions as well as my 'Most Reliable Partner
in

Glidng" flight computer did, find another solution. For me, it was and is

the LX 8080.

It's fantastic. And, if I were to consider additional options, I would
have
faith they would work.