On Monday, 13 April 2015 11:11:08 UTC+3, Surge wrote:
On Monday, 13 April 2015 08:36:57 UTC+2, krasw wrote:
Intentional cloud flying with artificial horizon that comes with modern variometer is plain suicidal. They are not designed to be as rugged as imc flying requires. Simple disturbance in GPS reception is enough to make your AH to reboot in cloud.

That's a rather stupid implementation. Do you know which units display this behaviour?
From what I've read the LXNav S8/S80 AHRS doesn't need a GPS source and relies on it's inertial platform to provide an attitude display (without heading unless you add the compass module). I don't have one to confirm though..

The attitude app running on my Samsung N7100 (Note 2) doesn't reboot when it loses a GPS lock. In fact it doesn't use GPS at all but rather an inertial platform based on the 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope and 3-axis magnetometer built into the phone. I don't rely on it when flying but it's surprisingly accurate and reliable and doesn't display any drift or even tumbling at odd attitudes.

I find it really hard to believe that a mass produced consumer smartphone can turn out to be more reliable than an instrument specifically created for the aviation market.

Please name and shame the instruments you're referring to so that I can avoid them.

I think it is safe to assume that most "inertial platform" implementations use as many data sources as possible, including gps. Not sure how stupid or not that is. I have no need to name or shame anyone as all manufacturers strictly forbid imc flying with their instruments *only*, for a good reason.

Smartphone apps I have tried are pretty useless if you are thermalling, but possibly better than nothing for level flight.

It takes surprisingly long time to comprehend that AH or gyro is failing by the way, you have contradictory indications but no knowledge which is correct. I now have a whole new unsterstanding how imc accidents can unfold.