On Sunday, April 26, 2015 at 1:34:53 AM UTC-5, bumper wrote:


GPS, even Garmin's "panel page", which normally works fine for gyro back up in power planes, would be a poor choice for primary "simulated" gyro info in a glider flying in the kind of wave conditions we get at Minden.

GPS "panel page" wings level/turn, course and speed info is all based on ground track, and in high winds track can be back asswards or sideways from the direction the glider is pointing. I have an instrument rating, so have at least some clue, but think being blown sideways or backwards would present a GPS display that would be all but unflyable in turbulence, and in smooth air, if flyable at all, would be a high workload for sure.


Something of that nature was contributing to what was going on during my brief story about flying by compass, in my first post to the thread "Emergency instrumentation for cloud encounters". It wasn't wave, but it was a much slower-flying aircraft than we're generally discussing in this forum, so I became very familiar with the uselessness of a simple GPS-driven "heading" display when windspeed is in the same ballpark as airspeed.

S