View Single Post
  #37  
Old July 15th 18, 02:53 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 580
Default Top Hat Question (XCSoar?)

Fair enough on my past objections to GPS. They were, at the heart of it, primarily financial. I tossed an inexpensive handheld GPS receiver into the cockpit as soon as they were legal and happily coupled it to my LNAV with Dave Ellis's help. My real objective was to slow down the headlong rush to mandatory flight recorders until the oft-promised plunge in prices arrived.. IIRC, those things were over $3,000 in the mid 90s. Anyway, I'm nothing if not adaptable: still trying to do it on the cheap! Haha!

I didn't mean to compare Top Hat and ClearNav. I'm still trying to find a better display for TH so I'd love to have a ClearNav. It looks great. And I love my ClearNav vario (not everything about it, as T8 knows, but it's the best vario I've flown with). I just don't want to pay up for the CN nav display.

[I'm waiting for someone to tell me that a few thousand bucks spread over the remaining years of my soaring career is nothinig; or that I owe it to myself; or that CN is safer and isn't my life worth the price; or something "helpful" like that. ]

I was surprised but pleased to discover just how good TH is, but I have no idea how it compares to CN. Pilot buddies who have flown both (or XCSoar) usually say TH/XCS has 80% to 90% of what CN does. If I ever fly with a CN, I might be less happy with TH. It's certainly not perfect, which is how this thread started.

I agree with WB that you picked a bad example in citing a power loss. I, too, am shielded by the internal battery in the Kobo. And I did have a problem with my Kobo in Cordele last summer (not power, but the GPS feed). I pulled my Dell Streak 5 out, slapped it in the X mount, and was in business a minute later (I always pre-load the task in both devices). The comforting thing is that unlike the Kobo, the Dell is completely self contained including GPS, needing only a USB battery pack for long flights. And while I would lose my CN vario's flight recorder if the power went down, my PowerFLARM Portable/flight recorder also has its own batteries so it will keep chugging away until I get home (take that, Dave Kinsell!).

But all is not lost with CN. I know several well-off types who have redundant purpose-built flight computers and presumably separate power supplies. One well regarded pilot I chatted with at Cordele has a high-end flight computer and also carries a phablet running XCSoar: he says each does certain things better and he uses both.

Regarding open source, it might involve rearchitecting the CN to do it, but I was referring only to the navigation software, just like TH and XCS often get their GPS data from IGC-certified flight recorders such as my PowerFLARM and CNv. But with such a great application in CN already, I'm not sure why you would do it...except for your comment about loving to adopt some of Rob Dunning's TH ideas for use in CN if you could. Hmmmm.

Chip Bearden