Best performing Vario?

On Friday, 28 September 2012 11:29:51 UTC-6, wrote:
On Tuesday, September 25, 2012 8:34:11 AM UTC-6, Tim Mara wrote:

Unfortunately, this question will not be fairly answered as to "which vario



is best" in this forum. What you are going to get is a lot of opinions based



only on what variometers the responders have actually used and possibly what



variometer they used that "they" liked better of the few systems they may



have actually had a chance to use. Few is anyone here will have had an



opportunity to realistically flown with or more over tested in any side by



side comparison all of the most common types, also most will have used



variometers in conjunction with other systems connected to or compared with



what was in place at the time they may have flown with that system.



Clearly variometer technology has changed over the years from the first



pellet variometers to modern pressure transducer and GPS coupled systems.



Many manufacturers today can produce good variometers with very common



electronic parts and devices, added features and connectability to extended



devices will normally be the determining factors in what systems the user



chooses along with a proven history of reliability and support.



tim



Please visit the Wings & Wheels website at www.wingsandwheels.com











"Craig R." wrote in message



...



In your opinion, what was the best performing vario you have ever used?



Specifically, the one that got you centered in and to the top of the



thermal in the least amount of time.







Let's ignore products because they have the latest "bells and whistles"



add ons, latest technology, sexy appearances, or best computer processor.



Basic performance is the only criteria.







I've heard some say the legacy Cambridge units and some say the Sage



mechanical.







Which unit did it for you?



I have used the V7 this season and have really liked it and love the user interface. I am halfway done installing the Butterfly Vario right next to the V7 so we can all see the differences. I plan on doing a video of the two units in action as soon as I can finish the install. Due to limited time to get out and fly this may take another month or two but it will happen this year.



Thanks,

Bruno - B4

Priorities are needed; fishing to feed the family or creating videos to feed the RAS'ers? Come on Bruno

On Sep 28, 12:08*pm, Tobias Bieniek
wrote:
you can see the current implementation of XCSoar athttp://bugs.xcsoar.org/raw-attachment/ticket/2301/552152_459984440688...

if you look close, you notice a blue line originating from the center of the thermal assistant. the other end of the line marks the point of the proposed thermal core and shows you the direction in which you would need to recenter. from what you've mentioned in the previous posting I understand that this indicator needs to be larger and possibly in an arrow-like form, correct?!

there is also an alternative implementation proposed that looks like this:http://bugs.xcsoar.org/raw-attachmen...iedthermalassi...
feel free to comment on that one too. we are always open to suggestions and constructive criticism.

I think the current solution is better. Just make the arrow like in
WinPilot and the aircraft somewhat bigger or replace with the triangle
like in the proposed solution. The new solution is not as good as the
current one, gives less granular information.

What happened to a good pair of eyes, a sensitive butt and any of the above varios?

On Friday, September 28, 2012 6:25:17 PM UTC-7, Wheaton wrote:
What happened to a good pair of eyes, a sensitive butt and any of the above varios?

They are still needed. But what is wrong with progress?!

On Friday, September 28, 2012 9:36:01 AM UTC-7, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 9/28/2012 2:22 AM, Tobias Bieniek wrote:

we are talking about http://www.winpilot.com/images4/PRO_1.gif

right?



actually the xcsoar representation is quite similar, only that the

climb values are not drawn in a 3D way, but using a polar diagram.

The arrow that WinPilot shows is also available in XCSoar, just not

as emphasized and it will get larger once the suggestion to recenter

gets stronger. could you elaborate on what exactly you think is

better in the WinPilot representation?



SeeYou Mobile uses circles of differing size and color around the

thermal circle to show the thermal strength. It also has an arrow

suggesting the direction to move, and an audio alert when you should

level your wings to move the circle. The circles and arrow can be

assessed in a glance, or the audio alone can be used to avoid even the

need for a glance, all of which seem at least as useful as Winpilot's

depiction.



Mobile doesn't have the chart of lift versus time. How is this useful?



--

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to

email me)

The circles used by SYM are very coarse and do not convey much information, nor are they as easily interpreted at a glance. The arrow on SYM does not change length in any meaningful way. In contrast, the Winplot arrow will go from a dot (centered) to a huge thing all across the screen (you are WAY off!), conveying much more instantly. The graph of thermal strength is not useful for centering the thermal, but is useful in deciding when to leave.

On XCSoar, I think the current polar chart is much better than the proposed solutions. The polar chart gives about the same info as the Winpilot cylinder graph, though perhaps not quite as intuitive (up should after all be up, not out....). The arrow though is key, the computer is much fairer at integrating the climb around the circle than your butt or your eyes on a needle. Especially true of a whacky thermal or when your TE is messed up from prop wash. Just make sure the arrow changes length very obviously with lift asymmetry.

On Wednesday, September 26, 2012 4:48:33 PM UTC-5, Tim Mara wrote:
some settings may not function unless the unit is restarted after making the

changes to specific settings

make sure after changing any settings that when you shut down you check the

box to "save new profile"

tim



i always have the save profile box selected when i close see you mobile. this change won't "stick" when i leave the thermal assistant setup box.

Eric,

I have flown with with both SYM and WinPilot. The 3D graphic, auto start and sound are much better in WP than SYM. I wish SYM would offer a near duplicate of WP climb maximizer. Right now SYM takes two turns to start where WP starts after about 90 degrees. WP's graphic is much better in weak conditions. I have tried both of SYM option, both work OK, but why make so so software when there is better examples out there?

The history graph is extremely helpful. It provides a quick glance at the history to tell if the thermal is maintaining strength or slowly getting weaker. In thermals that are hard to really core you get a sinusoidal curve that helps to decide if you can adjust to find the core or leave the thermal. Again, SYM should add this as an option.

On 9/28/2012 6:25 PM, Wheaton wrote:
What happened to a good pair of eyes, a sensitive butt and any of the above varios?

One good reason is fiberglass construction, modern airfoils, and heavy
gliders. Fly slowly at 1-26 or K-6 speeds, and even a pellet vario can
work well. Blast through the thermal at 90-100 knots, full of water ...

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

One good reason is fiberglass construction, modern airfoils, and heavy
gliders. Fly slowly at 1-26 or K-6 speeds, and even a pellet vario can
work well. Blast through the thermal at 90-100 knots, full of water ...
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to


So, the question becomes, what software is best for what conditions? This post assumes that the varios input to the software shows true lift without gusts etc.

The PC SeeYou stats showed that on 200 km of distance yesterday, with overdeveloped cloudbases as low as 2500 ft AGL, average climbs were as low as 1 knot or zero, getting blown home on wind. Most "circles" showed lift and 4 knot gusts at opposite sides of the circle, and sink everywhere else. Moving to one direction to the other resulted in the same thing with a different set of short term lift bubbles. That's trying both slow 45 degree banks, or back and forth sniffing in the bubbly area that had more lift than sink. When you're that low you have to do what you have to do.

Other people's flights on the OLC that day showed pretty mush the same conditions/results, but I didn't see anyone doing the "sniff around" method.

Sometimes you just have to fly around a bubbly area that has more lift than sink, and a 1 minute average lift option on a very weak bubble day would help. That's about the size of a "sniff around" area, which isn't a thermal at all even if there is more lift than sink. "Last thermal" stats on software I've used/seen so far stops working as soon as you go straight for any length of time.

So, what I'm saying is that the software development and discussion seems to be optimized for classic Texas lift silos on nice days, not for overdeveloped low weak days when you'r relying on the circulation from latent heat of liquidization just under cloudbase.

The suggested XCSOAR thermal assistant screen http://bugs.xcsoar.org/raw-attachmen...lassistant.png would work well for these conditions if it would show a one mile sniffing area with bubble clusters, even if you're flying back and forth rather than circling. The outer ring would still work for the classic thermal situation.

So, I would suggest that Tobias' proposal works for more situations than Andrzej's objection, since not all of us can assume classic thermal silos of lift on non-classic lift days.

I sure hope that the ClearNav folks are gathering input here about the benefit of a good climb maximizer feature. I am in agreement with the posters here who think that only WinPilot has gotten it right so far. I do wish that the ClearNav software would include an emulation of the WinPilot climb maximizer so that I can finally ditch the damn PDA from my panel. The zoom-in feature that the ClearNav offers now is nowhere nears as good. As Tim has noted, the maximizer should come on automatically and quickly, then quickly go off when you leave the thermal. The WinPilot continuous graph is way more effective than lift dots.

One characteristic that is also important and not yet mentioned here is the matter of time delay. WinPilot has no discernable delay; whereas other systems, including ClearNav, have a time delay in the display that makes it very difficult to interpret what's really going on when trying to reposition in a thermal.