required LD versus required MC to make it home ??

On Aug 23, 7:02*am, Andy wrote:
On Aug 23, 6:40*am, "kirk.stant" wrote:



Required L/D to target tells you what you need to achieve. It makes no
sense to fold wind into that, its just the distance divided by the
difference in height. Achieved L/D tells you what you are getting
obviously with wind affects as well, all without any assumptions about
polars, mass, bugs, or wind. That is the beauty of working with L/D
required and achieved.

But even better than asking on r.a.s. can you find a local
accomplished XC pilot(s) who can mentor you on all this stuff?

Darryl-

Darry is spot on. *I would go a little further and dispense with the
Achieved L/D - I just use L/D required and watch for the trend: if it
is getting better (lower L/D required) then you are gaining on the
glide and can either speed up or relax more. *If it's getting worse,
or not changing and looks a bit high (say more than half your
published L/D), then *you need to stop and get some altitude. *That
takes care of the wind, bugs, etc.

Totally agree with getting rid of all the navboxes that are "info
only" - unless your PDA is hooked up to a 302 and getting air data,
using GPS for fancy speed to fly info is a distraction. *Use it as a
digital sectional, with your task, airspace, and landable fields (with
L/D required) on it, and in most cases turn off the terrain (exception
is in ridge country where the terrain can be really useful). *Less is
more!

Cheers,

Kirk
66

I generally use arrival altitude for everything, especially final
glide. *That way I know how much I need to climb to get to my goal and
wind is accounted for automatically in the computer. I typically
program in 1,000' for arrival altitude and speed up/slow down
depending on whether the arrival height is building or declining.
Typically I dial in 4 knots for the computation because it corresponds
to a typical cruise speed. I try not to set below 3 knots unless it's
a last resort. Except on very long glides low Mc settings just don't
yield enough glide angle margin - a little sink and you're at best L/D
or can't make it at all.

9B

I do the same with arrival altitude, only am more conservative than
Andy. I increase or decrease MacCready accordingly. It seems the
only rational piece of data you need - arrival altitudes of less than
zero are likely to be less than useful.

Mike

On Aug 23, 12:32*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Aug 22, 7:10*pm, akiley wrote:



Hi All,

I'm aware of and use the math formula to get my rental Cirrus back to
home base, but I like to back it up with SeeYou mobile. *I know it's
recommended to use required LD to target making sure you have entered
a correct polar and safety altitude. *But this doesn't account for
winds does it? *If you are flying away from your target wondering how
far you can safely fly, you can't depend on required LD because big
headwinds can make this number useless. *As an example, I notice I've
got 25LD required to my home base. *I turn around and because of the
headwinds, I can only make 18LC. *Outlanding anyone.

I'm curious about MC required to target. *Wouldn't that be better to
use if you make sure all data is correct such as polar, winds, safety
altitude and make sure the correct target is activated. *This way, I
can wander away from my home field and I know if my MC doesn't fall
below about say 7 (which plays out to about 20 LD in no wind) I am
fairly assured of making it and that this MC will be wind aware. *Of
course it can't know about hitting lots of sink, but it seems a better
way for my type of non task, local soaring.

Before I finish, I would like to note that the MC to target NavBox in
SeeYouM doesn't always update very quickly if you change the winds
aloft manually. *For this problem, I scroll the MC value untill the
little glide slope type indicater on the left side of SeeYou centers,
then compare that MC to the required MC NavBox.

akiley

What is "the math formula". I am aware of many different math
formulas, including many for calculating/estimating glider performance/
navigation. But what are you using?

Thanks for the good advice Darryl,

My personal math formula is that, without winds, I want to be 15:1 L/D
from my home airport, (not a cross country pilot yet) with a 1000
foot safety buffer. So this is 400 feet per NM. So for 5 miles, it's
just 400x5=2000 feet AGL plus 1000 safety = 3000AGL. If there is a 5
knot headwind on the return home, I would divide the Cirrus 46kt best
LD speed by 41 to get 0.9. That .9 can be divided by my 400 feet per
NM to get 445 feet per NM for my new calculated L/D to target. I
guess there are other factors, but this is ballpark for me. When I
start to get 20 L/D from home I start to get nervous. But my formula
is roughly based on one half my best LD plus a bit. I can't remember
which book I got my math from, but it's airspeed plus or minus winds
divided by airspeed which gives you a number to modify your L/D. Then
divide 6000 by the modified L/D to get feet per NM required to reach
your target, then add any safety altitude you desire to that agl
altitude.

Required Mc is a kind of noisy number, especially if you think the
difference between two large numbers helps you much. It is sensitive
to high speed polar data and if you tried to fly it in a rental glider
with an unknown actual polar without a lot of experience at pushing it
is likely meaningless.

For recreational flying, unless you are racing with lots of
experience, I would focus less on twiddling Mc (or virtually twiddling
with SeeYou Mobile telling you its Mc estimate to goal) and more on L/
D achieved and L/D required as one data pair and on arrival height as
another. Arrival height factors in wind, uses the polar, bugs, Mc. Set
some sane low Mc near what you actually fly at. Pad the polar with
%bugs (start with max of 30% if new to XC) and have an arrival safety
height (at least your usual pattern height, more when starting). You
can try adjusting it at times and see what it does to your arrival
height but if you are at the stage it sounds like mostly leave it set
and don't go chasing large Mc numbers. Hide the navbox, there are
better things to look at. In fact hide almost everything, except the
two L/D boxes and arrival height and use the wind indicator on the
main map to check it looks sane. And forget the rest, including the
silly glideslope display, I cannot think of anybody who really uses
that thing (oops now we'll hear from them...).

Well, I've flown long enough to know not to trust electronics. I have
600 power hours using all sorts of navigators. Funny, when you use a
Garmin 396 on a computer, it sets magnetic variation to user set
instead of auto. SeeYou has quite a few bugs and gochas too. So my
primary is look at the down angle back to the airport.

I do monitor arrival height, but it's really just another way of
looking at MC as far as I can tell. The little glide slope indicator
is also sort of another way of looking at your MC to target. I figure
if I keep an eye on all of those, I'm less likely to trip over a bug
in SeeYou which I've found several of.

Required L/D to target tells you what you need to achieve. It makes no
sense to fold wind into that, its just the distance divided by the
difference in height. Achieved L/D tells you what you are getting
obviously with wind affects as well, all without any assumptions about
polars, mass, bugs, or wind. That is the beauty of working with L/D
required and achieved.

This is a good point, but since wind isn't factored into required L/D,
you don't know what your achieved L/D is unless you turn around and
head back to the airport. But it does seem to be safer and more
straight forward. And I suppose since you are always aware of the
winds, you can make a fairly accurate guess as to what you achieved L/
D is likely to be. If it's a straight headwind home at 5 knots, I
could just mentally modify what I expect to achieve.

But even better than asking on r.a.s. can you find a local
accomplished XC pilot(s) who can mentor you on all this stuff?

Yes, my club has several and I'm talking to them too. It's also funny
about gadgets in aircraft. My feeling is learn to use the autopilot
and whenever you can, learn navigators using simulators. Half
learning electronics is the most dangerous in my opinion. I enjoy
navigators, but I'm strict as to when and how to use them.

Darryl

On Aug 23, 8:17*am, akiley wrote:
On Aug 23, 12:32*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:



On Aug 22, 7:10*pm, akiley wrote:
[snip]
Required L/D to target tells you what you need to achieve. It makes no
sense to fold wind into that, its just the distance divided by the
difference in height. Achieved L/D tells you what you are getting
obviously with wind affects as well, all without any assumptions about
polars, mass, bugs, or wind. That is the beauty of working with L/D
required and achieved.

This is a good point, but since wind isn't factored into required L/D,
you don't know what your achieved L/D is unless you turn around and
head back to the airport. *But it does seem to be safer and more
straight forward. *And I suppose since you are always aware of the
winds, you can make a fairly accurate guess as to what you achieved L/
D is likely to be. *If it's a straight headwind home at 5 knots, I
could just mentally modify what I expect to achieve.

Again the L/D required is a statement of fact (as long as your
altitude and the destination elevation are accurate. It's beautiful
for it's simplicity. It also relates directly to the glide angle (OK
Andy) and you should develop eyeball skill for that over time.

Now its clearer where you are at, I would recommend at this stage of
your flying, where you are just taking steps away from the home
gliderport, to use the PDA calculated arrival height (above a safety
margin, with bugs factored -- in SeeYou Mobile if you want higher bugs
than 30% then you will need to modify the polar parameters). And that
arrival height will give you a safety margin that you can probalby
best relate to.

I suspect what John is talking about with Mc is too much for a new,
pre-XC pilot, it is probalby easier to work with what is likely to be
a more intuitive understanding of arrival height to start with. Then
I'd add the L/D metrics to get a feel for those (esp. as a sanity
check since they don't rely on computations) then maybe move up to
thinking more about the Mc stuff as you worry about XC performance and
develop a feel for what a Mc margin means.

How you are getting the wind calculation? As mentioned by others if
you don't have reliable wind data then worrying about factoring in
wind data may be irrelevant or worse. If you are hand entering wind
data that you trust that is great (all soaring software users knew how
to do that or at least how to reset suspect overly optimistic winds).

What Mc do you actually fly at? And how do you do this? For starting
off I would leave the Mc you actually fly at (i.e. your average
airspeed) low and don't try chasing the speed to fly (STF). Even if
you have a real STF computer that can calculate a reasonable STF there
are technical arguments about why its not as efficient as it might be,
but for a newer XC pilot overly chasing the STF is just a distraction
and especially may make it hard to find lift, estimate whether to take
a thermal, find blue convergence/energy lines etc. And don't try to
closely follow the STF Navbox on SeeYou Mobile, it just cannot
calculate that anything that useful from altitude (GPS or pressure)
data.

---

The PDA software is just a help, like other say, its a moving
sectional chart and a way to reduce calculations you would otherwise
do in your head, with a glide ruler or on a prayer wheel. Often a good
exercise to construct a glide ruler and hand draw some glide circles
on a sectional with different winds factored in. Doing that by hand
for where you fly should gives you a good feel for wind effects -- see
the ruler template at http://www.gliderbooks.com/downloads.html and
instructions in his Glider Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge
book. Just like getting a sectional and marking down landing options
also helps, "flying" to those in Google Earth or visiting them in a
power aircraft really help but there is something beautifully simple
and very tactile about pen and paper that seems to help people really
get a fell for things. GlidePlan (http://www.glideplan.com) can also
do this for you on a Mac or PC but doing by hand at least once is
probably a good idea.

But even better than asking on r.a.s. can you find a local
accomplished XC pilot(s) who can mentor you on all this stuff?

Yes, my club has several and I'm talking to them too. *It's also funny
about gadgets in aircraft. *My feeling is learn to use the autopilot
and whenever you can, learn navigators using simulators. *Half
learning electronics is the most dangerous in my opinion. *I enjoy
navigators, but I'm strict as to when and how to use them.

Compared to power XC flying you are much more dependent on all the
subtleties happening outside the glider, so try to get the PDA into
the background and focus on finding lift, working thermals, finding
energy lines, flying smoothly and efficiently. You can learn a lot
just flying triangles around a local gliderport and just keep stepping
up what you do. There are lots of ways to skin a cat, but if somebody
skilled is willing to mentor you it is worth following the way they do
things so you can more easily learn from them.

If you know of any bugs in SeeYou Mobile, please report then to
Naviter.

Darryl

Thanks Darryl,

How you are getting the wind calculation? As mentioned by others if
you don't have reliable wind data then worrying about factoring in
wind data may be irrelevant or worse. If you are hand entering wind
data that you trust that is great (all soaring software users knew how
to do that or at least how to reset suspect overly optimistic winds).

I don't think SeeYou does very well with winds. This is what I've
experienced and read in other posts. I get winds aloft from several
sources/stations during my home briefing. I enter those directly into
SeeYou and always check them before I do my MC required to target.

What Mc do you actually fly at? And how do you do this? For starting
off I would leave the Mc you actually fly at (i.e. your average
airspeed) low and don't try chasing the speed to fly (STF). Even if
you have a real STF computer that can calculate a reasonable STF there
are technical arguments about why its not as efficient as it might be,
but for a newer XC pilot overly chasing the STF is just a distraction
and especially may make it hard to find lift, estimate whether to take
a thermal, find blue convergence/energy lines etc. And don't try to
closely follow the STF Navbox on SeeYou Mobile, it just cannot
calculate that anything that useful from altitude (GPS or pressure)
data.

My SeeYou is not plugged into anything so it's all GPS. To be honest,
I use it mostly to analyze me flight when I get home. I look at it in
flight to backup a possible creepy feeling because I look a bit low
for my liking. I fly MC zero generally because I'm flying local
working on my thermal technique. If I encounter sink I speed up maybe
10 or 15 knots depending on how large the sink area is. If I have a
headwind I'm trying to penetrate, I will speed up somewhat as well. I
guess what I really want to be sure of is NOT landing out.

The PDA software is just a help, like other say, its a moving
sectional chart and a way to reduce calculations you would otherwise
do in your head, with a glide ruler or on a prayer wheel. Often a good
exercise to construct a glide ruler and hand draw some glide circles
on a sectional with different winds factored in. Doing that by hand
for where you fly should gives you a good feel for wind effects -- see
the ruler template athttp://www.gliderbooks.com/downloads.htmland
instructions in his Glider Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge
book. Just like getting a sectional and marking down landing options
also helps, "flying" to those in Google Earth or visiting them in a
power aircraft really help but there is something beautifully simple
and very tactile about pen and paper that seems to help people really
get a fell for things. GlidePlan (http://www.glideplan.com) can also
do this for you on a Mac or PC but doing by hand at least once is
probably a good idea.

Great ideas. I'm a photographer and made a "Stocker" whizz wheel
using notes from Reichmann's cross country book. Put it together by
scanning a sectional and layering it in Photoshop. That thing turns
heads at the glider club. I've also computed range rings and put
layered them over a sectional offset for winds. That's a time
consuming math project for me anyway, especially if you have a safety
altitude figured in. Anyway, I love the old fashioned approaches and
used them as often as the electronics. I also flew a little Cessna
152 into all the local fields that I might land with gliders.

But even better than asking on r.a.s. can you find a local
accomplished XC pilot(s) who can mentor you on all this stuff?

Yes, my club has several and I'm talking to them too. *It's also funny
about gadgets in aircraft. *My feeling is learn to use the autopilot
and whenever you can, learn navigators using simulators. *Half
learning electronics is the most dangerous in my opinion. *I enjoy
navigators, but I'm strict as to when and how to use them.

Compared to power XC flying you are much more dependent on all the
subtleties happening outside the glider, so try to get the PDA into
the background and focus on finding lift, working thermals, finding
energy lines, flying smoothly and efficiently. You can learn a lot
just flying triangles around a local gliderport and just keep stepping
up what you do. There are lots of ways to skin a cat, but if somebody
skilled is willing to mentor you it is worth following the way they do
things so you can more easily learn from them.

I'm lucky, I have a friend that talked me into soaring last spring.
He has a Ventus 2CX and on any reasonable day, he and his buddies do
250 mile round trips landing at dinner time. Then our club has
several instructors that seem to be very good.

If you know of any bugs in SeeYou Mobile, please report then to
Naviter.

Have done that.


Darryl

On Aug 23, 11:56*am, Joseph Kiley wrote:
Thanks Darryl,

How you are getting the wind calculation? As mentioned by others if
you don't have reliable wind data then worrying about factoring in
wind data may be irrelevant or worse. If you are hand entering wind
data that you trust that is great (all soaring software users knew how
to do that or at least how to reset suspect overly optimistic winds).

I don't think SeeYou does very well with winds. *This is what I've
experienced and read in other posts. * I get winds aloft from several
sources/stations during my home briefing. *I enter those directly into
SeeYou and always check them before I do my MC required to target.

SeeYou Mobile does *very* well with wind if it has the data to work
from. With just a GPS input all SeeYou can do is effectively look at
thermal circle drift, that depends on how well you thermal, how long/
far since the last thermal, and lots of other things. When connected
to an external flight computer (like a C302) SeeYou Mobile will use
TAS data from the flight computer and relatively small change in
heading to also calculate winds and it tends to a much better job
overall. This is not just a SeeYou Mobile thing, other devices limited
to just GPS input will often show the same problems. However if you
are in doubt, clobber the wind settings and take a few good clean
circles with any of these devices they should produce a reasonable
idea of the wind. Search r.a.s. on Google for past discussion on
SeeYou Mobile wind calculations by myself and other authors.

What Mc do you actually fly at? And how do you do this? For starting
off I would leave the Mc you actually fly at (i.e. your average
airspeed) low and don't try chasing the speed to fly (STF). Even if
you have a real STF computer that can calculate a reasonable STF there
are technical arguments about why its not as efficient as it might be,
but for a newer XC pilot overly chasing the STF is just a distraction
and especially may make it hard to find lift, estimate whether to take
a thermal, find blue convergence/energy lines etc. And don't try to
closely follow the STF Navbox on SeeYou Mobile, it just cannot
calculate that anything that useful from altitude (GPS or pressure)
data.

My SeeYou is not plugged into anything so it's all GPS. *To be honest,
I use it mostly to analyze me flight when I get home. *I look at it in
flight to backup a possible creepy feeling because I look a bit low
for my liking. *I fly MC zero generally because I'm flying local
working on my thermal technique. *If I encounter sink I speed up maybe
10 or 15 knots depending on how large the sink area is. *If I have a
headwind I'm trying to penetrate, I will speed up somewhat as well. *I
guess what I really want to be sure of is NOT landing out.

For typical days where there is lift available and as you become more
comfortable with thermaling I would encourage you to try to start with
Mc near 1. Mc == 0 means you really are in desperation mode and don't
really plan to go anywhere. See the discussion in Reichman about this.
Mc=0 quickly becomes a kind of boat anchor dragging on you. If you are
dialing the Mc into a flight computer (or STF ring on a winter vario)
it also starts giving you a feel for how excess Mc helps you if you
run into worse conditions than you expect. You can increase the Mc
setting you fly at up from there as you gain confidence, but dont' go
crazy with it. A rule of thumb often used especially for new XC folks
it to set the Mc conservatively at 1/2 to 1/3 of what you think your
next average climb will be - and even then its just to give you an
idea of average speed to fly, don't go chasing it. Sounds like you
have a good approach as is. The last thermal average climb stats in
SeeYou Mobile can be interesting to check, it will often be much less
than you think, and even then it often misses time wasted mucking
around trying to find lift.

BTW details of wind effects and Mc may not be obvious, search for past
r.a.s. postings by John Cochrane and others on this.

[snip]

Darryl

On Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:56:48 -0700 (PDT), Joseph Kiley
wrote:


I don't think SeeYou does very well with winds. This is what I've
experienced and read in other posts. I get winds aloft from several
sources/stations during my home briefing. I enter those directly into
SeeYou and always check them before I do my MC required to target.

Well, actually SeeYou's wind calculations are actually very good, even
if its only data source is GPS. But you have to remember that the wind
is only calculated while you are circling, and that it might take a
couple of minutes to get accurate data.


My SeeYou is not plugged into anything so it's all GPS. To be honest,
I use it mostly to analyze me flight when I get home. I look at it in
flight to backup a possible creepy feeling because I look a bit low
for my liking. I fly MC zero generally because I'm flying local
working on my thermal technique. If I encounter sink I speed up maybe
10 or 15 knots depending on how large the sink area is. If I have a
headwind I'm trying to penetrate, I will speed up somewhat as well. I
guess what I really want to be sure of is NOT landing out.

Try this for your Cirrus:
- set MC on your PDA to 2 meters/second (do the maths for the units
you use)
- set bug factor to 30 percent
- set arrival altitude to a value of your liking, say, 600 to 900 ft

With these settings you can be nearly 100% sure that you are going to
reach the chosen airport with the desired arrival altitude.

If you know of any bugs in SeeYou Mobile, please report then to
Naviter.

Have done that.

Which bugs did you observe?
I've been flying with the relatively old SeeYou 2.71 for the last
15.000 kilometers and found no bugs worth mentioning.


Greetings from germany
Andreas

On 8/23/2010 8:17 AM, akiley wrote:
Well, I've flown long enough to know not to trust electronics. I have
600 power hours using all sorts of navigators. Funny, when you use a
Garmin 396 on a computer, it sets magnetic variation to user set
instead of auto. SeeYou has quite a few bugs and gochas too. So my
primary is look at the down angle back to the airport.

I've used SeeYou Mobile for 1000+ hours all over the USA, and I'm not
aware of any bugs or gotchas. I would never go back to paper charts,
whiz wheels, or just looking out the window. For example, most of my
final glides begin 30 to 50 miles from the airport, where I can't even
see it, yet they work out well most of the time.

Your statement "So my primary is look at the down angle back to the
airport" suggests to me it's not SeeYou, but more likely your setup or
interpretation of what Mobile is telling you. If you are that close, the
computer should be working with no problems.

Flight computers can be a real aid to efficient, enjoyable soaring, so I
hate to see someone having problems with them. What version of mobile
are you using? Can you describe the two biggest bugs and gotchas?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (netto to net to email me)

- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz

I'm with Mike. You can't get any simpler than using the "Arrival
Altitude" navbox. It takes into account all available parameters
(distance, Mc, bugs, ballast, wind), and is corrected for reserve
altitude. This requires you have reasonable polar info entered for the
ship you're flying. This feature is perfect for first forays into xc
flying. You can use this to "hop" from one airfield to the next. A
quick glance at the navbox will show whether you can make the current
waypoint from your current position. Negative value = climb, 0 or
higher = good to go.

On Aug 24, 6:39*am, Westbender wrote:
I'm with Mike. You can't get any simpler than using the "Arrival
Altitude" navbox. It takes into account all available parameters
(distance, Mc, bugs, ballast, wind), and is corrected for reserve
altitude. This requires you have reasonable polar info entered for the
ship you're flying. This feature is perfect for first forays into xc
flying. You can use this to "hop" from one airfield to the next. A
quick glance at the navbox will show whether you can make the current
waypoint from your current position. Negative value = climb, 0 or
higher = good to go.

Seems like many pilots are using multiple complicated methods to
determine their final glides. Most are using MC settings for that
purpose. Is it just me who never use MC setting to determine arrival,
but using bug factor instead? Following the KISS principal, this is
the simplest way. No need to compare L/D, guesstimate MC, disconnect
the vario or ignore the MC speed to fly, etc. Just set your bug factor
to degrade your polar to something you are comfortable with (I found
70-75% to work fine most of the time), set your MC to zero and watch
your arrival altitude. Once you are comfortable with the arrival
altitude just keep maintain the same number by either speeding up or
slowing down. Works perfect for me.

Ramy

On Aug 24, 12:08*am, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 8/23/2010 8:17 AM, akiley wrote: Well, I've flown long enough to know not to trust electronics. *I have
600 power hours using all sorts of navigators. *Funny, when you use a
Garmin 396 on a computer, it sets magnetic variation to user set
instead of auto. *SeeYou has quite a few bugs and gochas too. *So my
primary is look at the down angle back to the airport.

I've used SeeYou Mobile for 1000+ hours all over the USA, and I'm not
aware of any bugs or gotchas. I would never go back to paper charts,
whiz wheels, or just looking out the window. For example, most of my
final glides begin 30 to 50 miles from the airport, where I can't even
see it, yet they work out well most of the time.
Eric,
What happens if your electronics fry? Hope you have a backup
something. Just happened to a friend of mine, he found a 5 year old
WAC chart under his seat. I'm not going back to paper charts either,
I'm just saying for me, I'm going to back it up with something, even
if it's a quick math in the head thing. There are plenty of gochas I
can think of is SeeYouM. All you have to do is not double check what
your goto waypoint is, forget to add winds, polar, safety altitude.
Maybe they aren't gochas, but they sort of are for new users. It
takes a lot of thinking to make sure you know what you are doing.

I have the latest version of SeeYouM that I bought last fall. One
known bug is that the wing loading changes when you leave the polar
screen then come back. Try it. I think they fixed the one with Oudie
that didn't allow the user to set NM in units. You would have to
reset it every time you loaded SeeYouM. I haven't gotten an answer on
my Magnetic Track NavBox yet. It's off by 12 degrees. Maybe it's
party to do with old PDA hardware but I've had a lot of problems with
logging not starting, and NavBoxes showing no data, and lockups.
Other have had these problem too. Some days my statistic page that is
supposed to show thermal graphs doesn't.

I'm slowly replacing components of my iPaq to see if that's the
problem. I just replaced the CF card adapter back, I've tried a
different CF card. We'll see.

I'm definitely a navigator user. I have a Garmin 395, I've put quite
a lot of hours on Garmin G1000's in IFR flight. My point is one has
to be careful throwing full trust into these things. My SeeYou
experience has had a bad start, but I'll get it nailed down
eventually. I really enjoy analyzing my IGC file on my PC after the
day is done. In playback mode on the iPaq too, that is a learning
experience too. ... akiley

Your statement "So my primary is look at the down angle back to the
airport" suggests to me it's not SeeYou, but more likely your setup or
interpretation of what Mobile is telling you. If you are that close, the
computer should be working with no problems.

Flight computers can be a real aid to efficient, enjoyable soaring, so I
hate to see someone having problems with them. What version of mobile
are you using? Can you describe the two biggest bugs and gotchas?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (netto to net to email me)

- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarmhttp://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz