LXNAV S80 Pilot Reports?

Thanks everyone for the very helpful replies!!

I have flown about 80 hours on my S80.
I have found it to be excellent.
The only criticism I can think of is that it has too many options, it can
be a bit bewildering when setting it up.
We can cloud fly in the UK and the AHRS has been a revelation to me as I
have only ever flown with a turn and slip, brilliant.
Steve.


At 16:16 27 July 2015, wrote:
Would anyone care to comment on their experience with the LXNAV S80
vario?
Pro's, con's, likes, dislikes, does it perform per manual specs, etc? On
paper it looks like a very nice instrument. Thanks for any feedback.

-Mark

I have both. Butterfly for two years in an ASH25 and an S80 this summer in a Libelle. Both are better than any equipment I have had previously.

The instant winds on the Butterfly are cool but of little practical value (an exception might be ridge flying). In my opinion, the Butterfly audio has a more pleasant tone. The inertial sensor unit of the Butterfly is a pain in the butt to locate free of significant magnetic fields in the glider (it took me 6 Mo. to get it right), The visual Flarm warning only occurs on the Flarm page and you would never be flying on the Flarm page. The Butterfly inertial sensor unit has to be straight and level with the fuselage in order for the horizon to work properly. The S80 horizon is adjustable in the vertical axis. The S80 has a thermal helper that works fairly well. The tasking software is better in the S80. The cruise audio in the S80 is just weird and annoying. Both require a lot of setup for your tastes and polar, which, of course gives them their versatility. When you update either, much of your hard work setting them up is either corrupted or erased. Inexcusable I say. They both work best as a back up and not as a primary navigation system. And the winner is. A toss up. If they fixed the cruise audio in the S80 I would give it the edge.
DLB

One other thing; The Butterfly (thanks to Craggy Aero) has a feature to disable the AH for the period of a contest. Presently you can not fly an S80 with the AH enabled in a US contest. The rules committee may fix that soon by removing the ban on such things.
DLB

On Tuesday, July 28, 2015 at 10:51:59 AM UTC-7, wrote:
I have both. Butterfly for two years in an ASH25 and an S80 this summer in a Libelle. Both are better than any equipment I have had previously.

The instant winds on the Butterfly are cool but of little practical value (an exception might be ridge flying). In my opinion, the Butterfly audio has a more pleasant tone. The inertial sensor unit of the Butterfly is a pain in the butt to locate free of significant magnetic fields in the glider (it took me 6 Mo. to get it right), The visual Flarm warning only occurs on the Flarm page and you would never be flying on the Flarm page. The Butterfly inertial sensor unit has to be straight and level with the fuselage in order for the horizon to work properly. The S80 horizon is adjustable in the vertical axis. The S80 has a thermal helper that works fairly well. The tasking software is better in the S80. The cruise audio in the S80 is just weird and annoying. Both require a lot of setup for your tastes and polar, which, of course gives them their versatility. When you update either, much of your hard work setting them up is either corrupted or erased. Inexcusable I say. They both work best as a back up and not as a primary navigation system. And the winner is. A toss up. If they fixed the cruise audio in the S80 I would give it the edge.
DLB

The instantaneous wind is of considerable value if you also use iGlide, which displays a wind vector in each 1 second lift dot. The resulting wind map of the thermal is useful for centering. I have also discovered frequent wind shears that can be exploited, that I would not have known about without it. The tasking software in the S80 does appear to be better, but neither is anywhere near as good as even a cheap PDA - as you say, a back up solution.

tiistai 28. heinäkuuta 2015 20.51.59 UTC+3 kirjoitti:
I have both. Butterfly for two years in an ASH25 and an S80 this summer in a Libelle. Both are better than any equipment I have had previously.

The instant winds on the Butterfly are cool but of little practical value (an exception might be ridge flying).
DLB

I think it has a lot of practical value. Thermals act as a barrier to surrounding wind, and wind is almost always much weaker in the area close to thermals. With instant wind readout it's easy to judge if you are inside this area, as it is usually the first sign of thermal nearby. And vice versa, if you don't see any difference in wind speed, trying to thermal is usually pointless as you are not yet in the best area. Crossing cloudstreets is really eye-opening: 25 km/h headwind in thermals changes to 50 km/h headwind between streets. And sometimes when glider seems not to glide as good as it should, answer is that you flew inside area of much higher headwind. My thinking about variations of wind in normal flatland thermal weather has really transformed based on BF vario. Lots of things to learn still with this instrument.

Tip for users: in expert-menu you can calibrate IAS and wind calculation improves.

krasw, where do you set your ISU% ? at Richard's (Craggy Aero) suggestion I have mine set at 50%. I am not even certain I know what adjusting the ISU percentage actually does. Anyone that has an opinion on that subject pleas jump in here.
I have Butterflies in both seats of my ASH25 and will assign the co pilot the job of mapping thermal probability using instant wind variation, Perhaps you have discovered a secret weapon.
Dale

On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 7:15:06 PM UTC-7, wrote:
krasw, where do you set your ISU% ? at Richard's (Craggy Aero) suggestion I have mine set at 50%. I am not even certain I know what adjusting the ISU percentage actually does. Anyone that has an opinion on that subject pleas jump in here.
I have Butterflies in both seats of my ASH25 and will assign the co pilot the job of mapping thermal probability using instant wind variation, Perhaps you have discovered a secret weapon.
Dale

The percentage inertial mix affects only the Vertical Air Mass needle, not the wind or vario as far as I am aware (that is what Butterfly told me). I have it set to 80% inertial. If it is set to 100% it gets pretty jumpy and hard to interpret. The wind is always 100% inertial (though perhaps with some drift correction using GPS) and the vario seems always to be barometric. The vario and VAM also have separate time constant settings. The difference between the vario and VAM needles gives clues to thermals and horizontal gusts.

On Tuesday, 4 August 2015 05:15:06 UTC+3, wrote:
krasw, where do you set your ISU% ? at Richard's (Craggy Aero) suggestion I have mine set at 50%. I am not even certain I know what adjusting the ISU percentage actually does. Anyone that has an opinion on that subject pleas jump in here.
I have Butterflies in both seats of my ASH25 and will assign the co pilot the job of mapping thermal probability using instant wind variation, Perhaps you have discovered a secret weapon.
Dale

I have used vario/inertial mix between 75-85%. I think you loose a bit of inertial data with 50% mix, though ISU installation "quality" might affect optimum mix. My ISU is in very good place at rear fuselage (yes it was pain to install), it gives sensible readings even at 100% mix.

My vario time constant is slow 3,4 sec and inertial netto time constant fast 1 sec to get instant readout of vertical gusts (helpful when thermalling).. Wind calculation time constant is 5 sec.

Following wind variations during flight really takes time and learning (mainly to start build mental 3D image of the airflow around you). No proper instrument existed before to measure it this fast and reliably.