AA Butterfly versus CNv LCD wind calculation

I have flown with the Butterfly for three seasons. It was difficult to install as its sensor unit needs to be mostly well clear of any magnets or any moving ferrous control rods. It turns out that most of our gliders have been magnetized a bit in their lifetime. Dave Nadler told me that they tried to incorporate some sort of compass data in the SN10 but were unable to overcome that obstacle. After moving all speakers behind my head and getting the inertial sensor unit away from moving metal I finally got it working. It has some built in compensation which works for some weak standing magnetic fields but not moving ones, such as a control rod or speaker magnet. That took most of a year to sort out. It does work as advertised, giving real time wind information. The question is, does that help in finding and centering lift?
Years ago Al Leffler helped me learn to fly the Mojave shear line on blue days. He said that when, in doubt, the lift is probably downwind. That was and is good advice. In the west most of our flying utilizes some form of convergence. Over the years the phenomenon has been called, DEW line, shear line, convergence, and most recently "energy lines. I mostly fly from Siskiyou County airport in Montague, CA, We have a convergence that routinely sets up east of mount Shasta and extends easterly for about 50 miles. It appears to be a combination of converging anabatic thermals from the two sides of a wide mountain ridge, and meeting of northerly valley winds from north with the prevailing southwesterly winds from the south. The Butterfly real time winds do reliably steer you to the convergence and have helped me choose which side of the clouds to cruise. Of course experienced pilots will figure that out anyway but every little advantage helps.
There may be information displayed that would help centering thermals. Do horizontal gusts converge from all sides in a thermal?
The little wind arrow is easy to interpret and quickly becomes part of your scan and need not become a safety issue. According to Richard (Craggy Aero), the Lx Varios. (S8,S80,V7) have similar sensors and should be capable of producing similar information. I have an S80 in another glider and I do not think the wind calculations are as "real time" as the Butterfly. As a side note, after years of flying with the Ilec. SN10 I think it is still the best at computing and displaying average winds.
DLB

On Friday, September 23, 2016 at 11:56:58 AM UTC-7, wrote:
I have flown with the Butterfly for three seasons. It was difficult to install as its sensor unit needs to be mostly well clear of any magnets or any moving ferrous control rods. It turns out that most of our gliders have been magnetized a bit in their lifetime. Dave Nadler told me that they tried to incorporate some sort of compass data in the SN10 but were unable to overcome that obstacle. After moving all speakers behind my head and getting the inertial sensor unit away from moving metal I finally got it working.. It has some built in compensation which works for some weak standing magnetic fields but not moving ones, such as a control rod or speaker magnet. That took most of a year to sort out. It does work as advertised, giving real time wind information. The question is, does that help in finding and centering lift?
Years ago Al Leffler helped me learn to fly the Mojave shear line on blue days. He said that when, in doubt, the lift is probably downwind. That was and is good advice. In the west most of our flying utilizes some form of convergence. Over the years the phenomenon has been called, DEW line, shear line, convergence, and most recently "energy lines. I mostly fly from Siskiyou County airport in Montague, CA, We have a convergence that routinely sets up east of mount Shasta and extends easterly for about 50 miles. It appears to be a combination of converging anabatic thermals from the two sides of a wide mountain ridge, and meeting of northerly valley winds from north with the prevailing southwesterly winds from the south. The Butterfly real time winds do reliably steer you to the convergence and have helped me choose which side of the clouds to cruise. Of course experienced pilots will figure that out anyway but every little advantage helps.
There may be information displayed that would help centering thermals. Do horizontal gusts converge from all sides in a thermal?
The little wind arrow is easy to interpret and quickly becomes part of your scan and need not become a safety issue. According to Richard (Craggy Aero), the Lx Varios. (S8,S80,V7) have similar sensors and should be capable of producing similar information. I have an S80 in another glider and I do not think the wind calculations are as "real time" as the Butterfly. As a side note, after years of flying with the Ilec. SN10 I think it is still the best at computing and displaying average winds.
DLB

Yes the horizontal gusts converge on all sides towards the thermal. This is nicely shown on the iGlide display, when using Air vario wind data. In the thermal display, a green dot is painted each second showing lift as is typical of other thermal assistants. In iGlide, each dot also has an instantaneous wind vector. In nice soft, round flatland thermals it is quite symmetrical and pointing to the thermal center. In rough mountain thermals it is more chaotic, but still points towards the best lift reliably. You can recognize two core thermals easily on the display, verified by vario and seat of pants. I think this would be very difficult to interpret using just the instantaneous arrow on the S display, but can be seen at a glance on iGlide.

All the other varios have inertial sensors, even the CAI 302 was claimed to have them - after all the MEMS parts are only a dollar or so and are in practically every consumer electronic device these days. The trick is not the installing of them, but doing something with them. To my knowledge only Air has done so with any meaningful result, including the inertially derived vertical air mass movement.

On Friday, September 16, 2016 at 4:23:48 PM UTC-4, wrote:
The Air Avionics Butterfly has developed an outstanding reputation as having a competitive advantage for its ability to "instantaneously" calculate wind direction.

Does the CNv (with latest 3.3.3899 or beta 3.4.4089) calculate wind as quickly as the Butterfly?

T8, what is the wind direction update rate of the CNv?

If anyone has experience using both varios at the same time, please share your opinions.

Thread hijacking: Does anyone have experience with the CNv in wave? What settings do you use? What screen?

On 9/23/2016 1:56 PM, Dan Daly wrote:
Thread hijacking: Does anyone have experience with the CNv in wave? What settings do you use? What screen?

I have used my CNvXC in wave and I set it exactly as I do for thermal
soaring. It's my Streak/XCSoar that gets set up differently. On the
Streak, I zoom in way in, maybe 2 mile or less range and then I can see
the line of best lift and navigate quickly to it following an upwind
reversal turn. As altitude increases the leg length also (generally)
increases.

Wave will be upon us soon!

--
Dan, 5J

On Friday, September 23, 2016 at 6:42:17 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
On 9/23/2016 1:56 PM, Dan Daly wrote:
Thread hijacking: Does anyone have experience with the CNv in wave? What settings do you use? What screen?

I have used my CNvXC in wave and I set it exactly as I do for thermal
soaring. It's my Streak/XCSoar that gets set up differently. On the
Streak, I zoom in way in, maybe 2 mile or less range and then I can see
the line of best lift and navigate quickly to it following an upwind
reversal turn. As altitude increases the leg length also (generally)
increases.

Wave will be upon us soon!

--
Dan, 5J

Thanks! I do that with XCSoar on my Oudie Lite. On the CNv, I assume you don't use Thermal Assistant, just the snail trail?

The club Pawnee goes to Lake Placid today.

Dan, 2D

I've got the mechanical CNv so no snail trail or thermal assistant. Had
the LCD version been available at the time, I likely would have gotten one.

On 9/24/2016 5:41 AM, Dan Daly wrote:
On Friday, September 23, 2016 at 6:42:17 PM UTC-4, Dan Marotta wrote:
On 9/23/2016 1:56 PM, Dan Daly wrote:
Thread hijacking: Does anyone have experience with the CNv in wave? What settings do you use? What screen?
I have used my CNvXC in wave and I set it exactly as I do for thermal
soaring. It's my Streak/XCSoar that gets set up differently. On the
Streak, I zoom in way in, maybe 2 mile or less range and then I can see
the line of best lift and navigate quickly to it following an upwind
reversal turn. As altitude increases the leg length also (generally)
increases.

Wave will be upon us soon!

--
Dan, 5J
Thanks! I do that with XCSoar on my Oudie Lite. On the CNv, I assume you don't use Thermal Assistant, just the snail trail?

The club Pawnee goes to Lake Placid today.

Dan, 2D

--
Dan, 5J

On Friday, September 23, 2016 at 10:27:23 AM UTC-7, Dan Daly wrote:
@Jonathan - CNv too - see T8's post. Just not currently used.

Dan - CNv Not Used.

I agree with you that the Butterfly is the best "all in one" on wind from the marketing on the product and the reports from the pilots. I was ageeing that my question was "indirectly" answered in terms of concensus that a fixed compass integrated with a vario is going to be faster, better, more accurate in a straight line...

I hope that clears me.

I'm just not sold yet on the importance of the hyper accurate wind data. Im way to busy looking out the window and usually only listen to the speed to fly. Maybe a special been for significant wind change would be useful to hint to the pilot that therre is something of value to check? Cross referencing for wind changes in a thermal, street, sheer line or wave or something like that is interesting, but I certainly am not doing it often at current.

I like to try and feel with my rear as much as possible while cross referencing with my ears and the vario. I also generally have not flown with the Butterly. I only played with one for 1 week at a contest. Not enough time to master it and ultimately chose a ClearNav Vario and a LXNav S10 backup this spring for my new panel. I do not think the butterfly is worth the price...

SMF
7T

oh, you are bringing sensibility into the equation, this is a new concept.

On Sunday, September 25, 2016 at 6:25:15 PM UTC-7, Sean wrote:
.... I do not think the butterfly is worth the price...

SMF
7T

On Monday, 26 September 2016 04:25:15 UTC+3, Sean wrote:
LXNav S10 backup this spring for my new panel. I do not think the butterfly is worth the price...

SMF
7T

What are you backing up with S10? Don't you have mechanical vario?