Overwhelmed by info options on Flt Computer

I have been demoing several different software products by flying a flight in Condor using my Nexus 7 with XCSoar and then replaying the igc file in the simulators for See You Mobile, LK8000, Clearnav, and LXSim to see how they compare.

I feel that the information options are overwhelming in all of the products (except for maybe Clearnav). I have limited XC experience and have never competed so my question is what information do other pilots have as their “default” information configurations for these programs (cruise/thermal/final glide)?

Do these informational configurations change for XC vs racing?

Thanks!

The key is to find out what information you require during which situation of flight. This is an iterative process and changes over time as you gain xc experience. Start simple!

My Setup is the following:

I like XCSoar's pages concept therefore i usually configure 2 Pages,
* One that is Context aware, the "auto" page
* One that contains secondary information i deem important.

The first page contains always these info boxes in all three modes:
* GPS Height
* Speed over Ground
* MCCready

In circling mode I use additionally:
* Thermal Gain
* Thermal 30 Second Average

In cruise mode the following extra boxes:
* Direction to Waypoint
* Distance to Waypoint
* Height Required to Waypoint

In FinalGlide Mode:
* Distance to Final
* GlideRatio
* Wind Component
* Direction to Final

The Auxillary Page includes the following:
* UTC
* LocalTime
* FlightTime
* Distance to Home

I don't do competitions (yet) and am currently the causal xc pilot type. But I assume there are more tools that you could configure to be useful during comps.

Hope that helps.
- Folken

On Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:53:53 +0000, Lucky812 wrote:

I feel that the information options are overwhelming in all of the
products (except for maybe Clearnav). I have limited XC experience and
have never competed so my question is what information do other pilots
have as their “default” information configurations for these programs
(cruise/thermal/final glide)?

LK8000: I leave it pretty much as it comes out of the box except:

- I turn terrain display off and set the overlay letters to black
(see my recent answer to Wallace Berry for doing that and my reasons)

- I have the thermal finder OFF because I don't find it much help: the
trail colour gives me enough help.

- I disable the top right touch area because it can put LK8000 into
a mode I don't want to see.

- I set units to km (distance), knots (speed and climb rate),
feet (height)

- I set the safety height to 1000 ft. You might want 1500 ft for your
first xc flights.

- I set airspace warning and display to AUTO, 500 ft vertical and 45-60
seconds horizontal - this should be enough to give planning time to
replan, find another working cloud, etc. without getting too close.

- I never go XC without declaring a task and putting it into LK8000
unless I'm local soaring, when I have my home field as my only TP
because this causes LK8000 to run the final glide calculation for
the trip home and to show whether I'm above/below glide.

Always declaring a task/intentions is a club requirement: if a member
doesn't get back we'll know more or less where to look. Besides, I find
it gives me something to concentrate on doing instead of bimbling round
as I tend to do when local soaring.

As I'm in the UK, which has a fair amount of airspace and NOTAMs that I
need to avoid, I make sure I have the latest airspace files installed. I
also use the excellent SPINE desktop program to download plottable NOTAMs
for the day from the AIS site, save them in OpenAir format and configure
them on in LK8000.

The airspace settings given above only display airspace if I may enter it
unless I do something to avoid it: this keeps the display nice and clear.


Do these informational configurations change for XC vs racing?

I do very little racing, but I use the same settings when I am doing it.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Friday, December 14, 2012 2:53:53 PM UTC, Lucky812 wrote:
I have limited XC experience and

have never competed so my question is what information do other pilots

have as their �default� information configurations for these programs

(cruise/thermal/final glide)?



Do these informational configurations change for XC vs racing?


First, I concur with Martin that it is vital to have appropriate files for airspace and waypoints, and to understand the files which you have. It is also important to have the rules and observation zones set right for the type of tasks you fly.

What is really important is to be able to know what you are looking at very quickly. I prefer to have the same info in the same screen positions regardless of whether in thermal, cruise or final glide. I prefer to have a north up display with the same airspace info on as my paper chart, and I also turn off map and terrain info (I fly in flatland UK). I have landable waypoints showing with arrival heights. I zoom in manually (or change manually to another map page which is more zoomed in) when close to an airspace boundary or a task zone. I normally fly tasks, so would not change for comps except for assigned area tasks.

The data on your nav screen will depend somewhat on what is shown on your other instruments - for example, I have both current average climb rate and arrival height at next waypoint on my vario display so don't need those on the map screen. The thing I look at most often is which way to steer to my next waypoint, so I have that at the top of my map. Other items which I always want are Bearing and Distance to next waypoint, Ground Speed, Wind, and Final Glide to end of task.

I'll take Folken's "start simple" input, great advice, another step.
One option to avoid being overwhelmed is to fly early XCs with a paper chart and an audio vario, maybe even with speed to fly. With more experience, you'll have a better idea of what YOU want to see displayed in the cockpit.
Early XC is perhaps not the best time to be figuring out a new flight computer.
Jim

On Dec 16, 7:57*pm, JS wrote:
I'll take Folken's "start simple" input, great advice, another step.
* One option to avoid being overwhelmed is to fly early XCs with a paper chart and an audio vario, maybe even with speed to fly. With more experience, you'll have a better idea of what YOU want to see displayed in the cockpit.
* Early XC is perhaps not the best time to be figuring out a new flight computer.
Jim

Although I'm a huge proponent of PNAs and LK8000, I'm with Jim on this
one. You should absolutely do some short XC flights with maps and
some pre-made charts to help you figure out your speed-to-fly and
glide ratios. Before starting, do lots of study (Bob Wander sells 2
or 3 books on learning to fly Cross-Country and on Speed-to-Fly, all
of which I highly recommend).

Only add in the computer after you've made a few flights, and NEVER
try to "learn" the flight computer in the air. Always set it up on
the ground and use "simulation" mode (most programs can do this) to
play around with the system and get a feel for it.

When starting out with the flight computer, I recommend hiding almost
all of the information available, except:
1) Terrain, Airspace, and airports/landing-fields
2) The "glide amoeba" or "gliding range" feature - which shows a blob
on the moving map around your glider representing how far you can fly
from your present position & altitude.
3) Something that tells you distance and direction to your home
airport (possibly along with the estimated arrival altitude).

As for my setup: Yes, I display different things when I'm simply
flying XC versus competitions; but I change the whole setup of my
computer (LK8000 lets me save and load different profiles, to make
this easy). On any given flight, I'll typically only use 2 or 3 of
the "infobars" at the bottom/side of the screen in LK8000 for flying.
I might flip to a different page of info for a quick check on battery-
level, or flying time, or to grab my GPS coords to announce on the
radio; but almost all of the menus and screens are unused.

Take care,

--Noel
P.S. Once you've gotten a little XC time and want to start getting
comfy with your flight computer, another thing you can do is go for a
flight in a decent 2-seater (a Grob or ASK or Discus or DG) with a
more-experienced colleague. Have them do some of the flying while you
fiddle with the computer and compare what its showing you to what info
you need. Then you take over flying and try to glance at the flight
computer without it being a distraction. The goal should be to have
the system set up so you can quickly glance at the screen and then
back outside (without staring at it for more than 1 or 2 seconds), and
interpret/integrate the information that was on the screen while you
continue to fly. Some people integrate info better when its presented
as colors, lines, & pictograms; others do between with actual
numbers. Find what works well for you - the only way is to give it a
try; and you certainly don't want to do that when you're the only one
in the cockpit and are responsible for keeping up a good visual scan
and not being a danger to others.

I primarily use XCSoar. Used to use SeeYou Mobile. Don't fly competition, but fly tasks and cross country a bit.

A few thoughts for XCSoar.

SETUP

-As others have said, make sure you have the correct waypoints file and airspace files loaded in "Site Files."
-make sure you have the correct polar loaded
-make sure you set a 1000 feet or more safety altitude
-in addition to the 1000' arrival altidue, you should have a way to set a safety glide. Some kind of polar degridation, bugs etc. Our club likes 3x distance to a landing spot with a 1000 foot safety altitude at arrival. One way you can do this is put something like 7.0 MC in "Safety MC" in the glide computer setup page. This will make the glide circle (smaller) around your glider to be roughly similar to this 3x glide rule of thumb. The nice thing about monitoring this landout or reach circle on the map is that it is wind and terrain aware.

Lastly, I would suggest also playing back your real flights in XCSoar. (menu choice config, config, replay) You can play with tasks and spend lots of time learing the program. Condor glider simulator is great for this too as XCSoar can be set up as if it's really flying.

These apps can't be TOO simple because soaring has a lot of complexity that's reflected in the apps. ... Aaron

Thank you all for the help. I have been experimenting with the information given on XCSoar on an Nexus 7 with Condor. I have it on good authority that because I have been moderately nice this year Santa is bringing me an Oudie Lite (I knew I should have been nicer maybe - I would have gotten a ClearNav).