Re: Cheap GPS Loggers for FAI Badges - FAI Footdragging

[stephanevdv]

I already asked this in another thread concerning the same subject,
without getting an answer:

Why should every pilot have his own personal flight recorder? If there
is one per glider, this will be more than enough! In fact, it never
happens that all gliders on a site are busy with competition tasks
and/or FAI badge flights.

This makes the cost of an approved FR (Volkslogger or Colibri or the
like cost about half the price of a 760 channel approved radio set)
much more bearable. In my opinion, it's fully comparable with what a
barograph cost twenty years ago. And nobody complained about that, as
far as I remember.

Accepting COTS makes the work of the official observer more difficult -
we use them in local competitions, and they need to be checked much
more thoroughly than IGC FR's. Plus, multiplying the possible types
makes it a real challenge for anybody save true computer nerds to keep
up with all the different connexions, logging software, etc. It's bad
enough as it is, even the professional evaluation software makers have
difficulties in keeping up with it.


--
stephanevdv
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Posted via OziPilots Online [ http://www.OziPilotsOnline.com.au ]
- A website for Australian Pilots regardless of when, why, or what they fly -

[Janos Bauer]

stephanevdv wrote:

> Why should every pilot have his own personal flight recorder?

No they shouldn't. On the other side most clubs couldn't buy it for
the members either. Most clubs are happy to survive and keep the gliders
and other equipments...

> This makes the cost of an approved FR (Volkslogger or Colibri or the
> like cost about half the price of a 760 channel approved radio set)
> much more bearable. In my opinion, it's fully comparable with what a
> barograph cost twenty years ago. And nobody complained about that, as
> far as I remember.

Those days there was no other solution...

> Accepting COTS makes the work of the official observer more difficult -
> we use them in local competitions, and they need to be checked much
> more thoroughly than IGC FR's. Plus, multiplying the possible types
> makes it a real challenge for anybody save true computer nerds to keep
> up with all the different connexions, logging software, etc. It's bad
> enough as it is, even the professional evaluation software makers have
> difficulties in keeping up with it.

OO makes it for free (maybe it costs some beers:). It won't make much
more (or even less) work to deal with these "loggers" than with
photo+barograph.

/Janos