On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 15:28:23 -0700, "Bill Daniels"
bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:
I was very pleased to see the advert in the December issue of "Soaring
Magazine".
See: www.safeflight.com
Does anybody know more about this device - especially the price?
Hope it works out. A design for an AoA indicator appeared in _Soaring_
twenty or thirty years ago, but it was really crude. IIRC, it had its
own separate pitot and static sources, and connected them across a
vertical, tapered tube similar to one side of a pellet vario. A solid
metal ball rode in the tube, its mass serving to sense acceleration,
and its vertical position gave a measure of AoA.
The vane types found on jets work splendidly, but they're mounted high
up on the airplane where people and vehicles don't bump into
them...the equivalent on a glider wouldn't last long!
I presume the Safeflight device uses the pitot/static/acceleration
principle...that should be relatively easy with contemporary sensor
technology and chips.
rj