On Jul 13, 6:50*pm, JSoar wrote:
My homebuilt self-launching sailplane is getting very close to it's
first flight. However, to make a long story short, I don't have any
good place to install a total energy probe right now. I have an old
variometer that I was planning on starting with, if it still works.
Otherwise I may need to get a new variometer for it, like the B400 or
RAS-V1000. But I see where they require a TE probe. Can these or
similar varios be used without a TE probe and still get useful
results, maybe just hook it up to the static system? Or are there some
small low cost varios that don't need a TE probe?

Thanks in advance,
Jerry Bookerwww.jsoaraero.com

A good total energy system is more important than what vario you hook
it to.
You may not want to do it right now, but sooner or later you will want
to add it.
Aerodynamically the upper part of the fin seems to work best by
keeping it out of disturbed
flow.
That said, a quick and dirty solution is to mount the probe on the aft
fuselage as far back as you can reach.
Another alternative is buying a vario with electronic compensation.
The down side of this is that you need a pretty good static system to
avoid creating more probelms than you solve.
Good luck and keep us posted.
UH