On Sep 13, 10:34*am, Guy Byars wrote:
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*sooner than messing with a chart and a scale while learning how to thermal.

I submit to you that more "messing" has been done with gps's and PDA
hardware/software in flight than has EVER been done with charts and
scales.

Have to disagree with you there a bit, Guy. A PDA/GPS moving map is
fundamentally just a chart that knows where you are - so you don't
have to find it in the cockpit, refold it, orient it, then look back
and forth from the ground to the chart trying to convince yourself
which town you are over. Used correctly (like any tool , including a
chart) it shouldn't take much time away from your lookout, and should
actually be much faster than a chart, especially over new terrain (as
in at a contest on on a safari). Used incorrectly, I do agree that
all the cockpit magic and blue smoke can become a terrible
distraction.

We went through the same learning process when fighters (F-4s in my
case) were modernized with reliable, accurate navigation equipment,
way back in the 80s - it took a while to learn NOT to use all the
magic, but instead to just use what was needed. Always fun to pull up
on a guy after an unobserved Fox 2 and see both pilot and WSO heads
down trying to figure out what the ones and zeros were telling them!
Nowadays, if the magic doesn't work, you don't go (you might drop a
smart weapon on the CNN van - the one parked between the orphanage and
the nunnery - instead of the bad guy's bomb factory).

Same applies to current glider nav computers - just because it can
tell you something, doesn't mean you really need to know it in real
time. I'm amazed by the amount of (to me, at least) unimportant info
most people cram on their little PDA displays! I'm down to just a
simple map (no terrain unless on ridges), airports with L/D needed,
course line (if on a task), track line, and winds on my primary SYM
map - all that I need to navigate at a glance and spend more time
"looking out the window"!

I will admit to the guilty pleasure of taking up a nice K-13 or sports
canopy 1-26 with nothing really working but the airspeed indicator and
flying by the seat of the pants, to coin a phrase...

Cheers!

Kirk
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