On Feb 28, 3:19*pm, "Dan Marotta" wrote:
Just as soon as I start needing to fly coupled Cat III ILSs to minimums, I'm
gonna snag me one of those... *Imagine - instead of simply penetrating a
turn cylinder, you can now set up a holding pattern over the turn point and
have a cuppa joe while you wait for your competitors to catch up!

I guess a bit of skepticism is appropriate now that we've got the
likes of synthetic vision pitched at the GA / gliding market...

I'm not a competition pilot (barely a pilot these days!), but turning
a turnpoint cylinder efficiently seems to involve trying to clip the
very edge of an imaginary point in space, one which can only be
perceived using electronic equipment - and this while competitors are
attempting to accomplish the same. A good HUD indicator could
potentially allow the pilot to complete that task without breaking
their lookout scan.

Granted that's not much benefit to Dan and his clean set of heels, but
might save the rest of the pack from an uncommanded coffee cup
inversion somewhere down the line!

Can't wait 'till my panel costs more than my glider.

Did the age of pneumatics give a smaller competitive gap between top
end and low end hardware? I'd be surprised if glider instrumentation
has ever benefitted from mass-production equipment to such a degree as
now... with the possible exception of the yawstring...