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Old March 5th 13, 04:11 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default Calculating G Forces from IGC file?

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013 9:42:45 AM UTC-6, JohnDeRosa wrote:
I thought it would be an interesting experiment to take an IGC trace

and figure out rates of climb. That much was pretty easy. I took

consecutive IGC file B-records and with just a little math I was able

to determine the ft/min or meters/min climb rates*.



I then thought it would be a good experiment to determine the G forces

as I pull up (decelerate) from cruise to lift or push over

(accelerate) from lift to cruise. Are there any physicists in the

house that can come up with a SIMPLE formula to calculate what a G

meter would have read based on the information I have?



Thanks, John



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* The many individual b-records in an IGC file contains lots of good

information.



B1101355206343N00006198WA0158701558



110135: time tracklog entry was recorded at 11:01:35 i.e. just

after 11am (GMT)

5206343N: latitude i.e. 52 degrees 06.343 minutes North

00006198W: longitude i.e. 000 degrees 06.198 minutes West

A: altitude valid flag confirming this record has a valid

altitude value

01587: altitude in meters from pressure sensor

01558: altitude in meters from GPS



Rate of Climb per minute (m/sec) =

(Altitude #2 - Altitude #1) / (Time-Seconds #2 - Time-

Seconds #1) X 60 seconds



Rate of Climb per minute (ft/sec) = Rate of Climb per minute (m/sec) X

3.28084


acceleration = delta V / delta t (vector)
Interesting to see if it works.
John Cochrane