On Thursday, August 29, 2013 5:21:47 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Tuesday, August 27, 2013 4:59:06 PM UTC-8, wrote:

Hello The Butterfly vario was advertise has a revolution, well almost, on the market. Is there any pilots using the Butterfly vario who care to comment on the advantages,if any, of this instrument? I am serously interested in acquiring one but it as to be better than my LX 7000. Thanks for your input. Gilles



I have two of these in an ASH 25. Best vario I have ever used and I date back to the days of the Schuman box. The bright display is excellent and you can set it for a fast response rate without the audio becomig irritating. The audio is also the most pleasant I have flown with. The netto ball and McCready are easy to see and the McCready is super easy to adjust. The speed command page is OK but no big improvment over my SN10. It is also a complete navigation and final glide computer, but these features are not as convenient as with the big moving map displays. At this time you cannot enter a competition type task on the instrument, but I understand that is in the works. My Inertial sensor unit was defective and has been just been replaced and not flown. When it was working the real time wind information was bad ass. I could see a rapid shift of direction as I dropped through the normal shear from west to north at my home field, also I could map the winds on opposing sides of a convergence line. I suspect it might be helpfull when ridge soaring, although I have not tried that. I am not convinced that the vertical air mass/inertial information is of much help. I may learn to utilize it eventually. The artificial horizon is very cool and comforting, although will probably never be used. I see this instrument combined with a big moving map instrument such as LX9000, Clear Nav, or Ultimate as being the best setup possible today. The Butterfly being a great vario while providing redundancy for the navigation and final glide computers. I don't see much use for the Flarm page unless they make it appear automatically when traffic is near. The voice (bitching Betty) is not of much use to me because if I set it loud enough for me to hear, when flying,it is garbled. I am deaf as a post,however, as I think many of us are. I have found that installing an external speaker on the Flarm and using the Flarm displays is better. It is also a easy to use approved flight recorder.

To this I would only add that the VAM has several filters which change its behavior quite a lot. It may take some experimentation with those to get useful information.

I had to change out the speaker to get the Bitchen' Betty to sound good when she was all turned up. The audio quality is good, but requires a better speaker than is typically installed for vario beeps, and maybe a better one than is shipped with it. But I am not deaf as a post yet.