On Thursday, August 29, 2013 7:18:54 PM UTC-7, Eric Greenwell wrote:
jfitch wrote, On 8/29/2013 5:46 PM:

On Thursday, August 29, 2013 5:21:47 PM UTC-7,



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.



I have ClearNav with a 302. I'm considering replacing the 302 with a

Butterfly or ClearNav vario for next season. Has anyone compared the

varios when connected to a ClearNav?



--

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to

email me)

- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm

http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

Eric - since the RS232 output from the Butterfly emulates either an LX1600 or CAI302 vario, I don't think you will see much difference on any PDA software that connects that way, with the exception that the wind will be much more up to date (if the PDA software in question uses the wind value in the NMEA sentences received). Another consideration is that the NMEA interface is fixed at 38K baud, while the CAI 302 is effectively fixed at 4800 baud, so the PDA software must be configurable enough to receive it. The Butterfly also does not seem to do the initial handshaking that the CAI302 expects (to turn on the data port), it just begins to broadcast as soon as it is booted. This cause some initial problems for me with some software, solved by running everything in the LX mode.

For my money, the Clearnav vario is a boring instrument compared to the Butterfly, looking distinctly 20th century. It virtues seem to be that it is cheaper, simpler, and no doubt well integrated with the Clearnav. And there are those who will say that, being built in the USA, if you are in the USA service is closer and quicker should it ever be needed.