On Wednesday, April 29, 2015 at 1:00:42 PM UTC-4, kirk.stant wrote:
On Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 8:19:03 PM UTC-5, Andrzej Kobus wrote:

This is scary to say the least. Even if your unit works most of the time there is always a possibility of a software defect and ultimately freezing of the device. The more I am reading this thread the more I am scared to share airspace with some of you! Who knows what other ideas you might have....

Regards, AK

Andrzej, what specifically do you find scary? Having a backup attitude indicator available for the (hopefully rare) possibility that you find yourself IMC? That is already being incorporated in the new top-of-the line (read: expensive) varios, so why not have the same technology available at an affordable price for all the gliders that already have a big glass display in their cockpit?

As far as reliablity, I would trust any electronic solution more than a mechanical gyro! Especially in a glider, getting banged around while being trailered, etc.

As far as using any turn & bank type of indicator, really? Unless you are instrument rated and/or practice a lot (like the Brits, apparently), I doubt if the average US glider pilot could learn to maintain attitude in a cloud via needle, ball, and airspeed on his first attempt for real! With a big attitude display, I would expect the chances would be a lot higher.

Remember, I'm talking about an EMERGENCY setup here, since for most of us in the US cloud flying is not a practical thing to do. So I don't care if it's not TSO'd. But all the bits and pieces are already out there, it just would be nice if they were combined in a way that would be useful to us.

We wear parachutes that we hope never to use, install flarm to prevent the midair we hope to avoid. I'd like an emergency attitude source to avoid the spiral dive I never plan to get into!

Cheers,

Kirk

(And if you are wondering, yes I do have experience in hard IMC, know what vertigo feels like, and have flown needle-ball-airspeed and glass cockpits, to include HUDs.)

Kirk, I was lucky enough to receive excellent glider training including aerobatics and flying in clouds (all of it in Europe) and I have no problems with people who want to have good quality AHRS or turn and bank indicator installed in their gliders. Flying gliders in IMC is not easy and having a back up is not going to do any good to anyone without training.

What worries me is that someone suggests using LK8000 as an AHRS device.

Certified solid state AHRS go through comprehensive test scenarios. Modern AHRS is almost all software and as we know software has defects. There is no perfect software. There are just defects that are known and defects that are yet to be discovered.

Some suggestions here are good but some like $100-$200 solid state solution is just not realistic, while the sensors might be cheap a bullet proof software that uses these sensors is not. If I wanted to have a backup I would definitely spend the money on proper solid state AHRS. There are other considerations e.g. icing that can render some AHRS included in glider instruments useless if airspeed indication is lost. With modern slippery gliders flying without ASI due to icing could be all but impossible.

The quote below is from Karl's website. I often think about this quote when flying.

"We do not what we ought;
What we ought not, we do;
And lean upon the thought
That chance will bring us through."
(Matthew Arnold)

I am certainly afraid of people coming out of a cloud through the bottom in an uncontrollable way while I am there just because they ventured into the place they should not have been (as Evan said) encouraged by their great LX8000 AHRS backup.

Please note. LX8000 is great software, but it never was intended to be used as AHRS no even in emergency.

Regards,
AK