On Jan 14, 8:54*am, waremark wrote:
On Sunday, January 13, 2013 6:37:47 PM UTC, wrote:
Looking at the options for instrumentation for new Light Sport Aircraft, I find most manufacturers to offer a complete glass panel for flight instruments, engine controls, communications and of course navigation. *There is nothing round with a pointer to be found and everything requires electrons to work. *Factory-made gliders require of course to be equipped with certified instruments but I wonder if anybody in our small niche of aircraft instrument design is working on a one-panel box that shows the usual flight information. *Given the progress in that area, it is certainly technically feasible.

We would have to get used to vertical tapes for speed and altitude but everything could be over-laid a navigation screen with the usual soaring computer information in dedicated boxes. *This would clean up our busy panels and we could rid ourselves of the ugly external boxes that stick out from the panel or the canopy frame. *I’d be interested in such a panel and would think in the long run this could well be marketed to the existing glider fleet, especially in the Experimental category. *So who might be working on a Glider-EFIS?

There are various instruments available now with displays of approx 5.6 inches;this size leaves just enough room in a typical glider panel to also have round analog instruments in 57 mm format. I have an LX 9000, obvious rivals are the Clearnav, the LX Navigation Zeus and the Craggy Aero Ultimate. The LX 9000 gives great flexibility in the sceen layout(the others probably do too, but I am not familiar with them). The LX 9000 also comes with the V5 vario, which has most of the same features as the better known V7 - ie it includes an LCD display showing (at option) myriad additional data items.. The main LX 9000 display can be configured to include tape displays of airspeed and altitude, but I cannot think why you would want that. Personally I want to use most of the available display area for situational awareness (ie moving map with various things displayed on it). At appropriate times, being based in the UK where IFR flight is allowed, I can hand over some of the display space to an attitude indicator or to a radar display of Flarm traffic.

I look for progress not in the way info is displayed, but in a reduction of power consumption, and an improvement in communication. As of today, to transfer information into or out of any of the fixed glider instruments, you have to fiddle with data cards. It will be a worthwhile improvement when internet access and file transfer are available wirelessly (as is the case for the many GA flight planning and navigation programs running on iPads).

I look forward to other people's thoughts.

One issue comes to mind. To actually replace legally required steam
gauges, the electronic system would have to go through all sorts of
certification, then the reliability of the electrical system becomes
part of the mandatory flight instruments, blah blah blah. So, you'll
still have to have the steam gauges anyway, which lowers the benefits
of mirroring the same information on a screen.

John Cochrane