At 23:42 24 June 2006, Fish wrote:
I am considering dropping a Winter Vario from my panel
. I have a Glide
computer and primary electric vario on board as well,
as an Ilec
electric. Just trying to lose some weight from the
cockpit.
Any PRO's or CONS's I need to know about regarding
reliability and
redundancy in flight......batteries in the cold etc??
Cheers

Fish

If you are looking to save weight dropping the mechanical
vario is not likely to help much. The mechanical I
have weighs far less than any electric vario and the
flask is down the back on the CoG. The big advantage
of suck and blow varios is that they still work when
the battery fails. I have never had a failure on a
suck and blow vario with the exception of a Cosim which
failed more often than not.