On Friday, May 29, 2015 at 1:07:53 PM UTC-7, jfitch wrote:
On Friday, May 29, 2015 at 11:54:18 AM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
On Friday, May 29, 2015 at 10:56:52 AM UTC-7, jfitch wrote:
On Friday, May 29, 2015 at 9:38:04 AM UTC-7, Ramy wrote:
I disagree that XCSoar thermaling assistance info box is hopeless. It is in fact working perfectly 90% of the time. Like John, if I stay focus I can do as good or better than the thermal assistance, but if I let myself loose concentration (usually when talking in the radio or focusing on something else) the XCSoar thermal assistance helps me getting back to the core in one circle 9 out of 10 times. The nice thing about it is that it does not replace your moving map, so you can see both your zoomed in circles and the thermal assistance info box at the same one, and have all the information you need.

Ramy

Ramy,

I didn't mean that the XCSoar thermal assistant is hopeless, but hopeless in that circumstance indicating it is not as sophisticated. It is not as good as the Winpilot version in any circumstance, but not hopeless. Most of them work on the same principle, but the tuning and presentation are significantly different. The exception is iGlide, when coupled with the Butterfly vario the principle is quite different: each 1 second lift dot (size and color differ with lift strength) has also an instantaneous wind vector, these tend to pretty reliably point towards the center of the thermal. This is interesting, but requires more attention and interpretation than either Winpilot or XCSoar. Also the others assume the thermal is symmetric about its axis, iGlide does not and will map out a 2 core or asymmetric thermal.


I actually see the simplicity of the XCSoar thermal assistance as advantage. It is totally intuitive and only require a glimpse to know when to level off momentarily (it is important to read the manual to understand how to use it effectively), which is all you need to know in a thermal. Everything else is just distraction. And since it is so simple, it nicely fits in an infobox. I dont think winpilot thermal assistance is available as infobox, and I wouldnt want my flight computer to switch screens for me automatically, or even manually. I like to see the moving map and trace at all times. In fact, the xcsoar thermal assistance is so helpful it almost feels like cheating!

Ramy

Ramy, have you ever used the thermal assistant on (the old) Winpilot?

Jonathan - you might like to think that, but you'd be wrong .

John, yes I tried years ago when I used winpilot, but didnt like the fact that it takes over my whole screen. I know it is doing a good job based on feedbacks I heard but I didnt feel the need to have a dedicated screen for centering a thermal, while having an infobox in xcsoar is much less intrusive. You can either glimpse on it or ignore it. Thats the beauty of it.

Ramy