On Aug 25, 2:35*pm, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 8/24/2010 7:53 PM, akiley wrote: On Aug 24, 12:08 am, Eric *wrote:

I've used SeeYou Mobile for 1000+ hours all over the USA, and I'm not
aware of any bugs or gotchas. I would never go back to paper charts,
whiz wheels, or just looking out the window. For example, most of my
final glides begin 30 to 50 miles from the airport, where I can't even
see it, yet they work out well most of the time.

Eric,
What happens if your electronics fry? *Hope you have a backup
something.

I've used 4 PDAs over 10 years, 2000 hours total, with no failures, so I
haven't had to pull out the charts and ruler I always carry with me
(mostly out of habit). But, a PDA going bad isn't a SeeYou Mobile problem.. There are plenty of gochas I
can think of is SeeYouM. *All you have to do is not double check what
your goto waypoint is, forget to add winds, polar, safety altitude.
Maybe they aren't gochas, but they sort of are for new users.

These aren't SeeYou Mobile gotchas either, they are part of using a
"soaring computer", whether it's a map with circles, paper sheets with
tables of glide distances, or an electronic computer.

The polar and safety altitude (I assume you mean the "arrival altitude",
are settings you should do at home; i.e. "set and forget".

I'm not sure what you mean by "add winds", as SYM automatically uses the
winds in it's computations. Perhaps you mean "adjusting the winds"?
Sometimes you have to do that when you realize the winds ahead of you
are different from the winds SYM has calculated. * *It
takes a lot of thinking to make sure you know what you are doing.

I mean clear the winds totally in SeeYou then enter the official winds
aloft forecast. Maybe SeeYou does a better job, I haven't really
tested this. I just look at my IGC file from this Wednesday and the
winds were supposed to be 320 at 12kts in the 3000 to 6000 range. At
a few points spanning several minutes, SeeYou came back with winds
from 160 at 2 kts. But maybe this happens and is to be believed. Or
I'm really bad a drawing circles with a glider. Probably the later.


Yep, the cockpit is a busy place in a glider if you are going
cross-country, and it takes a while to get accustomed to a flight
computer. I had the advantage of 20 years of soaring before using PDA
flight computers, so the transition was much easier for me. I have the latest version of SeeYouM that I bought last fall. *One
known bug is that the wing loading changes when you leave the polar
screen then come back. *Try it.

It doesn't change on my setup (Ipaq 3835 with ver 3.11). Maybe it's a
3.12 issue. * *I think they fixed the one with Oudie
that didn't allow the user to set NM in units. *You would have to
reset it every time you loaded SeeYouM. *I haven't gotten an answer on
my Magnetic Track NavBox yet. *It's off by 12 degrees.

I bought this used iPaq which was listed as a 3700 on the reciept from
Wings and Wheels. Just out of warrantee. The label is worn and
unreadable on the back. Don't know of a software way to positively ID
the unit. It uses the CF cards and an add-on sleeve adapter to hold
the CF card. I have the slightly newer SeeYou Mobil ver 3.12. I have
had lots of IGC files with broken track or perfectly straight lines or
both. Also, I have to reboot my iPaq on a daily basis. Not sure if I
replace the iPaq next or the GPS. I did get an uninterrupted file
this wednesday on a 2.5 hr flight in the Cirrus.

I have to admit I've never used any kind of track bearing. I just put
the two different track bearing boxes on my PDA (simulator mode), and
they both read correctly (Washington state area); however, I get the
same error you do when I try to "fly" in Michigan. * *Maybe it's
party to do with old PDA hardware but I've had a lot of problems with
logging not starting, and NavBoxes showing no data, and lockups.
Other have had these problem too. *Some days my statistic page that is
supposed to show thermal graphs doesn't.

I just have the navBox called "Magnetic track over ground" at the top
center used as a heading indicator, even though it really is'nt.

There is a quirk in the older Ipaqs that can cause symptoms like this.
The fix is to disable the IR port, which is sensitive to sunlight, and
slows down the system. Make sure the beam is off on your Ipaq. Do
something like this: Start, Settings, Connections, Beam, uncheck box.

I just checked, this box is unchecked. But thanks for the heads up.


It also might be your hardware, as I've had none of those problems on my
fairly old 3835. What PDA are you using? Do you have GPS problems (you
might be able to determine that by looking at the flight trace in
SeeYou)? What GPS do you use? I'm slowly replacing components of my iPaq to see if that's the
problem. *I just replaced the CF card adapter back, I've tried a
different CF card. *We'll see.

I had the guys on the Navitar forum looking at these IGC files and
trying to help me with all my issues. They never came to any
conclusion on the broken flight tracks.

.... akiley

I'm definitely a navigator user. *I have a Garmin 395, I've put quite
a lot of hours on Garmin G1000's in IFR flight. *My point is one has
to be careful throwing full trust into these things.

Agreed. Start out conservatively, get comfortable with it, and then you
can reduce the margins bit by bit to make cross-country flying easier
and more enjoyable.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (netto to net to email me)