Butterfly

Hello
The Butterfly vario was advertise has a revolution, well almost, on the market.
Is there any pilots using the Butterfly vario who care to comment on the advantages,if any, of this instrument? I am serously interested in acquiring
one but it as to be better than my LX 7000.
Thanks for your input.
Gilles

On Tuesday, August 27, 2013 5:59:06 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Hello

The Butterfly vario was advertise has a revolution, well almost, on the market.

Is there any pilots using the Butterfly vario who care to comment on the advantages,if any, of this instrument? I am serously interested in acquiring

one but it as to be better than my LX 7000.

Thanks for your input.

Gilles

I have one and I like it. But I have not used an LX7000 so I cannot compare.. It has a zillion more functions and features than the CAI 302 that it replaced in my panel, and has a very nice user interface. It does a bunch of things buut its unique features seem to be:
* Nearly instantaneous wind calculation (inertially derived)
* Inertially derived Vertical Airmass Movement (VAM) which in theory eliminates horizontal gust errors
* Artificial Horizon Reference

The VAM requires some interpretation, but I think supplies some new information that I didn't have before. There are some other varios on the market claiming to use inertial sensing, but it is less clear what they actually do with it, if anything.

I am very interested in the Butterfly Vario also but am waiting to hear from more users. The price is very steep. What I am looking for is a multipurpose display/instrument. I am hopeful that the Flarm display will become more complete. I am looking forward to the Angle of Attack (AOA) feature that is supposed to be released later this year. The inertial instrumentation to filter out horizontal gusts is very attractive.

At this time I am very happy with my C302 and want to add Flarm but have limited panel space and do not want to start stacking boxes and instruments on top of my panel and on multiple RAM mounts around my cockpit.

It seems that Butterfly is spending most of their time dealing with Flarm issues and the dedicated Butterfly Flarm display and putting the Butterfly Vario on the back burner.

Waiting. Watching. Listening. Hopeful. Not ready to write the check yet..

On Tuesday, August 27, 2013 7:29:08 PM UTC-7, wrote:
I am very interested in the Butterfly Vario also but am waiting to hear from more users. The price is very steep. What I am looking for is a multipurpose display/instrument. I am hopeful that the Flarm display will become more complete. I am looking forward to the Angle of Attack (AOA) feature that is supposed to be released later this year. The inertial instrumentation to filter out horizontal gusts is very attractive.



At this time I am very happy with my C302 and want to add Flarm but have limited panel space and do not want to start stacking boxes and instruments on top of my panel and on multiple RAM mounts around my cockpit.



It seems that Butterfly is spending most of their time dealing with Flarm issues and the dedicated Butterfly Flarm display and putting the Butterfly Vario on the back burner.



Waiting. Watching. Listening. Hopeful. Not ready to write the check yet.

I wouldn't say "back burner". They have responded very quickly to a couple of bugs I discovered.

I too bought it partly because of limited panel space and the integrated traffic display. The traffic display is incomplete and does not show the alarm screen, or any PCAS traffic at all. However this is nicely displayed on good PDA software (but not the PCAS targets so far as I know). What it DOES do is give you a very good voice alert: "GLIDER, 12 O'CLOCK ABOVE, TWO" meaning there is a FLARM warning of a glider at your 12 higher and 200 meters distant. I was a bit skeptical at this but having used it a few months now I think it is probably better than the display alert, if you have to choose between the two. There are voice warnings for gear, spoilers, speeds and obstacles (the latter in Europe only). In my glider this is a welcome change - I had three separate buzzers before and when one went off, I could spend a fair amount of time trying to figure out what the hell was going on. A Flarm display was going to add a 4th buzzer, with additional confusion. I would still like to see them implement full Flarm display on the vario.

Good to hear about the voice alerts. This is another very strong point in favor of the Butterfly Vario.
The C302 has a gear warning buzzer but the volume is controlled in synch with the vario volume so that when I turn the vario volume down when I am getting ready to land the gear buzzer gets turned down. When I need a quiet cockpit the most and am at risk of a gear up situation the C302 fails me. Are the volumes for each feature controlled independently in the Butterfly vario?

You can also get the voice alerts by installing the TR-DVS (http://www.triadis.ch/index.php?TR-DVS) which has been available since many years for about 430$. Judging from the sound samples in youtube videos from Butterfly, the software generating the sound alerts is the same. Not surprisingly, because the company which made the TR-DVS is also involved in the Butterfly vario.

El martes, 27 de agosto de 2013 20:59:06 UTC-4, escribió:
Hello

The Butterfly vario was advertise has a revolution, well almost, on the market.

Is there any pilots using the Butterfly vario who care to comment on the advantages,if any, of this instrument? I am serously interested in acquiring

one but it as to be better than my LX 7000.

Thanks for your input.

Gilles

Hi
Not many comment on the variometer itself.
Is it a better variometer in difficult broken lift, hard to center thermal?
The zillion function can be found on many instrument it is a matter of taste.
Gilles

On Tuesday, August 27, 2013 10:02:49 PM UTC-4, jfitch wrote:
I have one and I like it. But I have not used an LX7000 so I cannot compare. It has a zillion more functions and features than the CAI 302 that it replaced in my panel, and has a very nice user interface. It does a bunch of things buut its unique features seem to be:

* Nearly instantaneous wind calculation (inertially derived)

* Inertially derived Vertical Airmass Movement (VAM) which in theory eliminates horizontal gust errors

* Artificial Horizon Reference

The VAM requires some interpretation, but I think supplies some new information that I didn't have before. There are some other varios on the market claiming to use inertial sensing, but it is less clear what they actually do with it, if anything.

I don't understand your comment "the VAM requires some interpretation, but I think supplies some new information that I didn't have before". I would think the VAM was an inertially derived NETTO value. What do you think the VAM is telling you that you don't already know?

-John, Q3

On Wednesday, August 28, 2013 6:10:05 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Good to hear about the voice alerts. This is another very strong point in favor of the Butterfly Vario.

The C302 has a gear warning buzzer but the volume is controlled in synch with the vario volume so that when I turn the vario volume down when I am getting ready to land the gear buzzer gets turned down. When I need a quiet cockpit the most and am at risk of a gear up situation the C302 fails me. Are the volumes for each feature controlled independently in the Butterfly vario?

Yes the Butterfly seems to be manufactured by Triadis. Not sure who is doing the firmware. The voice alerts (and vario, and cruise tones) are each independently adjustable. In addition, there is a speed dependent volume adjustment (so it will be louder when going faster) and also a connection to the push-to-talk microphone switch so that when you talk on the radio, the volume will be turned down (again, a settable amount from 0-100%). I have found the latter a nice feature.

Is it a better vario than a CAI 302? I think strict vario function has been fairly well trodden ground. I like the presentation better on the Butterfly, it has nearly the same filtering adjustments, and cannot be set a lot faster than the 302 - not that you would necessarily want that, it (and the 302) get pretty twitchy when the filtering is reduced to the minimum. I expect both of these and any other pressure transducer instrument are accurately reporting the pressure rate of change, which is about all they can do.

Now, that is not the end of the story. The VAM is an inertially derived netto, and theoretically can filter horizontal gusts which a traditional netto or vario cannot. Actually in the Butterfly you are able to derive the VAM from barographic information, inertial information, or any mix of the two from 0-100%. I have settled on about 80% inertial, at 100% it seems hard to interpret, but I haven't played with all of the available filtering much yet. However I have watched the VAM and vario extensively in thermals (keeping an eye on the Flarm display of course, don't have time to look outside ), and I am beginning to wonder if I would do better thermalling from the VAM needle, instead of the vario needle. In rough western desert thermals it is kind of hard to tell without a lot of flying next to people to see if there is a difference in ultimate climb rate. There are many times when the needles agree, usually with the VAM leading the vario - this is good. There are also times when they don't agree, and often in those cases it is not obvious why.

Second, the inertially derived wind is nearly instantaneous, and varies a *great deal* around thermals. From the "feel" of things, I judge it accurate: when I feel a sudden sideways gust entering a thermal, sure enough there it is displayed on the vario. Vector shifts of 180 deg and 20 knots velocity compared to wind average on the PDA are somewhat common where I fly. I have just been informed by Buttefly that I can display this difference on iGlide, haven't tried it yet as I just got the equipment needed to connect it up. I am beginning to learn to use this information to tell me which direction the thermal core is.

So there is extra information available to the instrument, and the pilot, that was not there on the CAI 302. I don't think it will instantly turn me into a threat at the Nationals. However I hopeful it will improve my climbs, when and if I learn how to use it. In the mean time it is a damned entertaining instrument!

The Butterfly is the most contemporary looking vario I've flown with. All others look quite "old fashioned" after using it.
The multiple "pointers" displayed give a pretty complete analysis of the airmass at a glance. The wind calculation is the smoothest I've ever seen. It works very well in weak lift. I did not get to fly it in choppy lift.
However, Marc from Butterfly told me that the FLARM warnings in the vario do not cover the full range of warnings that the FLARM display does. Besides this I believe it does not automatically switch to the radar screen if there is a warning. They do not recommend it as the primary FLARM display.
Jim