When are thermals not circular and do thermal helpers assume thatthey are?

On Thursday, August 1, 2013 3:20:49 PM UTC-7, Naviter Info wrote:
Some really good points here about thermal assistants, thanks.



Even Naviter doesn't believe in their version



Good point and largely true. For this reason the visual aspects of the Thermal assistant have been completely redesigned for the version which has been released earlier today (SeeYou Mobile 4.50). More about it (and other news) he

http://www.naviter.com/2013/08/new-v...and-new-logos/



There's also a discussion on a same/similar topic he

http://forum.naviter.com/threads/494...-with-my-Moves



I dare to say that accurate thermal assistants are a myth and that head down time during circling is a waste unless you are consciously learning a particular technique. At the same time - I do keep the "ding ding" thermal assistant active most of the time. Mainly because at times I become useless when I am talking on the radio, looking at my landing options or become plain old tired. That's when the thermal assistant's "ding ding" is usually right and very useful.



Regards,

Andrej Kolar

--

glider pilots use

http://www.Naviter.com



On Tuesday, July 30, 2013 6:38:56 PM UTC+2, jfitch wrote:

On Tuesday, July 30, 2013 12:51:44 AM UTC-7, waremark wrote:



You guys who find the WP thermal assistant so much better than others - are you running them on the same hardware with the same inputs? I hope you are not basing any comments on an Oudie using its internal GPS because it is known that the info from the internal GPS is not good enough for a thermal assistant.







I have SYM, XCSoar, Winpilot Pro and Adv, LK8000 all loaded on the Avier, all accepting the same input from the Butterfly including GPS and barometric data. I also have Winpilot iOS and iGlide Pro on the iPhone. Very shortly I will have these connected to the Butterfly for GPS and barometric data as well. I have tried them all, often switching between them on the same flight in the same conditions. (I don't need to look out of the cockpit - I have Flarm and an AH ). SYM and XCSoar (and its derivatives) have more features than Winpilot - but for the most part I don't find those features particularly useful. The Winpilot Pro thermal assistant simply works better than the others. I would not bother to use the others, frankly. I think the reason thermal assistants have gotten a bad reputation is from those not using the Winpilot version. The others don't appear when you want them, aren't useful once they appear, and don't dismiss themselves in a timely fashion when you are done.







Even Naviter doesn't believe in their version. Directly quoted from the manual: "We will be happy if you continue to enjoy soaring and if you never find the need to use the Thermal Assistant at all :-)". I agree with them, for their version.







The other main difference between Winpilot and the other PDA software is that the Winpilot authors have had some experience in man-machine interaction. The UI is more concise and considers the cockpit environment.







Now regarding head down time with all this junk in the cockpit. They are distractions, but the extent of the distraction depends to a great extent on the presentation and user interface. The Winpilot thermal assistant requires about a half second glance a couple of times each circle while you are attempting to center. There is no reason to study it. There is no interaction required to call it up or dismiss it. In contrast, try to insert a waypoint in SYM or XCSoar while you are thermaling (or even cruising). Now there is some head down time. The Avier/V2/Oudie do not make this any easier with its poor touchscreen.







The iOS offerings seem to have made a leap in UI. Both Winpilot iOS and iGlide have significantly better user interfaces than any of the PDA offerings. You can simply do a lot more with a lot less attention. However both products are not really feature complete yet - for example neither has a thermal assistant - but they are getting pretty close.

"I dare to say that accurate thermal assistants are a myth and that head down time during circling is a waste unless you are consciously learning a particular technique."

All I can say is try the Winpilot Pro version. There is very little head down time (a whole lot less than you spend on Flarm, as a comparison). There are rare instances when I think I can do better than the thermal assistants suggestion, but most of the time not. Of course it will not tell you where under the cloud to look, or that you may be precisely centering a small side tendril and the real core is over on the other side. Finding the lift is art. Centering it is science, and science can be reduced to an algorithm. Computers, correctly programmed, are very good at algorithms - without head down time or otherwise adding to pilot workload.

But I will try the reworked Naviter version!