Electronic vs. Pneumatic TE

I'll keep my PZL mechanical vario, thank you. It's plumbed as a netto
and gives me good information to compare to my 302 to decide whether to
stop or continue. No hammers allowed near my glider...

Dan Marotta

On 6/9/2014 12:00 PM, son_of_flubber wrote:
Read this for basic knowledge. http://www.clearnav.net/Technical/Va...pneumatics.pdf

If you plumb all three lines, then you can try both approaches and see which works better FOR YOU ON YOUR GLIDER. Your results will depend on the location and accuracy of your static ports and glider type, so anecdotal opinions may not be conclusive.

I have a V7 and I love it. A more interesting question to me is 'what do I display?" I set the analog pointer to display average. That forces me to listen to the beep and keep my eyes off the panel. I keep the backup vario turned off. The average lift indication is a very good indicator of when to stay and when to leave a thermal. It objectively confirms my bad old habits of taking too long to center and staying in a thermal for too long.

What is the real value of displaying short term lift on an audible variometer? For me it would only be a reinforcement of bad old habits developed with non-audible variometers.

I'd like to see the Soaring Safety Foundation take a hammer to all of the old non-audible variometers. That would be a great cost-effective boon to soaring safety (and boost the price of used B40s).

I expect that my V7 will pay for itself by reducing my re-light tows and my average tow height.

Having had both near midairs due to too much time looking at non-audio mechanical varios, and TE probe failures, I now have one of each. My SN10 uses a nice Ilec TE probe (pointed up, by the way ;^), and my backup is a Westerboer 1020 with electronic TE.

And yes, I have two separate redundant battery systems, which has never failed in over 14 years in the same glider...keep it simple and check often.

I also have a big hammer in my trailer (for tiedown stakes) ready to be used on any loose mechanical, non-audio varios...

Kirk
66

On Tuesday, June 10, 2014 8:15:23 AM UTC-4, kirk.stant wrote:
My SN10 uses a nice Ilec TE probe (pointed up, by the way ;^), and my backup is a Westerboer 1020 with electronic TE.

Interesting. I think I will set my V7 to computed (electronic) TE and B40 on the TE probe, set both on average and compare the results. You can set a jumper on the B40 to get continuous average on the pointer.