New Butterfly Vario

On Jan 26, 3:01*pm, Andy wrote:
On Jan 26, 12:14*pm, wrote:

It will be worth informing your customers that fly in US sanctioned
contests that this instrument, as described, will not
be legal for use in US contests due to the incorporation of the
artificial horizon.
UH

Early reports on this unit indicated the horizon can be disabled.
Don't know the means or whether such disabling would be considered
equivalent to having a conventional mechanical gyro instrument removed
from the glider. *It seems the designers did consider the need though.

Andy

It will remain to be seen as to how it is disabled and how this is
confirmed so enforcement isn't a PITA.
UH

Im debating this and the V7. Maybe even the clearNAV. With Flarm, nano and the butterfly vario I would have 3 certified loggers in my glider...so it feels a little overkill and very expensive. For another 1500 you can have an LX8000. Not sure if that $3300 price is going to fly. The V7 seems best at the moment.

On Jan 26, 2:26*pm, Sean Fidler wrote:
Im debating this and the V7. *Maybe even the clearNAV. *With Flarm, nano and the butterfly vario I would have 3 certified loggers in my glider....so it feels a little overkill and very expensive. *For another 1500 you can have an LX8000. *Not sure if that $3300 price is going to fly. *The V7 seems best at the moment.

and with Flarm, Nano, and Butterfly you still would need something
additional if you like a moving map. I'm thinking that someday when
my glider fund gets fat enough my Oudie and Nano coupled with the V7
should be a neat setup.

Butterfly would be sweet if you wanted to get into cloud flying. Add
a turn coordinator for a full IFR panel.

On Jan 26, 11:14*am, wrote:
On Jan 25, 12:15*am, "Paul Remde" wrote:

Hi,

I have just added the new Butterfly Vario to my web site. *It is a very
impressive new vario with FLARM display (when attached to a FLARM), GPS
flight recorder, simple navigation, simple final glide, artificial horizon,
and many other very nice features. *You can see details hehttp://www.cumulus-soaring.com/butterfly.htm

Good Soaring,

Paul Remde
Cumulus Soaring, Inc.

It will be worth informing your customers that fly in US sanctioned
contests that this instrument, as described, will not
be legal for use in US contests due to the incorporation of the
artificial horizon.
UH

Horizon:
- the artificial horizon can be deactivated in a secure manner (tamper-
rpoof, just like IGC logging)

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

Stupid question - the second in as many days on RAS from me - Why is
an artificial horizon illegal? I read it in the rules but the "Why?"
is never included.

It would permit flying into clouds? Bad for obvious safety reasons I
suppose, and someone might be tempted to purposely be sucked up into a
thunderhead to pop out the top and then final glide the entire task!

On Jan 26, 7:52*pm, JohnDeRosa wrote:
Stupid question - the second in as many days on RAS from me - Why is
an artificial horizon illegal? *I read it in the rules but the "Why?"
is never included.

It would permit flying into clouds? *Bad for obvious safety reasons I
suppose, and someone might be tempted to purposely be sucked up into a
thunderhead to pop out the top and then final glide the entire task!

I believe cloud flying in US contesst is no longer allowed.

On Jan 26, 8:49*pm, Mike wrote:
I believe cloud flying in US contesst is no longer allowed.

No it isn't but that rule is not, and cannot, be enforced. If it was
some very well known pilots would lose their standing.

I'm not talking about being 950ft below when the regulations require
1000ft below (substitute 450/500 for East coasters) but deliberate
entering of a cloud layer for competitive advantage.

Andy

A couple of thoughts.

I would like to point out that there are good precedents. For example,
some of us already fly with devices that supposedly encourage
excessive risk taking. They are called "engines", and we figured out a
way to handle this issue. You start the engine, your logger detects it
and it counts as a land out.
I see no reason why the same approach could not be used for any kind
of cloud flying equipment.

I know that it is possible to get into a cloud without trying to (or
while actively resisting). I got sucked into one. Due to the
cicrumstances it was neither unsafe nor illegal, but certainly
unintended.

Oh, and it is possible to make a sensor that would detect it when a
glider is in a cloud. And there would be countless ways of
circumventing it. Sometimes it is best to rely on a honor system.

Bart

your logger detects it
and it counts as a land out.
I see no reason why the same approach could not be used for any kind
of cloud flying equipment.

This means the scorer has to get every log every day, so you can't
turn in your primary log and forget to turn in the butterfly log. It
means Guy has to reprogram winscore for every new instrument that
comes out. It means that any failure of the butterfly log also means
zero for the day any gap in the log, any security failure, anything at
all goes wrong with it and you lose points. That's way too much to put
on the poor scorer, and I'm not sure you'd want it once the ifs ands
and buts are spelled out!


I know that it is possible to get into a cloud without trying to (or
while actively resisting). I got sucked into one. Due to the
cicrumstances it was neither unsafe nor illegal, but certainly
unintended.

I'm mr safety in contests, but I think we need just some hint of a
problem before we change rules. I know of zero -- zero -- incidents in
US contest soaring that a cautious pilot, not pushing the limits, got
unintentionally sucked in to a cloud, and wished he had a "safety"
artificial horizon.

I know of lots of incidents of pilots deliberatly flying in to clouds,
with or without gyros; and many more deliberately flying into / under
thunderstorms and other low visibility situations. (We have the
"safety finish" for a reason!)

The balance of safety -- to say nothing of competitive fairness --
still seems to me squarely on the side of the no artificial horizons
rule

John Cochrane

With respect...

So you're arguing that no one has yet died and therefore are suggesting that "we need to have an incident first" before the rule setters will consider changing this (outdated and ridiculous) rule? OK. I'll just shut up and wait for that to happen. No accident has occurred that can be directly correlated to disorientation in IMC in a glider? I doubt that (many incidents have happened over the last 20 years, just nothing fatal yet assuming your facts are correct). And if you are correct I promise you that one will happen at some point. Its just a matter of time before it does. And this thing could prevent that from happening.

Is this the message that we want to send all pilots (students, etc) within the soaring community? Contest pilots do not use AH's (actually have a rule that you must take it out of the aircraft or disable the function on your Vario, Watch, Computer, etc) because it makes you push the edges and anyone who has one wants to cheat? They reason that contest pilots are safer knowing that if you break cloud-base or get trapped on top (whatever)...you'll probably will die? This way nobody needs them.

It should only about safety, not a contest or competition concern. The number of honest pilots greatly outweigh the very few who might attempt cheating with the instrument. Safety should trump the chance that someone may cheat by light years. This rule clearly is outdated, unenforced, unenforceable and should be a DEEP safety concern. Half the people who flew contest last year probably had AH's on board. Good for them! This rule has not been enforced at all.

This is fairly embarrassing for the contest aspect of our sport in my opinion. If anyone wishes to put an AH in their glider it should be ENCOURAGED and PRAISED. Not outlawed. This logic is completely backwards. Instead the prime concern is someone may cheat and in this thread we have posts focused on A) don't buy this GREAT VARIO because B) you only want it to cheat and C) I will throw you out of the next contest because you would be cheating by owning it. Instead the concern is D) how do we disable this vario's functionality so it can be legal when 100% of future electronics and 50% of anything designed within the past 4-5 years already has this functionality.

Wow! Is it just me? I have the space in my panel and would love to install one. I must be a cheater. How dare I consider it...?