I fly paragliders, and there is an vario called Brauniger Compeo that can calculate wind speed and direction using GPS only, no pitot. Only thing the pilot need to do is do a 360 degree turn circle. Should be possible to integrate with RVOSD?
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I fly paragliders, and there is an vario called Brauniger Compeo that can calculate wind speed and direction using GPS only, no pitot. Only thing the pilot need to do is do a 360 degree turn circle. Should be possible to integrate with RVOSD?
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I dunno - atop RC, I fly biplanes, taildraggers, multiengines and thru to military jets, and I would not want to get winds by circling in a fuel burn, just to ascertain winds, toom much of a fuel burn; the winds will change over a route requiring multiple checks; and no time to do circles when the crosswind component issue is most important, on final and through to landing. I mean, a quick way to see the winds really, is to have a wind sock to see on final... but if we are dreaming here, why not use the pitot system and take the difference from GPS ground track to get realtime, updated winds? Seems not much harder to program if RVOSD is moving toward pitot tubes, and far more useful info without a 360....
flying off airspeed will not prevent you from getting home (if you set it right), but flying off groundspeed with the bad combination of airspeed might - might even precipitate a stall at the wrong time (seen it happen)...
I dunno about a Cat three, seems like RVOSD almost provides a coupled Approach LOL.... Maybe just gut an old ADF off Ebay, lighten it up, and stick up a transmitter at home field, do a tear drop penetration IMC the ole fashion way :-) Seriously though, my Celphone has an Android App that takes field data, altitude, and GPS heading and makes ILS needles for you to fly from GPS... Not a huge stretch to turn the little home field vector in RVOSD into a vertical crosshair (picked based on headwind per above?), and then the horizonatal needle based on elevation, distance from lauch point, based on best glide's angle (or maybe 3 degrees? Something settable)... Could be crazy fun! HUDs (and celphones <wink>) already have them, RVOSD would be fun to have that too!
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+1 !Originally Posted by BOEING747
Like in the glass cockpit planes! Nice...
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+1
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Fuel burn? What do you think you are flying? A spaceshuttle? Probably flown them too? Get real. Anyway this is all semantics, the OSD would most likely need some form of CPU to make these calculations, in which I`m guessing it lacks. So hardly something that can be done by editing its software I`m afraid. In future hardware upgrades maybe, would be an useful gadget easy to implement without the need of extra sensors. Furthermore pitot heads used in varios for hangliders often proves to be quite inaccurate due to low pressure differences within the specter of speed they are operating in.
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Huh?
I used to use a hummingbird vario when I was hang gliding and it didnt have a pitot tube, and it was incredibly sensitive and accurate.
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for airspeed readings?
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Maybe Frank installed it horizontally, instead of vertically... lol
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You dont use a Vario for airspeed readings. It reads vertical speed.
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Freeflying - no never flew the shuttle; was nominated from the US Navy to fly in 1993 but opted to move to a different tactical pipeline, commanded a carrier squadron instead before retirement and transition to astrophysics as a vocation. Now just fly RC, biplanes, and experimentals...
You asked.
(in fact my back-then PhD thesis included a section on a stratospheric, gimballed camera system mounted in a NASA Dryden (Edwards AFB) Hornet or NASM (MS) Goshawk to capture exoplanet transits, with a microsecond pulse video overlay on the image -- alot like RVOSD overlays on video today; the SWRI version of that camera eventually DID fly on the shuttle, BTW)....
and maybe you have a point about fuel burn. But I don't throw fuel away little RC or bigger, and I thought the mindset here was (after all I started the thread) was to imagine a best option, which making a circle to figure the winds a few minutes ago seems like last year's news.... If it is just as easy to implant a pitot system, why settle for circles? And if you are FPV and low on fuel in gusts far (miles/Km) away & about out of battery, if I had a choice I would rather know realtime winds than think about an FPV orbit. Sure it'll work. But why go after the less FPV friendly solution when Pitot is not really harder, and better, and... does not waste... fuel (gasp)...
After all RVOSD has an "F-16 HUD" view, and mimics tactical aviation (the Shuttle only got a decent HUD in the late nineties BTW) - why would I NOT want to apply _some_ of that thinking to any FPV or UAV avionics I chose for my RC?
FWIW, not a big deal, after all this is a "what if", dream-thread anyways :-) It is supposed to be fun when it's an avocation after all !
Cheers, Paul
Last edited by paul.zks7; 04-12-2012 at 05:42 PM.
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