darryl ramm's blog

These notes on for new XC pilots flying with me with a handheld GPS or PDA.

You do not need a handheld GPS or PDA with software like SeeYou Mobile or WinPilot to fly cross country. Coming with just a marked up sectional chart and a glide ruler is just fine (and a whole lot less to prepare). However if you have a GPS or PDA then you should bring it with you when we fly together and get to use it. However try to get familiar with basic operation of the device before the flight, the more complicated toy you have the more time you are going to have to spend playing with it before flying. But if you have one I still encourage you to do this and bring it with you on the flight vs. trying to work it out on your own.

Personally I fly with SeeYou Mobile on a HP iPAQ 4700 PDA. In my own glider these conenct to a Cambridge 302 vario/flight computer/logger. In BASA club gliders I use a CF Card GPS receiver in the PDA.

You should make sure you can do the following with device/software -

• Upload the latest Hollister waypoints from the Soaring Turnpoint Exchange, or upload waypoints through SeeYou (desktop) if you use that. Try to have the exact same waypoints loaded as you used to mark up your sectional chart.
• Set the units, I work in feet altitude, nautical miles distance and knots speed
• Display a list of waypoints, ranked by distance, preferably filtered by type (e.g. a landable waypoint, if the GPS supports that)
• Select a waypoint to fly to
• If possible configure the device to display a name or short name on the map screen, not the waypoint number
• Drill into information about a waypoint (that includes frequencies and waypoint comments etc. if the device/software supports that).
• (If supported) display L/D required to a waypoint, then you need to make sure you know how to display the current L/D as well as the L/D required to a waypoint. (looking at actual L/D vs. L/D required to a waypoint is extremely useful).
• Capture a trace file and convert to an IGC file (able to upload to the Online Contest etc.).
  • For Garmin GPS devices G7toWin is a good free program to do this, SeeYou can also do this.
  • Drive around in your car to capture a trace file and convert them to IGC files

Additional things you should know how to do if you are using PDA/flight computers (as opposed to basic GPS units) -

• Configure the correct polar and % bugs to suit the glider.
  • BASA flight rules require we assume 5 nm per 1,000 feet in 20 meter configuration. This is assuming 35% bugs over the flight manual specification of 46.5 maximum L/D. If your software only allows 30% bugs go with that.
  • For your first solo cross country flights you will probably want to asume a higher % bugs than this.
• Set a safety arrival height to a waypoint of 1,000 feet and if the software supports it also set 1,000 feet clearance over terrain. (it does not matter exactly what these are as much as we know what they are set to and have conistent setting on all computers/GPSs in the glider)
• I recommend showing as little information on the screen as possible. Don’t clutter up the screen with lots of nav (information) boxes etc. The ones that are important are -
  • Current L/D
  • L/D required to destination
  • Distance to destination
  • Wind speed/direction (often displayed on the screen anyhow)
    And maybe -
  • Track to destination
  • Arrival height (can interesting/instructional to look at but not nearly as usegul as L/D required)
  • Ground speed (more useful for wave flights)
• If the software support it (SeeYou Mobile, WinPilot and probably others do) set the screen “map” display to show the L/D required to reach each waypont.
• For SeeYou Mobile turn off the terrain display, the plain white background is needed for maximum contrast and legibility and even then most PDA displays are hard to read.
• How to show what the software’s guess of the wind is and how to override/reset this calculation (because it is likely to be wrong and you may not want to rely on the calculated wind).
  • You should read an explanation from the vendor about how the software/computer calculates the wind.
• Be sure you know if there are any steps required for you to start or finish a flight log file capture, such as letting the device sit stationary for some perod of time to have the software close and digitally sign a secure IGC file.
• Know how to upload or set a task declaration, including setting turnpoint type to cylinder, start lines etc., this can be tricky, ask me and I’ll help.
• Know how the start gate feature works, including how to restart a task, this is getting advanced but just read that section of the vendors’ documentation, ask me if it is not clear.

And finally

• Even if the device will run for many hours on batteries, get a 12 volt cigarette adapter cable. The DG-1000S has cigarette ligter outlets for the front and back seats. One day you are going to forget to put in new batteries, or charge them or whatever. With a PDA it is often necessary to set the display to the absolute brightest to get acceptable screen contrast, which can mean it is necessary to run from external power (still set the display to timeout after a minute or so if it supports this to save power).
• Find a way to mount the GPS or PDA, I like the DiBlasi kneeboard you can use adhesive velcro on the kneeboard and device or even better screw a real mounting bracket for the device to the kneeboard (beware of using adhesive velcro on the back of battery compartment doors. I found on my HP iPAQ 4700 that stressing the battery compartments door sometimes could cause intermittent power interruptions and the iPAQ to crash.)
• For PDAs try out the ClearTouch AntiGlare screen protectors (make sure you get the AntiGlare not the Crystal protectors), unlike most screen protectors the ClearTouch AntiGlatre can actually help reduce glare and improve screen readability.