GPS and Soaring Tasks

[Bulau 0]

I've now flown the same aircraft (LS8-18) on two tasks, one using Max's CAISet instruments, and one using Ian's updated panel. On the most recent flight yesterday, everything Ian made for the updated panel worked perfectly as advertised. The only problems I encountered were task related issues with the FSX GPS.

The first issue is that it does not treat the waypoints as a circle when determining the arrival event, but rather assumes arrival when the flight path crosses the bisector of the angle between legs. Unfortunately, on this task, my "Smart" towplane happened to take me across that bisector. Consquently, the GPS began navigating to the next waypoint while I was still on tow. This brings me to the second issue, which is that there is no mechanism in the FSX GPS to undo or change this state.

Now I realize, if I'd had a little more presence of mind, I could have simply flown through the start waypoint, (using the moving map display) and headed out on task, knowing that all this could be sorted out at the IGC level. But, I'm thinking, we have some unused buttons on this instrument. Would it be possible to put those buttons into service to make this GPS a little more user-friendly for soaring tasks? Like, for example, backing up to the previous waypoint, or restarting the task?

Max's CAISet GPS-NAV handles this sort of situation the way a soaring pilot expects. The CAISet, modeled after the RL Cambridge soaring instrument, takes its cues from the pilot to determine when the task is started, and when to navigate to the next waypoint. Arrival at a waypoint is determined solely by proximity to the waypoint, i.e. the flight path passing inside a circle of a certain diameter around the waypoint.

Granted, the CAISet is a little more trouble to set up, requiring the creation of the task .dat file, but as it stands, the added features and behaviour described above more than makes up for the extra effort. And now it appears that Max may be revisiting the CAISet, and who can say where that might lead?

[Max Roodveldt 0]

Would it be possible to put those buttons into service to make this GPS a little more user-friendly for soaring tasks? Like, for example, backing up to the previous waypoint, or restarting the task?

David - the answer is yes - it's a XLM gauge so it can be changed or it's code can be used to create a better one. But it will need someone that's fluent in XML... (Ian ?)

Granted, the CAISet is a little more trouble to set up, requiring the creation of the task .dat file, but as it stands, the added features and behaviour described above more than makes up for the extra effort. And now it appears that Max may be revisiting the CAISet, and who can say where that might lead?

I've run the CAI set through my new compiler and added a new font to make it more readable - so far I have been busy with the polar issue. Once that has been solved the CAI set should work as intended - finally.

The next step could be a new CAI set - based on the 300 series - I've already got an HP iPag.

Cheers.

[B21 19]

There's a bit of a trade-off between using the FSX flightplan (integrated use with FS9/FSX, freeware tools like Plan-G available) versus the CAISET approach of programming the task planning and navigation from scratch (complete freedom in how the navigation algorithm performs).

The CAISET 'could' read the FS9/FSX flightplan to incorporate that as the task, and the XML gpsnav 'could' iterate through the task within my XML gpsnav gauge and perform lat/long/distance calculations from scratch rather than depend on the FSX 'bearing and distance to next WP' variables (actually,one thing an XML gauge *can't* do is read an external file (e.g .dat) without using a DLL addon). But whether either of those things get important enough to get done versus all the other stuff Max or I could do remains to be seen.

My current mini-project is to work on Wolfgang Piper's ASH 25, as I'd really like to try an open-class glider - that'll probably take a month. The glider 3D model is really good, I can put the XML instruments in easily enough (Wolfgang has kindly added a texture for a yawstring), but I also need to program flaps, water ballast, and tweak the aerodynamic model.

B21