GPS in a glider?

[Chuck Plains]

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can put in the limited space that I have inside my glider?

I suppose I could stick something to the outside if necessary.

My main reason for doing this is because I realize that, on a good day, I'm flying a pretty long way from where I'm standing, both height and distance wise. But I have no clue how far or high.

I'm guessing that a 2.5 mtr glider will look pretty small once it gets to 400ft altitude and maybe half a mile away.

Or will it? I'd like some way to confirm what I think I'm doing.

A couple of years ago I almost specked out my old Bixler trainer but was lucky enough to recognize it's response to the sticks and bring it back.

Any advice or whathaveyou is welcome.

[Fatscoleymo]

Hi Chuck, I have vario / altimeter in my Bixler and I've had it to 400+ meters (don't tell anyone...) a few times. That's about 1300 ft. Not quite directly overhead - it was just at the limit of of my vision.

My Radion XL went up like a rocket the other week...didn't have vario/alt in that but it looked about the same size as the Bix does at at 400 mtrs...and it's a lot bigger.

1/2 mile / 800 meters away on the ground will look small...put some height on it and you'd be lucky to see a 2.6 glider I would have thought?...... I've always found it difficult to estimate distance....

Might be of help..

Fats

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Frank Skilbeck]

Chuck, I've used the version 1 of this and also this and they both work very well. I'm using them with my Multiplex M Link telemetry system, but they both work across several platforms or just as loggers to their inbuilt Micro SD card.

400ft altitude isn't much at all, at the aerotows we generally come off the tow at around 1,000 ft and then go thermal hunting, even at our normal flying site I've thermaled my Parkzone 2.25m Ka8 to well over 400ft. Remember for models below 7kg there is no height limit in uncontrolled airspace.

[PatMc]

You can get this stand alone Eagletree Altimeter MicroSensor . It records the max alt reached during a flight & can be read off on landing.
Hobby King also sold this smaller altimeter that recorded the altitude for the whole flight which can then be displayed as a graph on a PC or tablet. Dunno if they will be coming back into stock though.

Of course neither of these give the ground position but estimating the angle at max altitude, using the known max altitude & applying a bit of simple trigonometry should give a reasonable approximation.

[PatMc]

As a personal target I normaly launch some of my E-gliders to the old 30 sec/200mtr (660ft) formula then thermal hunt from there. It needs about 120W/lb to achieve the altitude within 30 secs. At that sort of altitude the model really needs to be well trimmed or a lot of height can be quickly lost through clumsy control inputs. In fact I usually switch to coupled aileron with 50% rudder during the highest &/or most distant part of thermal flights.

[Andy Palmer]

Like Frank I use Multiplex gear and have recently purchased a UniSens-E from SM Modellbau. It doesn't have a GPS but it does have a vario and altimeter. I recorded 388M with a 2metre glider on one flight last month. I took a photo of the transmitter screen when I'd landed.

[Andy Palmer]

Forgot to say the unit is very small:

[Chuck Plains]

Posted by Steve J on 01/04/2017 20:16:20:

What transmitter and receiver are you using? If you have telemetry, does your radio manufacturer sell a GPS unit? And do they supply a tool to get the data into Google Earth (other map systems are available)?

I have played around with GPS units in models. I found it interesting to see where I was actually flying.

Steve

I should have mentioned that my Hitec Optic 6 only has battery voltage telemetry available.

[Chuck Plains]

Posted by Frank Skilbeck on 01/04/2017 20:46:32:

Chuck, I've used the version 1 of this and also this and they both work very well. I'm using them with my Multiplex M Link telemetry system, but they both work across several platforms or just as loggers to their inbuilt Micro SD card.

400ft altitude isn't much at all, at the aerotows we generally come off the tow at around 1,000 ft and then go thermal hunting, even at our normal flying site I've thermaled my Parkzone 2.25m Ka8 to well over 400ft. Remember for models below 7kg there is no height limit in uncontrolled airspace.

Oo, that Alti GPS looks interesting!!!!!! And I see it has some compatibility with FrSky, which bodes well as the Optic 6 can be slightly modified to run a FrSky module. But it's such a clever GPS that it would still be worth it even if I stick to my Hitec RXes.

[Chuck Plains]

Heh, I had forgotten about the 7kg rule.

[Chuck Plains]

Posted by PatMc on 01/04/2017 21:27:50:

As a personal target I normaly launch some of my E-gliders to the old 30 sec/200mtr (660ft) formula then thermal hunt from there. It needs about 120W/lb to achieve the altitude within 30 secs. At that sort of altitude the model really needs to be well trimmed or a lot of height can be quickly lost through clumsy control inputs. In fact I usually switch to coupled aileron with 50% rudder during the highest &/or most distant part of thermal flights.

Hmm, My glider seems to need a good headwind to climb out 'nicely', so without that , 30 seconds is prolly about 30ft.

[Chuck Plains]

Of course, there's always my computer to take into consideration here. I run Linux Ubuntu. Sooo, I'll have to do some checking around to see it these products will run under "Wine", which is a Windows emulator for Linux systems.

[Chuck Plains]

Posted by PatMc on 01/04/2017 21:01:05:

You can get this stand alone Eagletree Altimeter MicroSensor . It records the max alt reached during a flight & can be read off on landing.
Hobby King also sold this smaller altimeter that recorded the altitude for the whole flight which can then be displayed as a graph on a PC or tablet. Dunno if they will be coming back into stock though.

Of course neither of these give the ground position but estimating the angle at max altitude, using the known max altitude & applying a bit of simple trigonometry should give a reasonable approximation.

Yes that HK one, which I did look at the other day, looks like a bargain even without GPS readings.

[Chuck Plains]

Posted by Andy Palmer on 01/04/2017 21:58:23:

Like Frank I use Multiplex gear and have recently purchased a UniSens-E from SM Modellbau. It doesn't have a GPS but it does have a vario and altimeter. I recorded 388M with a 2metre glider on one flight last month. I took a photo of the transmitter screen when I'd landed.

388mtrs? And you could still see it? I'm encouraged by that I must say.

Though the Unisens-E doesn't log data, so I would have to look at different radio gear to use it.

[PatMc]

Posted by Chuck Plains on 02/04/2017 11:29:46:

Posted by PatMc on 01/04/2017 21:27:50:

As a personal target I normaly launch some of my E-gliders to the old 30 sec/200mtr (660ft) formula then thermal hunt from there. It needs about 120W/lb to achieve the altitude within 30 secs. At that sort of altitude the model really needs to be well trimmed or a lot of height can be quickly lost through clumsy control inputs. In fact I usually switch to coupled aileron with 50% rudder during the highest &/or most distant part of thermal flights.

Hmm, My glider seems to need a good headwind to climb out 'nicely', so without that , 30 seconds is prolly about 30ft.

Ehh ? Headwind can only limit the climb.

If it's too strong the model will climb verticaly or drift downwind during the climb phase, neither of which is a desirable situation. At the other extreme, if there's no wind the model can be flown towards any potential area of lift during the climb - the ideal situation.

[Dickw]

The UniSens doesn't log data, but the UniLog does:-

https://www.sm-modellbau.de/UniLog-2

I use both in different aplications. Either can be linked to their GpsLogger to record all data against GPS location if that is what you want.

Dick

[Chuck Plains]

Posted by PatMc on 02/04/2017 12:27:08:

Posted by Chuck Plains on 02/04/2017 11:29:46:

Posted by PatMc on 01/04/2017 21:27:50:

As a personal target I normaly launch some of my E-gliders to the old 30 sec/200mtr (660ft) formula then thermal hunt from there. It needs about 120W/lb to achieve the altitude within 30 secs. At that sort of altitude the model really needs to be well trimmed or a lot of height can be quickly lost through clumsy control inputs. In fact I usually switch to coupled aileron with 50% rudder during the highest &/or most distant part of thermal flights.

Hmm, My glider seems to need a good headwind to climb out 'nicely', so without that , 30 seconds is prolly about 30ft.

Ehh ? Headwind can only limit the climb.

If it's too strong the model will climb verticaly or drift downwind during the climb phase, neither of which is a desirable situation. At the other extreme, if there's no wind the model can be flown towards any potential area of lift during the climb - the ideal situation.

Ah, hehe, so that, 'going up like it's in an elevator', on windy days, shouldn't be described as a good climb out. Though we almost never have calm days on the edge of Dartmoor.

Ok, so that indicates that my machine is somewhat underpowered for it's weight. Well, yes, I had realized that in fact. It is a bit lardy at 1.5kg, but it's my first pod and boom glider and I built it to fly and survive through the winter, which it did admirably, in my opinion. I shall be attempting a significantly lighter version soon.

It's the first proper looking glider that I've flown. Previously I learned with a goofy looking Bixler (trainer)

[Geoff S]

Posted by PatMc on 01/04/2017 21:27:50:

As a personal target I normaly launch some of my E-gliders to the old 30 sec/200mtr (660ft) formula then thermal hunt from there. It needs about 120W/lb to achieve the altitude within 30 secs. At that sort of altitude the model really needs to be well trimmed or a lot of height can be quickly lost through clumsy control inputs. In fact I usually switch to coupled aileron with 50% rudder during the highest &/or most distant part of thermal flights.

I have a Frsky altimeter in my Phoenix 2K but only fly to 200 metres on a very clear day because I simply can't see it properly except in ideal conditions. I have replaced the motor (it failed) with Turnigy Gliderdrive 960kv motor with a 12x6 folding prop which gives adequate performance. It is slightly underpropped and more power is available if I up the size a bit. The Gliderdrive motors are ideal for the Phoenix as they are outrunners but fully contained in a outer casing so there's no problem with motor wires needing to pass close to a rotating motor case.

Geoff

[Chuck Plains]

Posted by Geoff Sleath on 02/04/2017 14:24:58:I have replaced the motor (it failed) with Turnigy Gliderdrive 960kv motor with a 12x6 folding prop which gives adequate performance. It is slightly underpropped and more power is available if I up the size a bit. The Gliderdrive motors are ideal for the Phoenix as they are outrunners but fully contained in a outer casing so there's no problem with motor wires needing to pass close to a rotating motor case.

Geoff

The Gliderdrive motors look good!

The HK website is so difficult to search these days that I'd not heard of those motors before. I spite of them being in the sort of KV range I was looking for.

They look great and the price is no problem. But I'll have to build a wider fuselage to suit.

[Andy Palmer]

388mtrs? And you could still see it? I'm encouraged by that I must say.

Though the Unisens-E doesn't log data, so I would have to look at different radio gear to use it.

388mtrs was ok but of course it depends on visibility on the day. And I wouldn't have risked glancing down at the screen!