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freitag
New Entry
Switzerland
3 Posts |
 Posted - 28/07/2013 : 13:05:06
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Hello
I had a great flight yesterday in Fiesch, and found a bit of a problem with the LK8000 FAI triangle support. You can find my flight here: http://www.xcontest.org/switzerland/en/flights/detail:jewald/26.7.2013/08:35
The issues I have are:
1. (this came up two weeks ago): The "Draw FAI" setting does not stick. If I set it, and turn off the instrument, I need to re-set it for the next flight. This caused me some trouble two weeks ago, where I only noticed the missing FAI sectors halfway through the flight.
2. If "Draw FAI" is turned on mid-flight, it seems to only consider data from then on, not the whole flight up to that point. So if you notice you forgot to turn it on after the first turnpoint, the support it can provide is not very helpful any more
3. If you simulate the IGC from the flight above, you'll notice the following: While flying from turnpoint 2 to turnpoint 3, first a yellow set of sectors appears. Once I passed launch at Fiesch and fly further west, a light blue set also appears, indicating the bigger FAI triangle possible as I extend the flight to the West. But after a while, this starts switching with another yellow set, further west, for a smaller triangle. Once I reached the second turnpoint, only this yellow set is present, the light blue one does no longer appear. But that's the one I was aiming for: The big, 200+ km Fiesch triangle. I couldn't have done it yesterday anyway, but I'm wondering how I can force LK8000 to show me the "right" sectors in the future.
thanks for your help
Joerg |
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AlphaLima
Moderator
Germany
1978 Posts |
Posted - 28/07/2013 : 17:03:53
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Hallo Joerg,
1.) already changed for next version
2.) not true, does happen only if you turn Off/On the device.
3.) Don't understand your problem. Maybe you can add some screenshots. A lot of users are hapy with the optimizer. Anyone else, having problems Joerg describes?
Ulli
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m-a-r-t-i-n
Pulcino
33 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2013 : 14:16:02
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Hello,
I am also practising the FAI Sectors in order to understand it during flight. I also replayed Jörgs IGC File.
During his way to 2nd Turnpoint:
The yellow is the Sector for the Section between Start and 1. Turnpoint, the turquoise is the required one between Turnpoint one and actual Position.
Suddenly the two previous Sectors disappear and a new Sector is shown:
it is between Start and current Position. In his case not useful. It stays all the time during his ways to turnpoint 3:
Just when he is close to come home, it is visible that he has flown correctly:
Strange...
I think the logic behind is, that yellow Sectors always consider Start as a Turnpoint, right?
thank you and best regards,
Martin
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Edited by - m-a-r-t-i-n on 06/12/2013 14:16:26 |
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AlphaLima
Moderator
Germany
1978 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2013 : 15:49:39
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This example is very bad because it is a quite flat FAI and the start was on a leg, which was also an out and return, it does not even look like a triangle, so it is hard to estimate what the pilot is trying to archive.
Close the triangle?
or
Extend the triangle?
In this case the optimizer assumes you're on the way back so it shows the shortest way to close a FAI triangle. You'll get more detailed information about the optimized legs in the analysis page about it. This flight is reaching the limitation of a fully automated optimizer as it was not desinged for such flight-tracks far from beeing a trianlge.
If you continue flying to bigger aond/or more obvious trianlge it will show a better result, of course. |
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AlphaLima
Moderator
Germany
1978 Posts |
Posted - 07/04/2014 : 11:05:06
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Good news on that topic, I prety much improved the optimizer, it has much more stabe sectors now. It also inludes the "start on leg" FAI triangle.
Unfortuneatly we cannot make it part of 5.0 but for those interested in testing I can offer a (PC version only). Drop me a PM. |
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Toolish
Pulcino
Germany
13 Posts |
Posted - 13/04/2014 : 21:47:54
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Good work - thank you so much Ulli!! Thatīs a big step forward to the older assistant and Iīm looking forward to hopefully use it in LK8000 as soon as possible (Iīve been told not in 5.0).
Especially many paraglider and delta xc-pilots will benefit of this improvement. I know many pilots using SeeyouMobile only because of the FAI triangle assistant. As we donīt have l/d=60 and weīre pretty dependent on the terrain itīs often not so easy to fly deeply in the fai sector. Very often thereīs only a small gap to get an fai-triangle and then the assistant is worth a mint. The other case is that we have planned a triangle but in flight conditions change and we have rescedule our plans (weīre much more dependend of the wind as you surely know ;-) )
Ulli has done a really good job and now the assistant can calculate a flight which is started on the leg. I think many paragliders will be keen on this feature.
There are some triangles on which this fully automatic calculation is stretched to itīs limits. When the leg is buckled at the end or when we fly a fai-triangle that looks like a star (our "standard" triangles often look like this). Ulli wrote me that his calculation canīt be optimized for these cases any more. This only can be solved if you choose the right side of the fai sector on the first leg. On SeeyouMobile itīs done like this and many paragliders are happy with it. I think itīs tolerable to choose the right side of the sector once in order to get reliable informations! We also have calm valley transitions and Iīve never heard a complaint about the triangle assistant on SeeyouMobile. Quite the opposite: there are less sectors displayed on the map.
In order not to charge the glider pilots (which fly proper triangles ;-) ) it could be solved by choosing the fai calculator:
Diplay 2/3 -> "Draw FAI" and then "FAI Select Sector"
The switch could simply be integrated in custom keys. If you lay it on the left side of the map itīs also no problem to do this one click with gloves.
Cheers Stefan
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Heli
Pulcino
Austria
7 Posts |
Posted - 14/04/2014 : 07:37:28
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Hi,
would be great if it would be possible if there is any change to implement this function also for the FAI calculator, as Stefan had suggested!
Maybe its also possible to make a test-version included the new FAI calculator. I would help testing if you wish.
Now at spring are the best time for big(ger ;-) triangel at the alps ... so if you could deploy maybe a test able version?
Thanks a lot for your help and continuous support!
cheers
Heli |
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Coolwind
Moderator
Italy
8957 Posts |
Posted - 14/04/2014 : 08:49:50
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Looks like a fork of LK8000.
Me and bruno have just spent over two months to fix previous bugs that were making crashing LK, and I have no intention to spend any further day during the flying season to follow up with new development.
If the software crashes, it wont be called LK8000. We delayed for a reason the delivery, and in the meantime we did spent hundreds of hours to fix things, and not glitches.
Instead of developing new things, it would have been much more appreciated to help fixing own bugs.
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Toolish
Pulcino
Germany
13 Posts |
Posted - 14/04/2014 : 10:08:26
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I donīt think itīs a fork. You also could simply call it a bug that the triangle assistant was calculating wrong sectors on nearly all triangles we fly ;-)
We asked him pretty often to correct this - again and again and again. ;-) |
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m-a-r-t-i-n
Pulcino
33 Posts |
Posted - 14/04/2014 : 19:38:48
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I cannot see directly all the work of the great development team, but I can see that there is one test version delivered after the other. So I think it is really time for the developers to enjoy their software as well during the flying season!
I think the FAI calculator improvement is really very important for paraglider and hang glider users, but I fully understand that has to wait...
best regards,
Martin |
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parapenT1sta
Pterodattilo
Portugal
1864 Posts |
Posted - 14/04/2014 : 23:38:18
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quote:
Originally posted by m-a-r-t-i-n
I cannot see directly all the work of the great development team, but I can see that there is one test version delivered after the other. So I think it is really time for the developers to enjoy their software as well during the flying season!
I think the FAI calculator improvement is really very important for paraglider and hang glider users, but I fully understand that has to wait...
best regards,
Martin
I agree 100% with you!
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s.dietmar
New Entry
Germany
4 Posts |
Posted - 18/04/2014 : 22:00:53
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The actual FAI calculator does not crash the software, but the algorithm calculates sometimes "something". Now the question, is it a bug or not. In my oppinion, yes, its a big bug. More then the half of my FAIs was calculated false. A false calculation is much worse as no FAI calculator. So i am realy happy, that AlphaLima spent a lot of time to bugfix the calculator.
The main reasons, why i fly with LK8000: I have a valid record as backup, a screen with airspaces and a FAI calculator. The priority should be a stable version, but i hope that the bugfixed calculator also comes as soon as possible.
A big thank to all programmers, who spent her time for LK8000. Good job.
And yes, i'm paraglider, who flies tracks like a star or a pentatlon an will have a calculation of a triangle ;-) the world is sometimes complicated.
Best regards,
Didi
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KarmaGianni
Aquilotto
Italy
283 Posts |
Posted - 18/04/2014 : 22:19:53
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Not to bother you all, just a bit of curiosity: can you please explain me the reason of flying a NOT DECLARED Fai triangle?
I mean, the FAI triangles badges or records are valid only if the pilots declares them before the take off. That means he has planty of time to study, plan, draw, save the task. And he can do this at home by many softwares and devices... why the heck you need to do this in flight, with gloves, with little screens? And please don't tell me OLC Plus rules and score is the reason to spend time improoving the sw and spend a single second in flight doing this instead of looking around for safety... |
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Coolwind
Moderator
Italy
8957 Posts |
Posted - 19/04/2014 : 12:09:57
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Of course the actual FAI calculator does not crash the software! Nothing in the current beta and next 5.0 is crashing the software.
I have made in the past 12 months a lot of flights using LK to calculate the FAI triangle, and it works.
Last two flights of mine (410 FAI and 325 FAI) were made using LK during the flight, I dont see big problems.
(The FAI triangle calculator is using our contest engine made three years ago by Mateusz, it is not an independent piece of software.)
Using the FAI assistant during the flight is quite tricky, and requires a good "knowledge" of what you are actually looking at on the screen. You need also a quiet flight phase, to understand and read the screen, and change some display options to visualize the FAI sectors better.
In a glider, it is borderline. In a paraglider, I doubt it is.
But the culprit here is that for small FAI triangles the FAI assistant is quite good, while for bigger FAI triangles a planning is necessary, and required in advance.
Flying a 500km FAI triangle is quite complicated without a planned route in advance, because the position of turnpoints will make it almost impossible to be achieved, while flying in mountain areas at least. In flat lands it is another story, but France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria,and many other conutries are NOT flat lands areas. So let's consider real conditions.
I have flown some 400 FAI unplanned, thanks to LK. But I had planned at least two turnpoints out of three.
I think this feature is for less than 10% of pilots using LK. Much less.
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AlphaLima
Moderator
Germany
1978 Posts |
Posted - 19/04/2014 : 14:04:46
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Sorry guys,
I had the same wrong assumptions in the beginning but there are some good reasons. Especially Paragliders are more dependent on weather and topology. These guys much more often need to change the plans. Some of them sent me IGCs which indicating that they failed an FAI just by some km. Quite frustrating!
But one point that was really missing was the "Start on Leg" and I added that as it was not too much work to do. A lot of the Paras triangles start on a leg due to their prominent start position in the middle along a long valley.
But also for gliders the FAI assistant can help to extend an existing task if weather and time left as you can see in my video. Or if you have to abort a too optimistic task you can still make the best out of it, with the optimizer. Something I quite often did using SYM and what was really missing in LK. Initially I did not support the start on leg because it needs user selection and I personally prefer to start on a turnpoint, because it makes it easier to extend the FAI after a task is completed. If you look to the response in the Forum I doubt it is less than 10%, pilots aiming for max. OLC points, even under changing weather conditions want this.
In competitions we quite often fly AAT, with the optimizer you may be able to fly an FAI within an AAT. Quite honorable, isnt it? Something you cannot plan in advance.
And there is no problem, as some interested pilots can test my trail version in parallel in order to minimize the risks for a stable 5.0. Thats what I told them from the beginning! But they are so happy with this change that they want to have it as soon as possible because the forked version does not make valid IGC of course.
Concerning safety I believe, if the pilot does not have such assistant they will gaze even longer on the moving map to determine his options. Or will use another software alternatively.
If you test the optimizer, you will be amazed how easy you can archive a FAI even out of very wired flight tracks, quite motivating!
regards
Ulli
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Edited by - AlphaLima on 19/04/2014 14:12:26 |
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Toolish
Pulcino
Germany
13 Posts |
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FAI triangle support
