Digifly Air vario vs 6030?

A discussion restricted to the topic of hang gliding.
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Martin
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Post by Martin »

I must admit that the first time I spotted this thread the Digifly Air looked interesting, especially given its use of a Pito tube airspeed system. I fly a rigid wing and believe it is extremely important to have a high quality reliable airspeed. My current instrument combination is a 6030 and 76csx for backup. This setup has served me very well through the years tho the Garmin lacks any advanced navigation options and the 6030 is starting to show its age.

Earlier this spring I almost made the move for an Naviter Oudie but the lack of Pito tube (and lack of commitment to ever include one) left me believing that the Oudie could never fulfill the position of primary instrument.

Flytec… oh my good old Flytec… what has happened? First off, for North American pilots, we are lucky to have the outstanding customer service of Steve Kroop. I recently did a firmware upgrade on my 6030 to accommodate some airspace stuff and I ran into an odd glitch involving radio interference. Steve was terrific about showing interest in helping out even tho my instrument was probably purchased more than 5 years + prior. Without question I would be a happy customer to stick with Flytec (because of Steve) but sadly the "Connect" looks to be an instrument without a future as its progress is ridiculously slow an appears will never become a finished product. Flytec is no longer the company it once was.

The Digifly looks interesting but unless there is a "Steve Kroop" out there to support it, or you can deal directly with a responsive factory service, I'm really not interested in buying something from a list of a hundred dealers (I mean there are at least 5 dealers for Canada!).. dealers that I doubt will be interested in helping me 5 years out from purchase. The other thing with the Digifly, maybe I'm wrong but why no "touch screen" ? The interface is dumbed down to 4 keys. With all the bells and whistles this instrument packs I can't imagine not having a touch screen for advanced navigation.

Instruments are just like a good harness. Highly personal (but from what I can tell… don't develop the special lived in "stink" :wink: ). We might think we want a ridiculous number of benefits and features but when it comes right down to it… do we need them? The Digifly looks like allot of screen clutter and thanks to its programming software you might get hooked into endless futzing with screen options and less about efficiency? I'm probably wrong and I'm sure all the cool kid are going to want all the stuff the Digifly packs but to be honest, I don't get the need for half the stuff that gets sold as "features". Even with my 6030, banging around in rough air I seldom pay much attention to my "speed to fly"… just shut up and tell me I'm in lift… and for crying out loud… quit your squawking… I know I'm getting drilled !

Truthfully, what I'm looking for is improvements to navigation (including map options like Google Maps ) and airspace information along with a backup flight recorder for a primary instrument. I started a little project this spring looking at Android based solutions. I needed a new phone so I purchased a Samsung S7, installed various flight Apps. At the same time I pondered what could fulfill the position of my primary bullet proof instrument. None of the Apps or this combination made it into the sky for this season as there is a bit of futzing around that is required to get the setup installed on my glider but the TopHat Beta App did get a bunch of ground testing and seems to be a nice simple program.

For now, the primary instrument is still up in the air. I'm leaning toward sticking to a 6030 with BT (rumor has it Flytec will produce one more run of 6030's…). If I can get my hands on a Digifly I would give it a look, maybe it can be dumbed down enough for me to comprehend and still perform well as a primary instrument. As far as my secondary instrument goes, I'm thinking I better get the S7 mounted an in the air for testing.

Martin
Entelin
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Post by Entelin »

Martin wrote:Truthfully, what I'm looking for is improvements to navigation (including map options like Google Maps ) and airspace information along with a backup flight recorder for a primary instrument. I started a little project this spring looking at Android based solutions.
I also have been researching phone options. Here's a couple finds that may help:

This thing is apparently supported by xcsoar and lk8000. It's a way of getting high quality sensor information into your phone (like airspeed and the rest)
http://www.compass-italy.com/product.ph ... robe~.html

This doesn't do airspeed, but it looks like a good vario, and the bluetooth version can get the other sensors into the phone. Check out the tone simulator in the second link.
https://www.xctracer.com/en/tech-specs/ ... 61&lang=en
https://www.xctracer.com/en/user-manual ... 74&lang=en

Though that's one advantage of the digifly, if you really want to have the whole touch screen map thing, it can give xcsoar all the sensors and be a good vario at the same time. If xctracer could do airspeed it would be a pretty attractive option I would think. Of course if you just want to use your phone for plain navigation then you wouldn't need any of that.
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Fabiano
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Post by Fabiano »

Martin said:
The other thing with the Digifly, maybe I'm wrong but why no "touch screen" ?
This would never be practical.

Can you imagine trying to touch a screen with gloves?

Sometimes I have trouble having precision with my smartphone touch screen while not even flying.

The Digifly is actually aiming at you not having to touch the screen at all.

It automatically detects all phases of flight and switches the pages, the zoom, everything accordingly.

Of course you can override it if you want some other information, but for that the 4 buttons are enough!
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Pat Halfhill
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Post by Pat Halfhill »

I've been flying with a flytec connect lately and one thing I can tell you is that the touch screen has worked fine with both sets of my summer gloves. The ones that I fly with in winter will probably be a problem but I have to take them off to switch push buttons on my 6030 also. I honestly don't fool with changing screens too much unless I'm at a comp or a long xc. I believe the connect now has 5 or 6 customizable screens so you should be able to set them up for anything that you need and just flip back and forth. I will have it with me at CFW so I will be using my thick gloves with it. Also if anybody wants to see it.
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Martin
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Post by Martin »

Fabiano wrote:Martin said:
The other thing with the Digifly, maybe I'm wrong but why no "touch screen" ?
This would never be practical.
Hmmmm, Paraglider pilots appear to have no problem with touch screen systems. The Oudie by Naviter has been embraced, Kobo's are very popular, the Compass has its cult of followers.... all touch screen units. There is also a real following of Phone and pad systems with TopHat, XCSoar and XCtracer. My own Samsung S7 has both a good reaction and visibility for a off the self consumer product (tho... as best as I can tell, other than its GPS, the remaining sensors and processor do not allow the S7 to be used as a primary instrument... too much delay).

The Digifly Air might be a wonderful instrument but lacking the touch screen suggests its not keeping up with industry trends.

Re: the 4 buttons being enough.... could be, but as an old guy who hates change... I do like the key pad configuration of my 6030 ;-)

Martin
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Fabiano
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Post by Fabiano »

Thanks for your replies!

I didn't know the Connect had a touch screen and Im surprised that it actually works.
Like I said, I would never guess this is practical.

But if the gloves have fully enclosed fingers I suppose you must have special contact on your glove fingertips, like some skiing gloves do, for smartphones. Yes I guess thick gloves would be a problem like you say.

Wel, now I already took the plunge and bought me a Digifly I look forward to using it in competition.

The philosophy of not having to do most anything with it during flight - auto switching of pages, auto zoom levels as you approach cylinders, even the recording interval inside cylinders going to 1 second so you don't accidentally miss a point inside - all that seem to be very useful.

I still like my 6030 and I also had exceptional assistance by Steve Kroop while flying in the US.
When it comes to flying in Brazil though it's an each man for himself situation so it doesn't change anything regarding the Digifly.

But I'm flying in Italy this week and the scuttlebutt is that there will be local support for the Digifly in the US pretty soon.
Sebby
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Post by Sebby »

I have trouble with the connect touch screen with my gloves on. The connect allows you to change the Data in the preset squares on the pages. The digifly you can create the screen how it works for you by dragging the layout around on the pc software.
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Davis
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Post by Davis »

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SergeyKa
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Post by SergeyKa »

Fabiano wrote:But if the gloves have fully enclosed fingers I suppose you must have special contact on your glove fingertips, like some skiing gloves do, for smartphones. Yes I guess thick gloves would be a problem like you say.
Gloves wouldn't work well with a capacitive touchscreen, resistive touchscreens should be fine (they are cheaper, too).
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DougM
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Post by DougM »

For Capacitive screens, you could purchase special gloves with conductive finger tips, Or... convert your existing gloves into perfectly good capacitive-screen-operating gloves by sewing some conductive thread into the fingertips....go to Adafruit... https://www.adafruit.com/products/603