Compass Calibration on change of hemisphere

[Kronos98]

Does anyone know if ground and/or in-flight compass calibration is required when an aircraft is relocated to a completely different base, such as between hemispheres?

 

[Rhino]

Shouldn't be. The Skyview uses a GPS fix to determine declination and variation, which is what changes with location, and then it automatically adjusts based on that. The compass calibration isn't designed for adjusting to changes in location. It's used to compensate and adjust for any magnetic variation from the aircraft itself, which doesn't change with location. You can certainly do one if it makes you feel better though.

 

[Dynon]

The mag field values are actually only used during the calibration procedure itself. But the answer is still the same: once calibrated, you shouldn't need to calibrate again across geographic locations. As Rhino says though, if things don't look right, no harm in doing another one.

 

[Kronos98]

Thank you for the responses.

I performed an in-flight calibration and got the quality parameter up to 120. This made a big difference and I received realistic figures for winds aloft for the next few flights, but then yesterday the indications went awry again (in fact were much worse). So I redid the calibration and things improved for the rest of that flight. However it all went wrong again today and a re-calibration didn't work even though the quality was still over 100.

Any ideas?

Coincidentally I have intermittent problems with parts of the map being out of focus, but assume this is unrelated so I'll report that in another thread.

 

[Rhino]

I think you should contact Dynon support. The link is in their signature in post #3. They only check here occasionally. Good luck. And please come back and let us know what the eventual fix is. That helps people who come here later with similar problems.