DG/COMPASS RANT

[Glastar1]

Opinions Please:
I have a gripe about these DG/Compass displays. All are made with the top of the display as the nose of the plane. Good Grief! We know where the nose of the pane is! What we want is where are we headed? All the present displays force us to read the numbers! I propose we put North at the top center of the display, Don't rotate the numbers. Put an airplane on the center of the DG and rotate it to point in the direction we're going. THEN, YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ THE DAMNED NUMBERS UNTIL YOU WANT TO GET PICKY! And, it's 23.5 times faster!
WHY NOT?
Glastar1

 

[Thomas_Schaad]

Hi Glastar1,

I can see what you would like to have. I actually prefer to have it as close to the Industry Standart as possible, which is an icon (normaly in magenta) that moves on the compass rose and shows you the actual track. As far as I can realize, this is also the way Dynon intends to come up with.

This way, all of us who fly more than one aircraft, will have one and only kind of annunciation. It will also be simpler, if you once change an instrument and buy something from another manufacturer. If Dynon is extremly generouse with us, they might give us options to choose from in the set up menu. Your suggestion could absolutely be one of the options. Anyhow, I would like to see the standart annunciation as the first option.

Safe flights and kind regards

Thomas

 

[Glastar1]

Please consider: This alternate DG display is so transparetly easy to understand that it wouldn't require any accommodation processes in the minds of a compass reader. One wonders how in the world our common display ever became the norm. Having to read the numbers and then translate them to orientation relative to North just puts two mental steps into the process of discovering one's heading that this alternate display makes clear with a casual glance. The common display just seems foolish. Furthermore, since the relative motion of pointer and the rose numbers in a modern display requires a simple change in the display software, that it surely could easily be offered as an option. I suspect it could catch on very quickly.

 

[jamescone]

I had a Dynon in my last RV-7A and it worked flawlessly. I loved it, but I did have one gripe, if you will, and that was that the compass display was a line at the top. I suggest that a better display would a compass rose superimposed on the ADI like the one on the Advanced-Flight-Systems EFIS. That would make the Dynon just about perfect.

 

[dynonsupport]

The Compass on the ADI is a really non-standard presentation that no certified EFIS uses as far as we know. The tape is pretty much a gold standard. The DG on ADI causes some real issues with visual overload on the screen. It's really hard to pick out a 45 degree bank with all of those rotating tick marks on the screen since you no longer have any bank references. Some EFIS units offset the DG or an arc of the DG below the horizion line which works much better. Due to our screen size and shape, it works better on the D100 to show the DG next to the EFIS, but not on top of it, which makes it very easy to see everything. On top of this, the DG can now be a full HSI.

The lack of the DG on the screen also leaves us room for things like turn rate.

On the D10A we're so cramped for space that a DG and EFIS at the same time would never really work since the DG would have to be tiny to not run into anything.

Here's what the new EFIS screens look like with a HSI/DG on the side. You can see how messy this would be if it was on top of the ADI:

 

[mikey1ten]

Hey!  What am I missing, here?  How do I get all this info on my D-100?  I have the new dg, just not the rest of the info (gps) in your picture.  I like that!

 

[dynonsupport]

It will be available in our next firmware update, which should hopefully be out soon. Take a look at the Oshkosh announcements section on www.dynonavionics.com to see what is coming.

 

[mikey1ten]

I think you guys are making leaps, and bounds in the right direction. This is getting to be really fun, just seeing what you coming out with next! I see you are selling the brighter screen option. I am getting ready to install my unit in my glastar kit. The standard D-100 screen seems to be fairly bright in it's own right. Does anyone out there (who is already using one), think I need to grab this bright sctreen upgrade? Will the brighter screen mean more contrast, too? I'm already talking myself into the upgrade. Thanks. Michael.

 

[dynonsupport]

The brighter screen definitely has better contrast.

Note that starting in October, you'll be able to send any D100 series instrument in for upgrade should you decide that you'd like some extra brightness beyond the regular screen.