The most significant advance in sailplane instruments since the invention of Total Energy and maybe the variometer itself
In the past all sailplane variometers have suffered either from pilot induced attitude changes (non total energy variometers) or sensitivity to the effects of horizontal gusts (total energy variometers) both of which mask real changes in the vertical motion of the air being flown through.
A true technological breakthrough the Dynamis Variometer system was designed to eliminate the problem of the sensitivity of conventional Total Energy systems to the effects of horizontal gusts.
Sailplanes can really only use vertical motion in the air in order to soar.
Dynamis completely separates the vertical air motion from the horizontal air motion while eliminating pilot induced attitude and airspeed changes from the variometer.
The problem was recognised 50 years ago and has only got worse as sailplane performance and cruise speeds have improved.
Until now the problem was not able to be solved. It is not a filtering problem as the vertical and horizontal motion occurs on the same time scales and has similar magnitude, making filters useless.
Modern sensors have made the solution possible and for the first time a sailplane pilot has complete knowledge of vertical air motion uncontaminated by horizontal air motion changes and pilot induced rate of climb changes.
In addition Dynamis calculates the horizontal vector wind many times a second and averages this for updating to the pilot once a second.
As the Dynamis variometer only responds to vertical air changes the response can be faster than can be used for a traditional pressure based Total Energy variometer.
Flight tests have shown that Dynamis lets the pilot see more structure in thermals and at high speeds the steady indications hugely aid selection of the best path through the air.
Speed to fly indication becomes more useful and Dynamis eliminates the second order effects from total energy probe locations, seen when pushing and pulling, which cause traditional total energy variometers to show spurious indications.
The Dynamis variometer system is based on the Borgelt B600 (linear scale) or B800 (log scale) variometers with additional internal sensors and the external Dynamis sensor module. Some additional installation is required.
See our article Horizontal Gusts under articles for a more detailed explanation of what happens with conventional TE systems.
Contact Borgelt Instruments.