Geek speak

Some say he was born with residual wings and a carbon fibre skeleton. It is said he doesn’t use oxygen because his blood is supersaturated. They say he is not in Mensa because his scores are too high. We don’t know and we don’t care. He had been playing with a square box and he tells us all about it. We know him as The Geek.

Th e West erbo er VW 1200

As installed in a Ventus CM

Left: The main display Below: Input box

According to Westerboer the VW1200 series is a flight computer with a completely new concept. Funnily enough it seems to do pretty much the standard stuff but in one screen. In my opinion it doesn’t look so good in most glider panels.(see right) Big square box in an area you are used to seeing round things looks a bit disconcerting. At least a PDA can be on a flexi arm and be moved to suit. This just dominates the panel. The idea is to put all the information a pilot requires at his disposal in a nice clear display. This it does well. Vario and map with airspace etc all on one panel is nice. All info needed for most of the flight is available without scrolling through different pages. What it does. Display shows the usual stuff (Vario, Moving map, Altitude, Direction and distance to go, wind, task etc...) on a large display. The display contents can be selected by the pilot. The standard configuration: Vario, altimeter, airspeed indicator and map. The display panel simplifies the instrument panel. Additional crap (Read PDA) and complex and dicky wiring gets avoided. Display unit is removable and makes flight prep, task loading possible outside of the airplane. (Better than a PDA) The case dimensions (HxBxT: 82mmx201mmx23mm) are to the 80mm standard size so it effectively only takes up two large instrument holes. (Preferably in the middle of the panel) Simple and intuitive operation of screens and functions by means of clearly marked soft keys and double rotation knob. Graphic resolution: 640 x of 240 pixels,effective display surface: 154mmx57mm Gray tone LCD with high contrast well suited for daylight viewing! Display of wind direction and heading to next waypoint can be either graphic or numeric. Nearest landing airports or fields can be displayed (Emergency function The GPS, engine and all static inputs go into the sensor box VW1210 and that doesn’t need to be behind the panel. Digital bus connects display unit and sensor box and makes it simple to extend the system (second display unit for a twin, digital compass unit for real time wind calculation, round vario instrument...) Memory card reader (MultiMediaCard) so you can transfer tasks, waypoints and software updates. Power consumption of the overall system with 12V is only 350 mA. What it doesn’t do. It does have a logger but it is not IGC approved. So no use for badge flights etc. Grey screen when the next generation displays are moving to colour, No Airspace warnings as per other displays like Seeyou mobile or other PDA based programs. It also doesn’t show inflight movies, serve drinks, or call your crew when you land out. It is still an impressive piece of kit. If you want to try it out then there is a sim available from the website. http://www.westerboer.de/VW1200_demo.htm Price is 3184.00 euro.

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