jeff trikeAerotrike Cobra 912, with a Rival-X wing.

1800 hrs as of January 2019

Paraglider dashboard, must have FREE Android cell phone app: Revision

Last updated by jeff trike

Categories: Tech, Equipment, Cross Country / XC

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eb.ohrh.parawind.free&hl=en

I downloaded this app and took it out for a test flight this morning.  It is fantastic.  It was developed by a paraglider pilot, but works great on my trike.  It has all the usual features, like altitude, ground speed, moving map display.  I already had this capability, but the paraglider dashboard does something I have not found in any other apps.  It estimates the wind vector in real time while you are flying from the gps groundspeed measurements alone.

Years ago I had done something simliar for a work application, so I have a guess at how it works.   When you fly in circle with you drift downwind. And if you plot your velocity east, vs velocity north, you get a circle with the radius of the circle equal to your airspeed, and the center of the circle offset from zero  by the east and north component of the wind.  You don't need a full circle, a 90 degree arc has enough data to estimate the wind. And paraglider dashboard does this continually, plotting your recent east and north components in one of its displays. When a decent arc or circle is displayed, you get good wind estimates. New data is plotted with big dots, old data with smaller dots.  If you fly straight for a long time, the estimates degrade, but as long as you have a decent arc or circle in the display, you get a good wind estimate.

It displays the data in metric or english units.   It has a nice variometer display.  It logs your tracks and has a good moving map display.  You could use this as your primary gps navigation device.  It is really well done. 

The unique feature is the wind estimator.  

And the app is FREE with no advertisments.

Jeff