Flymaster GPS, User Manual

Page 1: ...User manual Version 4 0 All manuals and user guides at all guides com a l l g u i d e s c o m ...

Page 2: ...the right to change or improve its products and to make changes in the content without obligation to notify any person or organisation of such changes or improvements Visit the Flymaster Avionics web site www ymaster avionics com for current updates and supplemental information concerning the use and operation of this and other Flymaster Avionics products Warning It is the sole responsibility of t...

Page 3: ...3 GPS 9 3 1 4 Vario 9 3 1 5 Navigation Circle 11 3 1 6 Airspaces Map 12 3 1 7 Altitude graph 14 3 1 8 Wind Arrow 14 3 1 9 Map Page 15 3 2 Data eld Elements 16 4 Menu mode 19 4 1 Waypoints and Route 20 4 1 1 Waypoints Actions Menu 21 4 1 2 RouteList 22 4 2 RouteNavigator 23 4 3 Critical Airspaces 24 4 4 Triangle Assistent 25 4 5 Nearby Landings 26 4 6 Flight Log 27 4 7 Pages 29 4 8 Settings Menu 31...

Page 4: ...e Alerts 41 4 8 11 Polar 41 4 8 12 FS Keys 42 4 8 13 Airspace settings 43 4 8 14 GPS status 44 5 RouteDe nition 45 6 McCready Functions 46 7 Flying a FAI Triangle 47 8 Firmware 50 9 Interfacing with GPSDump 52 9 1 Con guring GPSDump 52 9 2 Uploading Waypoints 53 9 3 Downloading tracklogs 55 3 All manuals and user guides at all guides com ...

Page 5: ...n both the power up screen and the Shutdown menu When the Flymaster GPS is connected to a power supply wall charger or via USB cable even with the unit o the instrument will show if it is being Slow or Fast charged The time remaining to full charge is also shown This may not appear immediately when a power source is connected since the instrument requires some time to calculate the remaining charg...

Page 6: ...xt character digit Conversely pushing MENU key moves to the previous eld or to the previews character digit If the ENTER key is pushed on the last eld all the data in the selection section is stored and control returns to the con guration menu Inversely if the MENU key is pushed on the rst data eld the changed settings are ignored and control is returned to the con guration menu Tip When setting a...

Page 7: ...from the minimum value Note Changing the volume using an FS key is only valid for the current ight and will not override the volume level setting Every time the instrument is turned on if the sound is muted an alarm is generated in order to notify the pilot Note When the instrument is turned on the sound can be muted despite the volume level settings This occurs due to the Auto silent mode is acti...

Page 8: ...n be con gured by the user using a free application called Flymaster Designer which can be downloaded from the Flymaster website www ymaster net This intuitive tool allows the user to create an unlimited number of layouts which can be saved to the computer uploaded to the instrument and even shared with other Flymaster users See the Designer user manual available on the website for more informatio...

Page 9: ...e current battery level In Table 3 1 it is possible to see the relationship between what is shown and the actual battery level in percentage This element has xed dimensions Table 3 1 Battery Element description Symbol Description Battery level above 90 Battery level between 70 and 89 Battery level between 50 and 69 Battery level between 30 and 49 Battery level between 15 and 29 Less than 15 batter...

Page 10: ...others only provide 1Hz which allows the GPS pilot to see very small speed and position changes Furthermore the movement of the direction arrow is smoother and any position change is shown in a quarter of the time of other devices Note that the 4 Hz update rate requires more than 5 satellites in view More information about GPS accuracy and also other GPS related information can be seen in http en ...

Page 11: ... shows not only the instantaneous vertical speed but also the Average Thermal and Next Expected Thermal McCready Indicator see Figure 3 3 This element can be resized and re positioned The element consists of 4 columns In the left most column a black bar is shown which indicates the average thermal climb rate This value is always positive In the next column a double arrow is shown which indicates t...

Page 12: ...nt Navigation information is shown within the inner most circles The external circle contains the cardinal points and the Wind Flag The current traveling direction bearing corresponds to the point indicated in the top of the navigation circle On the example shown in Figure 3 5 the bearing is approximately 80º Navigation Arrows If no route is de ned the arrow will start showing the direction to the...

Page 13: ...ted as the pilot moves When the pilot is over 300m from the thermal core the dot will be at the edge of the circle As the pilot moves closer to the thermal core the dot will move towards the center Figure 3 8 Thermap Core Map In Figure 3 8 the thermal core is currently behind the pilot at a distance of approximately 150 meters half of 300 m wheel radius Wind Flag The external circle contains a sma...

Page 14: ...pace then a black line is used instead Note that being inside a airspace area 2D does not mean that the airspace is being violated since the pilot can be above or below the de ned 3D shape In order to have more information about possible airspace s violation some data elds should be added to the layout This data elds are Distance to CTR Altitude to CTR and CTR Status Figure 3 10 The Dist CTR data...

Page 15: ...te barometric altitude over the last 4 minutes of ight Figure 3 12 Figure 3 12 Altitude Plot 3 1 8 Wind Arrow The Wind Arrow element Figure 3 13 is a re sizable graphical element Figure 3 13 Wind Arrow Element When used in a layout an arrow is draw showing the wind direction relative to the pilot direction direction the wind is coming from For example if the pilot is facing the wind then the arrow...

Page 16: ...ap Element A typical map page in ight may look like Figure 20 In this gure is shown the scale on the bottom left The scale can be manually changed by pressing the F1 button to enlarge the map and therefore reduce the scale and conversely by pressing the F2 button to reduce the map and therefore increase the scale Figure 3 16 Map Page If ying a competition route the optimized route is drawn between...

Page 17: ...ing Floor Shows the lower altitude of the airspace causing the warning i e airspace that you are violating or close to violating Time Current local Time This value is automatic revised when the device gets a valid Gps Signal see Note 2 Dur Flight Duration Duration of the current ight Date Current date This value is automatic set when the device gets a valid GPS Signal G R Next Glide Ratio to Next ...

Page 18: ...airspace will show Violating when in controlled airspace Immenent Alt when close to entering airspace vertically or Pos Immenent when close to entering airspace horizontally CTR Name Name of the airspace causing warning or violation Abs Pressure Absolute atmospheric pressure value in Pascals Max Climb Once a ight has started it shows the maximum rate of climb encountered during the ight This value...

Page 19: ... negative number will show the di erence from the highest point reached If the altitude is equal or higher than the maximum reached then a positive number will show the altitude gained since entering the thermal The Gain indicator keeps track of how much altitude is being gained in the thermal When a pilot enters a thermal the GPS will reset the Gain indicator to 0 and will start to track how much...

Page 20: ... override of navigation Critical Airspaces This page constantly shows the airspaces which are closer than the thresholds de ned in the settings see Section 4 8 13 Triangle Assistant This page allows the pilot to manage the execution of a FAI Tri angle by manually set the triangle vertices see Section 4 4 Near Landings Displays air elds page This page constantly shows the glide ra tios and distance...

Page 21: ...he list appears highlighted and the corresponding data of the selected waypoint is shown in the DO area As the cursor is moved to a di erent waypoint so the data changes matching the newly selected waypoint If the waypoints list is empty a list of available actions is shown in the DO area Since no waypoint exists only the Insert new Waypoint action is available Pushing the ENTER key when a waypoin...

Page 22: ...aypoint that is to be added by pressing either the UP or DOWN buttons until the desired waypoint is highlighted Pressing the ENTER button will add the point onto the TL on the right at this moment the task point options for the newly added waypoint will appear in the DO area allowing to set several aspects of the task point these can also be edited later Insert New Waypoint This menu allows the us...

Page 23: ... jump to the ight screen automatically and navigate to that point When returning to the Waypoints Routewill cancel the active Go To The Go To function will override the Routenavigation although the GPS will remember where it was in the Route so when the Go To is canceled as described above it will resume the Routeat the point it was at before the Go To was activated Edit Route The GPS will only st...

Page 24: ...move the task point to the desired position and push ENTER Remove Route Point To remove a task point select it using UP and DOWN buttons and then pushing the ENTER button to activate the Task Point Menu chose the Remove Route Point option and push ENTER to remove it from the list Delete Route Delete Routewill delete the entire route On any waypoint push the ENTER button to activate the actions men...

Page 25: ...ll assume that the start has been done 4 3 Critical Airspaces Critical airspace shows a list of airspaces that are closer from the pilot s position than the distance and altitude thresholds de ned in the Airspace Settings see Section 4 8 13 This list is generated when in ight mode and is ordered by the sequence in which the airspace appears in the le used to create the airspace For example if the ...

Page 26: ...imminent or if it is out of airspace In the example of Figure 4 7 the pilot is out of the airspace The reference altitude is the current altitude being used for airspace calculation Di erent reference altitudes can be set in the Airspace settings section 15 15 Airspace settings and these include Altitude barometric altitude GPS altitude and Flight Level using 1013 25 mBar pressure For more details...

Page 27: ...Table 4 3 Figure 4 9 Triangle Assistent Menu Note The Triangle Assistant page is only accessible when the instrument has a valid 3D position x Table 4 3 Triangle Assistent Menu Options Option Function Set Vertex 1 De nes the current coordinate as the rst FAI trian gle vertex Set Vertex 2 The current coordinate is set has vertex 2 If vertex 1 is not de ned yet then the take o coordinates are used a...

Page 28: ... Yes in the waypoint edit screen see Section 4 1 1 Note The Nearby Landings page can be accessed directly from the Flight Mode screen by using a short cut function key see section Section 4 8 12 Figure 4 10 Nearby Landings 4 6 Flight Log The Flight Log option allows the user to access information about previous saved ights Figure 4 11 The top half of the screen lists ights stored in memory Each ig...

Page 29: ...equest the ight list while the Flight Log Action is active only selected ight will be reported to the downloader application Delete Flight Selecting the Delete Flight option will delete the selected ight from memory Before deleting the ight a message is displayed asking the user to con rm the action Figure 4 12 Figure 4 12 Delete Flight Delete All Flights All of the ights in the GPS can be deleted...

Page 30: ...at an extreme example if you have 256 ights each with 1 second the memory will be full and you only have 256 seconds of ight data this is obviously not a realistic scenario 4 7 Pages The Pages Menu shows a list of the current Layout pages that are available on the GPS Furthermore the pages Menu can be used to switch page or to Disable Enable each of the available pages A Layout can include 16 di e...

Page 31: ...uence using the a function key It is also possible to disable a page so that when you toggle through the di erent pages that page is not displayed see Figure 4 16 Also all triggers associated with the disable page will be ignored Figure 4 16 Disable Page Once a page is disabled an asterisk will be shown on the pages list prior to the page name as shown in Figure 4 17 in this case P1 R2G after star...

Page 32: ... versus barometric altitude the definitive answer GPS versus Barometric Altitude Since atmospheric pressure can vary substantially with meteorological conditions and so with time the baro metric altitude also varies according In order to have the correct altitude for a certain place the altimeter should be calibrated Calibrating the altimeter can be achieved by entering the know altitude of the lo...

Page 33: ... starts auto matically when the Flight Starts see Section 1 7 However when a task is active the GPS will store a track log point immediately as it enters a turn point cylinder See Section 4 6 about track log memory capacity UTC o set Using GPS data the GPS automatically adjusts the internal clock to the Universal Coordinated Time UTC The user should adjust the UTC o set so that the time displayed ...

Page 34: ...ng the Base Frq and Incre ments The Base Frq is the rst frequency used to produce the initial sound which corresponds to the climb threshold by default 0 1 m s Later as the climb rate increases a bip bip sound is produced for which the cadence and frequency also increase The Base Frq can be set from 500 to 1500 Hz The higher is the frequency value the higher pitched the sound is In order to change...

Page 35: ...essure variations The value that de nes how must the pressure is ltered is the Damper Setting a lower damper value caused the GPS to become more responsive but harsher Inversely a higher value causes the GPS to be less responsive but smoother The default value is 6 Cadence When a rate of climb is higher than that speci ed by the Climb threshold the GPS creates a beeping sound The rate cadence of t...

Page 36: ...uzzer parameter is set to 3 0 3 m s The green paraglider has a typical vario for which the climbing threshold is set to 0 1 m s As shown in the gure when both pilots enter the thermal nothing is heard The air is rising at 0 1 m s but both pilots are descending at 0 9 m s In the second zone of the thermal the air is rising at 0 8 m s and so pilots are descending at 0 2 m s At this stage the orange ...

Page 37: ...erstand the location of the thermal Grey lines Set Yes the trace lines in lift will be drawn in black while the sink will be drawn in grey Set to No and all the trace lines will be drawn in black Track up Track up allows the trace to be displayed with either the track relative to North see Figure 4 26 or with the current heading to the top of the screen see Figure 4 27 When Track UP is O you will ...

Page 38: ...re 4 27 Track Up On 4 8 6 Screen The screen menu option allows the user to set the Screen contrast to Enable Disable the pages triggers and to colour invert the titles Figure 4 28 37 All manuals and user guides at all guides com ...

Page 39: ...al and starts a transition A transition is detected when the integrated vario is less than 0 5 m s and the rate of turn less than 5 Arriving at Turnpoint This event occurs when the pilot is arriving at less than 1km away from the turnpoint Start Opened This event occurs immediately after the start time Power Up This event is triggered when the instrument is powered up Disable Triggers Page event t...

Page 40: ...nits A short description o the available options for this menu are shown in Table 4 5 The UP and DOWN keys can be used to change each eld option Pushing the ENTER key con rms the current eld value and highlights the following eld Pushing the MENU key will undo changes Table 4 5 Language Units Menu Options Function Description Language De nes the interface language Alti Units Altitude Units Altitud...

Page 41: ...t G to the GPS Pairing is performed automatically When ENTER is pressed the GPS will look to see what wireless devices are around and it will shows these on the screen see Figure 4 30 Devices are identi ed by their name e g M1 TAS and serial number Devices can be selected using the UP or DOWN keys For the selected highlighted device the pairing state is shown on the bottom of the screen To pair a ...

Page 42: ...verted numerical display and normal numerical display This allows the user to quickly see that they have a pulse above the desired level Stall IAS speed value starting which a alarm is triggered TAS Probe needed 4 8 11 Polar Figure 4 32 Polar Parabola The Polar menu option allows the user to de ne the glider polar curve The polar curve is approximated by a parabola which is de ned by 3 points iden...

Page 43: ...nction with a button The functions in Table 4 8 can be allocated to the FS keys Table 4 8 Function Key descriptions Function Description Set Volume Scrolls trough volume level The new level is kept until the GPS is turned o Switch Page Scrolls trough Layout Pages Skip Waypoint If a task is de ned it jumps to the next Waypoint Page Browser Jumps from ight page directly into Pages menu see Section 4...

Page 44: ...n airspace without triggering an airspace warning If this thresh old is passed a warning is emitted event CTR alt Th Minimum vertical distance that a pilot can be from an airspace without triggering an airspace warning If this threshold is passed a warning is emitted event Enable If this parameter is set to YES when a pilot is inside an airspace area as shown in a 2D representation but not necessa...

Page 45: ...dication of how reliable the GPS data is at the moment The lower the pdop value the more accurate the position x Values bellow 2 5 are fairly accurate If the GPS is switched on in a location where no satellites are visible indoors for example it will go into wide search mode If this occurs going outdoors again will make the GPS take an increased amount of time to pick up satellite signals If this ...

Page 46: ...r T01 W03 W06 The GPS will automatically assume T01 as the takeo since it is the rst waypoint on the list The completed route should look like in Figure 5 1 Figure 5 1 Route example After the above procedure the route is set Going back into the Flight Mode Screen by pressing MENU bottom will automatically activates the route and starts navigation Warning After the route is edited navigation will b...

Page 47: ...ed used to calculate the Speed to Fly is manually set by the pilot McCready Ring On the GPS this value is calculated by averaging the last thermals climbed Conversely for each TAS Speed to Fly value there is a average thermal speed which maximizes the Cross Country speed This value is also calculated by the GPS and shown on the McRdyNxtThrm data eld Additionally the McRdyNxtThrm value can also be ...

Page 48: ...le becomes active once vertex 1 of the triangle is manually de ned Alternatively the pilot can activate the module by de ning the directly vertex 2 In this case vertex 1 is de ned using the coordinates of the takeo In the example of gure Figure 7 1 the pilot has just de ned vertex 1 represented by a circle As the minimum leg distance was not passed yet the Triangle Size data eld shows 0 000 The na...

Page 49: ...e triangle distances are respectively 9 053 Km and 14 12 Km Figure 7 4 Triangle 4 In the example of gure Figure 7 4 the pilot has just de ned vertex 2 which is indicated by a circle in the Task map As the minimum distance for the second leg was not completed both areas are still present on the map Navigation is made through vertex 2 and the Triangle Size data eld shows the minimum possible triangl...

Page 50: ...resent by a circle in the task map Navigation is changed to vertex 1 in order to close the triangle and a line is draw between vertex 3 and vertex 1 In addition the colors of the Triangle Size data eld are inverted see gure Figure 7 6 Figure 7 6 Triangle 6 Note If the pilot moves around the valid area and goes to a point which results in a bigger triangle size vertex 3 is updated accordingly 49 Al...

Page 51: ...her software Figure 8 1 Firmware Menu Option Once the Designer is correctly installed do the following procedure 1 Open the Designer 2 Select Tools Firmware see Figure 8 1 3 Use the new box to choose the latest rmware le downloaded from our website 4 Connect the GPS to the PC using the cable supplied If it is the rst time the GPS is connected to the PC wait until Windows show the message that new ...

Page 52: ...Figure 8 2 Firmware Update Done 51 All manuals and user guides at all guides com ...

Page 53: ...r and that GPSDump has been installed 9 1 Con guring GPSDump Before you can start interfacing your Flymaster GPS unit with your computer you must rst make sure that you have set the correct COM port on GPSDump Connect your instrument to the computer and make sure both are switched on In the GPSDump menu select the drop down menu under MISC as shown in Figure 9 1 below Figure 9 1 Setting up COM por...

Page 54: ...erfacing with the instrument Flymaster instruments typically populate with high COM port numbers such as COM 11 in the example below Figure 9 3 Figure 9 3 COM port options Once the COM ports have been con gured you should be good to go 9 2 Uploading Waypoints To upload waypoints open the waypoint le in GPSDump Your screen should like this Figure 9 4 53 All manuals and user guides at all guides com...

Page 55: ...t Once the le has been opened select alll of the waypoints COMMAND A in MAC and CONTROL A for PC In the drop down menu for WPTS you should see the following options Figure 9 5 54 All manuals and user guides at all guides com ...

Page 56: ...oint name or both Once you select the type of waypoints to send you should see the the waypoints being sent to the instrument 9 3 Downloading tracklogs To download a track simply click on the FLYMASTER button on GPSDump 55 All manuals and user guides at all guides com a l l g u i d e s c o m ...

Page 57: ...ure 9 7 Figure 9 7 Tracklog list Simply clicking on the desired ight will download the tracklog to the computer Once the tracklog has been downloaded it is possible to save the tracklog in several di erent formats IGC KML and GPX KML is the recommended format if you wish to view on Google Earth 56 All manuals and user guides at all guides com ...

Page 58: ...uency 33 Climb Threshold 33 Delete All Flights 28 Delete Flight 28 Increments 33 Memory capacity 29 Sink Alarm 33 Sink Threshold 33 Sound Volume 33 Time Setting 32 Volume 33 Wind Arrow 14 57 All manuals and user guides at all guides com ...