I am looking for a flight timer combined with radio controlled watch. I am flying navig. competitions where GPS is not allowed. All flight timers I tested had manually entered time. Can anybody help me?
Get a Citizen radio controlled watch?
I need a panel-mounted flight timer. With good visible numbers. Something I can look at during the whole flight time. It surprised me that I have not been able to find any single flight timer with radio controled time suitable for cockpit installation. Now I use regular alarm clock (Hyunday) together with Sporty’s flight timer. But both suffer from high temperature when left in the cockpit at the apron for a while.
Isnt’t the GPS time most (all?) navigators provide precise enough?
Flyer59 wrote:
Isnt’t the GPS time most (all?) navigators provide precise enough?
Tomas75 wrote:
I am flying navig. competitions where GPS is not allowed
If no GPS device is allowed to be carried then even a smartphone cannot be carried. If one was to be totally pedantic, a GPS-equipped PLB cannot be carried either.
So, maybe a GPS device is permitted provided it doesn’t have navigation features. So if a smartphone was allowed, and you got a stopwatch app for it…? Then you would need a smartphone configured to get its time from GPS which may need an app which does that. Normally phones get time from the GSM network, which may be OK if it is done frequently, but AFAIK it happens only on some comms activity e.g. sending an SMS. There is also a lot of stuff online suggesting that GSM time can be way off.
What is the wording of the regs?
I’m (genuinely) curious, Why does one want such accuracy?
If to do dead reckoning nav, I would think something where the relative time is accurate is enough (an accurate stopwatch), and I my prior would be that any of the cheaper stuff is lacking the sort of accuracy you need (I imagine error less than a second in the time a normal flight my last)
Do you measure time spent on the leg? Or have to record exact times you passed over a given point?
When I go flying, I normally wear one of the cheap casio watches, set to UTC. the g1000 on the plane has it, but this is always useful not to make mistakes on departure times etc, when out of the plane, as I am (and I think the human brain generally) poor at working through timezones (probability of making a mistake is relatively high)
Peter wrote:
If no GPS device is allowed to be carried then even a smartphone cannot be carried.
He didn’t specify what competition he flies but yes, generally even a phone wouldn’t be allowed. If you need certain equipment for emergency purposes, it can be on board sealed in fashion that is satisfactory to the organizer so it’s obvious whether it was used.
Noe wrote:
Why does one want such accuracy?
Again, don’t know what competition, but he probably has to start on time (and finish as well, obviously).
While you can’t use GPS (probably aside from approved loggers/ trackers), you can still use GPS to get the time. The source just has to be removable, or must be disabled in a way that satisfies the organizer. I.e. you’ll do the synchronization before a competition starts.
Why I need to be so accurate? It is quite simple. Because I fly navig. competitions. We have to take-off at given time and we have to be all the time at the right place along the route. The route typically has about 6 – to 8 known gates (including start point and finish point) and 15 – 25 secret gates. So one have to stay on track and “in time” all the flight. Of course I fly using a paper map plotted with the time scale with 1 minute step.
Have a look at this:
But it was not mine point. I was wandering that I could not find any single flight timer with time synchronized via radio signal suitable for my purpose. There are dozens of timers available and many of clocks with radio synchronized time. But there is NO SINGLE ONE which have both features!! Of course except from some wrist watches which are not suitable for my purpose. Or do you know about anything?
