Jan 13, 2006, 9:27 AM
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Ultrasonic ground prox warning?
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Hello all!
I've been listening to the back shows of Skydive Radio and on one of them, there was an interview with John Fleming, who is blind. One of the things he mentioned was that getting a flare over the radio is sometimes "interesting". I was thinking about this and wondered if an ultrasonic distance measuring system - as is used in the back bumper of fancy cars - would help. Basically it's an echo-location system: send out a burst of sound, time how long it takes to come back, and derive distance from that. It would get built into a little box with a battery, and have maybe a speaker or a pager motor (vibration) or both to signal the user. The ones I have seen for aftermarket installation on cars claim a range of 1.5m-2.5m (about 5 to 8 feet) and I'm not sure that would be enough. I also don't know how it would deal with things like tall grass or water, either. Just wondering if anyone had ever tried anything like this, or if there is a major reason why it wouldn't work. Thanks!
I was wondering what the risks are if you were to take a tennis ball, golf ball or a super ball and put a string on it. Make the string the length of the proper flare distance, plus the length from feet to brakes, when flying straight ahead without brakes. Once you feel the ball dragging on the ground, you flare. You could also tie the string to the laces on shoes.
OK, I can think of a few problems.
Golf ball wouldn't be good to drop from height.
Tennis ball might get in the way.
Super ball might work.
What to do with ball before landing pattern time?
What if the ball were to tangle with lines or something else? (could you use reserve red thread so it would just break away?)
Any way to make this work?
Would anyone want to?
As a student with few standup landings, I wouldn't mind letting a ball help me gauge the distance.
you'll fix your focus on the ball.. and not watch where your going and hit something.. not a good idea if you ask me... student hit things all the time..
search post for artical about judgeing flare height you'll find some good tips...better than ball idea...safer too
Over smooth water would be fine; less reflective surfaces such as long grass are more of a problem. Accuracy is no problem at all, but getting an adequate echo (any signal) is.
