Altitrack: How to use Simulator

[SiniMiniT4 0]

So, I ordered an Altitrack after reading on the product page that is has a "Simulator for student altitude awareness training" but I cannot for the life figure out how to get to that mode.

I tried to RTFM but there's literally no mention of this mode. I emailed L&B a week ago but they haven't responded yet. Checking here hoping someone else has the inside knowledge to help me out.

[bill6870 3]

There is no simulator function that I am aware of. There is however a playback function letting you replay any jump in your logbook. If you have a jump in your logbook that is similar to the profile of the students jump then you can replay that jump and use it as a real time practice altimeter. page 49\50 in the manual explains how to do this. I have used it this way before. It's not the most convenient way to do it but it is better than nothing. If you do find a simulator mode please be sure and post for the rest of us.

Blue Skies

[councilman24 36]

http://www.paragear.com/skydiving/10000117/TD201/TRAINING-ALTIMETER-ALTITUDE-AWARENESS-TRAINER

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[IanHarrop 37]

Yup the feature list says it's there.... no idea how to access it

[inline featurelist.jpg]

"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

[bill6870 3]

That's my first choice. They are cheap and put up with a lot of abuse from student's that I wouldn't want to put my altitrack through.

Blue Skies

[bill6870 3]

Damn! Now I have to go thru all of the menus to try and find it.

Blue Skies

[SiniMiniT4 0]

I hope it's not one of those button/light combos like the backlighting.

[bill6870 3]

I emailed L&B and got a response from Mads Larsen that said "See manual: play back last jump."

Blue Skies

[SiniMiniT4 0]

Ok, that's infuriating. Why market a feature that doesn't exist? And saying the playback functionality IS the feature is disingenuous.

How disappointing...

[gowlerk 1,914]

I have to agree with you there. I hate it when the marketers take over from the engineers.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[bill6870 3]

I agree. When I bought mine years ago they advertised that you could use the playback function to help with altitude awareness. When I saw the feature list that was posted I was really hoping they had added that feature.

Blue Skies

[Pobrause 6]

Hum? I don't understand. It has the playback in real time funktion. It does display the jump on the digital and analog side, doesn't it? (Not sure) Why can't you use that as the advertised simulator?

-------------------------------------------------------

To absent friends

[bill6870 3]

You can use it for that. I have and it works pretty well. The issue is in the features list they list the simulator and right under it they list the replay function as if they are two different functions instead of being the same thing. For me it's not a big deal and just normal marketing crap but still a little disheartening coming from a company that I have a lot of respect for.

Blue Skies

[SiniMiniT4 0]

Because you shouldn't need to jump out of an airplane to use a simulator. Kind of defeats the whole purpose, no?

I'm a tunnel flyer who's going to go through AFF in April and I was going to add altitude awareness to my drills to start building the habit. I specifically purchased this altimeter for this functionality and would have gone with a much cheaper option had I known that it was just marketing bs.

Also, the playback procedure is cumbersome to use as a simulator as it would require you to remove the altimeter every time you want to reset. Ideally, you'd have a mode on the back where you set your exit altitude and then use the two buttons on the edge to start/stop descent and reset to exit. Maybe my expectations are too high? I'd like to think that they're fair for $350.

[Deimian 43]

You are kind of right, but not completely. It can be used by a teacher as a simulator for students (ie: a teaching tool).

It seems you don't even have an AFF instructor at this point, and here is where the problem started, you jumped ahead of yourself a bit, buying something so expensive without even starting to jump. I am not blaming you though, I think that "simulator" is a misleading term. I suggest you go to the DZ and ask somebody to jump it once. That is all you need.

[SiniMiniT4 0]

Actually I do have an instructor and asked him if he thought it was a good idea and he agreed. That's pretty much what we're going to have to do to work around this.

I still think that if you're going to advertise a feature, it should be a first-class citizen and not an after-thought or alternative use for another, separate feature. At minimum, it should have been an aside for the playback feature and not called out as a stand-alone option. I say this as an engineer who is constantly having to reign in product managers from promising features to customers that don't exist. Perhaps that's where my bias is coming from.

[Deimian 43]

SiniMiniT4

Actually I do have an instructor and asked him if he thought it was a good idea and he agreed.

I wouldn't say it is a good idea. What if you decide to don't keep jumping? What if you decide that a digital face is what you need? But that is just my opinion.

SiniMiniT4

I still think that if you're going to advertise a feature, it should be a first-class citizen and not an after-thought or alternative use for another, separate feature. At minimum, it should have been an aside for the playback feature and not called out as a stand-alone option. I say this as an engineer who is constantly having to reign in product managers from promising features to customers that don't exist. Perhaps that's where my bias is coming from.

I agree with you. What I meant is that they probably had a talk like this:

-"Hey, an instructor can use his altitrack to replay a jump and rehearse with his/her students. That's a different use case than a simple playback."
-"That's neat, and then students can even see from the ground the effects of different disciplines in altitude loss."
-"Yeah, right! How can we advertise that use case?"
-"Let's call it simulator"

The term itself is misleading, but it has a purpose. It was simply a mismatch between your expectations and what that purpose is. I would send them an email saying that they should rename it to avoid confusion. Being said that, I wouldn't be surprised if you were the first one that had this problem, your case is not common.

[IanHarrop 37]

bill6870

I agree. When I bought mine years ago they advertised that you could use the playback function to help with altitude awareness. When I saw the feature list that was posted I was really hoping they had added that feature.

Alti-2 N3 has this

Quote

Menu > Training
When you select any of the Training simulations, your N3 will display a screen
that looks like Freefall Mode, starting at exit altitude. At deployment altitude, it
will switch to a Canopy Mode screen, and descend according to the selected
training speed.
Training Mode allows you to simulate three types of jumps: High Speed
Malfunction, Low Speed Malfunction & Normal Jump.
CAUTION: Use Training Mode for ground training only.

"Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me" Dorothy

[SiniMiniT4 0]

Quote

I wouldn't say it is a good idea. What if you decide to don't keep jumping? What if you decide that a digital face is what you need? But that is just my opinion.

That's fair. I went with it because my instructors said that it's better to learn on an analog face at first. I had the option to borrow one of their spares, but I wanted to get something of my own. Hopefully it works out.

And I get your hypothetical scenario and it makes sense. I do think it was likely an innocuous decision such as you described. I'll try emailing them again with feedback but I still haven't received a response from them for the couple emails I sent originally, so I'm not sure if they'll get it. Thanks for the input. It shows that I need to adjust my expectations.

[bill6870 3]

For what it's worth I've had my AltiTrac for years and I love it. Just because this one feature isn't what you expected it doesn't mean that you don't have a great altimeter.

Blue Skies

[DougH 270]

I am suprised your DZ doesn't have any of these lying around.

http://www.paragear.com/skydiving/10000129/TD201/TRAINING-ALTIMETER-ALTITUDE-AWARENESS-TRAINER

Mostly useful for reading off the altitude and stating what you should be doing at that altitude during the dive flow.

"5.5 Lock on"
"5 thousand wave wave arch reach pull"

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P