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OG-Tahiti

FlySight GPS

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za_skydiver

I mounted mine above the vent like on cookie's website and drilled a whole through the vent so the microphone jack can fit through. I've had no reception issues with it.



This is a great position to mount for swooping, but less great for wingsuiting since the FlySight will be slightly on its side in flight. The FlySight's fix is usually pretty robust, so you'll probably still get good data, but in marginal situations it might have an impact.

Michael

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flashpipe

dthames,

Can you point me towards the Excel macro from Hellis?? I've been scouring the threads and his posts, but can't find it in here anywhere and want to put some YouTube videos up with the overlays.

Thanks!!



The web site is in the Description of the Youtube demo video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt1NnwSN0rU
Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

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flashpipe , You can upload your track to https://skyderby.ru and see jump details, charts, google maps, google earth and got your data synced with video, like this: https://skyderby.ru/ru/tracks/552/replay

It's free.
For registered pilots:
- every track scored for online ranking in Speed, Distance, Time
- you can set privacy level to your data.

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Had the flysight playing up for the last few weeks and just wondering if someone here had the same thing happen, and if they know what's what and how to avoid it/fix it [:/]

It seems that whole chunks of data from some flights go missing, often from between few seconds to 30s after exit, and lasting for up to a couple of minutes.

When the data dissapears there is a fix with several satellites, and comes back with a bunch more, so i don't know if it's a case of just losing the fix.

With headphones on it also stops blaring info, so it could be a case of the Flysight freezing?

Attached are a couple screenshots of the relevant data and the Viewer representation doing a straight line smoothing for that part of the flight.

Anyone any ideas?

P.s. Clue is in the altitude column to see where the 'jump' is

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Do you reckon? I mount it where i've been mounting for the last couple of years, inside the audible slot in the helmet.

Yeah, i know, not recommended and all that, but it has worked flawlesly like that for well over a hundred of jumps and it's only the last weekend that it started playing up.

Also, it would be strange that from receiving 9 satellites it would lose them all mid-flight and then suddenly re-fix with 12. Non?

Edit for typos

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Have you done 15 minute warm-up at start of the day and 1 minute before load?

If not - it's very important. Michael wrote:

The key to getting a robust fix with the FlySight is to make sure proper “warm-up” procedures are followed:

1. At the start of the competition, or if the units have moved more than 500 miles, turn them on in an open area where they have a clear view of the sky. Wait for the green light to start blinking and then set a timer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, turn the FlySights off. The 15-minute warm-up is good for a few months, but it’s a good habit to do it at the start of any competition just to be sure.
2. Before each jump, turn the FlySight on in an open area where it has a clear view of the sky. Wait for the green light to start blinking and then wait 60 seconds longer. After that, you can turn the FlySight off. The 1-minute warm-up is good for a couple of hours, so it should be done before every jump.

What’s happening during these warm-ups? During the 15-minute warm-up, the FlySight is downloading “almanac” data from the GPS satellites. This tells it roughly where every satellite will be. During the 1-minute warm-up, the FlySight is downloading “ephemeris” data from the GPS satellites. This tells the FlySight more accurately where all the satellites will be in the next couple of hours.

Why are these warm-ups important? Although you may have a fix at the exit point, it could be because the FlySight happened to find 4 satellites—enough for a minimal fix. But when you jump, the wall might obscure one or more of those satellites, and suddenly you will lose your fix. If the FlySight knows where all the satellites are (i.e., if the warm-ups have been done properly) then it can quickly change to a different set of satellites and “adapt” to the new situation—so you won’t lose your fix.

With proper warm-ups, you should get a reliable fix throughout every jump as long as you’re not jumping into an very narrow valley.

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I would always mount it somewhere on the back of the helmet, never inside or on the side. It's described in the manual, where to put it. I follow pricedures and I time the warm-up precisely, 15 min's. The Flysight needs this amount of time, no less ,no more. It needs it because it is downloading data. If you turn it off to soon, download of data might be incomplete. If you do things by the book, you will be better off. It never failed me even once and I use it on every jump.

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As you mention, the side of the helmet is not a great place to mount the FlySight. There are a couple of major problems with this mounting location:

  1. If you're in a normal flying position, the FlySight won't be able to see half of the sky. The FlySight usually sees more satellites than it needs, so often you won't notice that this is a problem, but trouble is that it makes the fix "less robust", so when something else interrupts the signal, you lose the fix entirely rather than just losing a few satellites.
  2. Normal head motions like turning your head sideways or just turning your body onto a different flight line can change which satellites the FlySight sees. This doesn't seem like a problem, but making this kind of change in freefall can be challenging. The FlySight may not be able to get a lock on the new satellites, of you may simply wind up with "glitches" in your data.


I may be able to get a better idea of where your troubles are coming from if you send the following files to "michael at flysight dot ca":

  1. Your "config.txt" file and "flysight.txt" file (if present--this one won't be there for older firmwares);
  2. The 15-minute warm-up file from the start of the weekend;
  3. The 1-minute warm-up file from before the jump;
  4. A jump which shows the problem you're seeing.


Hope this helps!

Michael

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I just attempted to update the firmware on my Flysight. Followed the instructions, loaded the beta firmware, installed the drivers and Flip, put it into update mode, everything connected OK. Ran the erase/program/verify with no error messages.

Now the Flysight is almost completely dead. Won't turn on, no light when plugged in to charger. Doesn't appear as a storage device. The only sign of life is that when plugged into the USB port the PC (Win7) makes the ding-dong noise and it shows up as an Atmel USB Device in Device Manager, "working properly" .

Suggestions?
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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It sound like the firmware isn't running. In which case flicking the switch won't put it into programming mode anymore.

Remove the two screws, open the back and press the reset button. Then try flashing the beta firmware again. If that doesn't work, try again with the normal firmware.

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LukeH

It sound like the firmware isn't running. In which case flicking the switch won't put it into programming mode anymore.

Remove the two screws, open the back and press the reset button. Then try flashing the beta firmware again. If that doesn't work, try again with the normal firmware.



Thanks, but I found the problem. Something was up with the Flip install. I reinstalled it, rebooted, and all is OK now. Only took me half the night to figure it out!
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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I see you've already found a solution, but I thought I would add a suggestion in case someone finds this thread later on. When the FlySight is "dead" after updating, this usually means that the erase step has completed successfully, but programming has not.

When using Flip (Windows) to update, this usually means that the firmware was either not selected or was selected, but then the chip type was changed afterward--this clears the firmware selection. To check this, look at the bottom middle in Flip, where it says "HEX File". This should not be blank--it should give you a firmware name and size.

When using dfu-programmer (Mac) to update, this usually means that the first command--"erase"--was run but not the second command--"flash". Note that both commands need to be run one after the other for the firmware to be updated successfully.

Michael

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crwper

I see you've already found a solution, but I thought I would add a suggestion in case someone finds this thread later on. When the FlySight is "dead" after updating, this usually means that the erase step has completed successfully, but programming has not.

When using Flip (Windows) to update, this usually means that the firmware was either not selected or was selected, but then the chip type was changed afterward--this clears the firmware selection. To check this, look at the bottom middle in Flip, where it says "HEX File". This should not be blank--it should give you a firmware name and size.

When using dfu-programmer (Mac) to update, this usually means that the first command--"erase"--was run but not the second command--"flash". Note that both commands need to be run one after the other for the firmware to be updated successfully.

Michael



Thanks. For some reason my first install of Flip wouldn't load the firmware even though it gave no error message. I uninstalled and reinstalled it, and all was well.

Incidentally, the voice volume (beta firmware) seems very low compared with the tones. Is that normal?
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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kallend

***I see you've already found a solution, but I thought I would add a suggestion in case someone finds this thread later on. When the FlySight is "dead" after updating, this usually means that the erase step has completed successfully, but programming has not.

When using Flip (Windows) to update, this usually means that the firmware was either not selected or was selected, but then the chip type was changed afterward--this clears the firmware selection. To check this, look at the bottom middle in Flip, where it says "HEX File". This should not be blank--it should give you a firmware name and size.

When using dfu-programmer (Mac) to update, this usually means that the first command--"erase"--was run but not the second command--"flash". Note that both commands need to be run one after the other for the firmware to be updated successfully.

Michael



Thanks. For some reason my first install of Flip wouldn't load the firmware even though it gave no error message. I uninstalled and reinstalled it, and all was well.

Incidentally, the voice volume (beta firmware) seems very low compared with the tones. Is that normal?

John, you may already know this but the tone and the voice volume settings are two different parameters, in two different sections of the config file. It is also possible that the peak to peak voltage levels in the WAV files are lower than the generated tones peak to peak values are. I made some WAV files and they tended to be lower in volume than I expected. I turned up the gain in my audio software and it helped a little.

Dan
Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

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kallend

Incidentally, the voice volume (beta firmware) seems very low compared with the tones. Is that normal?



That's normal. This stems from the fact that a pure tone has a lot more energy for a given amplitude compared to speech. Because of this, I'll often use, e.g., a volume of 6 for tones and 8 for speech.

Michael

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crwper

***Incidentally, the voice volume (beta firmware) seems very low compared with the tones. Is that normal?



That's normal. This stems from the fact that a pure tone has a lot more energy for a given amplitude compared to speech. Because of this, I'll often use, e.g., a volume of 6 for tones and 8 for speech.

Michael

Thanks. I didn't see at first that there were 2 volume settings. Now I have the speech adequately loud to hear over wind noise.

Great product, Michael, although my USB socket does seem a little flaky.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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So I have some questions relating to the polar plots in the viewer.

I pulled in 3 jumps from a performance competition done on the same day and messed around finding a curve that would work across the 3 jumps. My reasoning is conditions were similar so max lift and min drag should not change and fitting a curve to data that should cover a range of angles of attack makes sense to me
Is this valid reasoning? I was just interested in getting a baseline max l/d and seeing how I improve

On the other hand if I did a jump focusing on taking the suit from a really steep dive through to a stall and fitted the data would that be better for getting values of max lift and min drag?

Finally I'm wondering if a fairly accurate measurement of suit area could be taken along with known jumper mass could you then compare the data for min drag and max lift across multiple suits and pilots?

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DHemer

I pulled in 3 jumps from a performance competition done on the same day and messed around finding a curve that would work across the 3 jumps. My reasoning is conditions were similar so max lift and min drag should not change and fitting a curve to data that should cover a range of angles of attack makes sense to me
Is this valid reasoning? I was just interested in getting a baseline max l/d and seeing how I improve



If the conditions are similar, you should get a consistent fit between the jumps.

DHemer

On the other hand if I did a jump focusing on taking the suit from a really steep dive through to a stall and fitted the data would that be better for getting values of max lift and min drag?



This is the great thing about consistency between jumps. Ideally, you want to fit the drag polar using a jump where you explore the full range of the suit. Once you've fit the curve, you can apply it a jump with more limited range.

One thing to note... There is a big assumption here--that the airfoil itself doesn't change from one jump to the next. For me this has been a bit of an experiment. I wasn't sure if we would see a lot of change in the airfoil within a single jump--e.g., if we de-arch quite a bit more to generate lift. The quality of the fit that I've seen on many competition jumps makes me think that we get most of our range by changing the angle of attack, rather than the shape of the airfoil itself.

DHemer

Finally I'm wondering if a fairly accurate measurement of suit area could be taken along with known jumper mass could you then compare the data for min drag and max lift across multiple suits and pilots?



I believe so. Ideally, the lift and drag coefficients depend only on the design of the airfoil--i.e., the cross-sectional shape of the wing.

One of the things I'd like to do in the long run is to explore the relationship between performance and jumper height, weight and suit type. For example, we might ask, "For a 5'6" 115 lb woman, what suit will give optimal performance in speed?" I think there are a couple of things we need to do to lay the groundwork for that project:

  • We will probably need to compensate for wind. While the tool is useful right now in consistent conditions, quantitatively its usefulness is limited by the small amount of error the wind introduces. We've got a wind measurement tool in the FlySight Viewer right now, which I will be doing a little bit more work on in the coming weeks. Ultimately, we should be able to take a track from take-off to landing and use the climb to altitude to determine winds, then use that to correct the freefall measurements.

  • We will also need to do a lot of testing with different jumpers flying the same suit design, to determine if it's true that a single wingsuit design has consistent aerodynamic parameters.


For the moment, the drag polar feels "exploratory" to me--it's something we need to play with a bit to figure out what we can learn from it. I'm excited to see where this all goes, though.

Michael

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