volcomstone 0 #1 April 9, 2005 Talked to a friend of mine today who wants me to test some new recorder for him. His company just got this and it has been tested by skydivers before, but none he knows about. It is also being tested by a very experienced BASE jumper from Norway. He supposedly tested it during easter in Italy, I'm eager to hear what he found out. The recorder records the velocity every second using GPS, horizontal and vertical. After use you can download the info down to a computer and get a print were you'll see a plot of the vertical decent and a plot of the horizontal route you took from exiting the airplane. There are some more functions, but I'll have to use the recorder before I know more. Last time I talked to him, he told me that he were to check out if the recorder can record more often than every second. He said that there would only be some software changes. The website for the recorder: www.frwd.com Or call the distributor: 004740204347 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LouDiamond 1 #2 April 9, 2005 The FRWD has been discussed here before almost a year ago if not longer. I have used both models and while they look cool they simply cost way too much and do less than a GPS that costs half as much. Personally, I didn't think the software was all that good for WS flights but is great for other sports. The Paralog GPS software does far more for less and was designed with WS flights in mind."It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required" Some people dream about flying, I live my dream SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alw 0 #3 April 14, 2005 I use a software for SAR called Fugawi http://www.fugawi.com/ Not much on altitude and fall rate (vertical rate) but for Lat Lon it will let you take a map or aerial photo like from terraserver and superimpose your track. Once you have the map "registered" you can use it over and over - good for drop zones. May not make much sense for what you're looking for, but it's there. I think I'd look at combining a Pro-Track/Jump Track with a small GPS. If you check Garmin might even reprogram for you to sample faster. For the Lat Lon portion though, you probably don't need it. They make some very small stuff that would work and --------------------------------------------- Every day is a bonus - every night is an adventure. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LouDiamond 1 #4 April 14, 2005 That looks like a similar but very scaled down version of a program we use called Falcon view which is a sub program of the suite known as PreFlight Planning Software. If you're heavy into it,have the cash and have the time to learn how to work the program then Fugawi looks like it could provide a good deal of info. But you hit the nail on the head with the reference to it not providing altitude and fall rates. Pretty much makes it a mapping/overlay program for skydivers. Are you positive it doesn't give altitude readouts? I know several programs that will even give altitudes for vehicles and humans via GPS readout in the tracking mode.Seems to me their tracking version should be able to handle that."It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required" Some people dream about flying, I live my dream SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alw 0 #5 April 15, 2005 You're right. I checked their web site and it looks like it does ercorc the altitude. With a little work you could probably export to excel and calculate the fall rate. gps sampling rate would be an issue if you wanted really tight tracking curves. For $100 it might be enough. --------------------------------------------- Every day is a bonus - every night is an adventure. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
