What do garmin GPS's record?

[base698 15]

If you think of the skydive as a triangle: pure vertical, pure horizontal, and glide. What is the garmin recording?

I have been assuming it's horizontal, but maybe not.

[e_nevett 0]

all of them, depending on the unit

[virgin-burner 1]

it will also record your track, which might not be a pure line..

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
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[fmmobley 0]

I believe it records your exact position on the earth, including altitude. It records those positions every second or whatever, and then can take that data and calculate speed in any direction from that information. The collection of these data points is the "track".

... Marion

[Southern_Man 0]

This depends entirely on the model. Different software and hardware components make for different recording parameters and different senstivity to the various parameters.

Garmin makes GPS units for all sorts of application and not all the applications have the same requirements. For example, their running units need to be smaller and light but elevation is not a very important point to record. Some of the running models do record elevation (older ones did not even take it as a factor) but that part of the unit is not very robust.

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[fmmobley 0]

I have the Garmin Forerunner 305 and I agree with you that the elevation calculation is probably not as accurate as the other numbers. You can get GPS devices that have barometric altimeters built in which would be more accurate.

Having said that, when I take my GPS for a wingsuit jump the altitude reading is very close to perfect.

... Marion

[kallend 2,027]

Due to the geometry of the satellites and receiver, altitude information from a GPS is a lot less accurate than latitude/longitude information even with WAAS. My aviation unit has WAAS, I'm not sure if the cheaper (non aviation) ones do.

...

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

[base698 15]

Ok let me rephrase the question.... how do I get the L/D or glide off the 305. I have the gpx file and have been using gpsvisualizer.com. which plot gives the glide path?