http://flytec.com/Products/Variometers/6030.htm

I've had three flights flying with the Flytec 6030 so I thought that I would give a preliminary review of how it's gone. The first thing is that the 6030 is a lot like the Flytec 5030. If you've flown with a 5030 or 5020 then it will be very familiar. A few things have changed, not necessarily for the better, but they are minor, for the most part, as far as the pilot is concerned.

I have all ready written about the new features of the 6030 (http://ozreport.com/11.154#0) so I won't go over them.

Different pilots have different ideas about what they want in a user interface with their vario, so my opinions will just be my opinions. I use the 6030 and previously the 5030 without a Garmin GPS. I figure that the compass arrow and the "map" page of the 6030 are good enough for me to find my way around a course. The compass arrow on the 6030 is smaller and more difficult to see on the 6030 compared with the 5030.

The compass rose is now inside the vario dial (click the URL above at check out the photos). Previously it was separate and larger. It is efficient in terms of screen space to combine these design entities, but for me, at least, the compass rose and the arrow pointing to the next turnpoint are key elements and to make it harder to see the arrow is a setback.

I have 20/30 vision with an astigmatism. I have prescription glasses for reading and using the computer to deal with the astigmatism. Still I could see the compass rose and arrow on the 5030 without glasses, although I couldn't read the small names of the user fields. Now the arrow is almost impossible to read without my glasses (the 6030 is placed on my base tube next to the left corner bracket).

I flew with stick on magnifying lenses on my third flight and was able to see the arrow without difficulty. The arrows pointing to the next waypoint, the previously thermal and wind direction symbols are also smaller on the 6030 than on the 5030.

What is bigger is a visual element that I rarely use, the speed to fly column on the right side of the screen. You can already see your proper speed to fly on the vario dial so this element is redundant, but that's what some pilots prefer. It seems to be to be a left over from previous Flytec designs. An element that is useless to me is now bigger and an element that is very important is now smaller. Go figure.

The audio vario tones on the 6030 are of course much different than on the 5030 or on previous Flytec or Brauniger varios. It is a mystery to me why they change them every time that they come out with a new instrument. I quickly became used to them, so it really doesn't matter that much.

My 5030 vario tones seemed pretty loud and I often just had the volume set to 25% or 50%. I've been flying with the 6030 at 100% volume and that seems fine. I'll have to check this more to be sure what I'm hearing.

There are three pages of user selectable fields (wind speed, Altitude above Goal, etc) that can be displayed. Previously you could pick some pages to show larger versions of the fields. I liked that possibility. Now without the ability to select the pages with larger text I can't see the fields as well without my glasses. This is a relatively minor setback, but it is always nice to be able to read your instruments.

I noticed a problem downloading the 6030 with SeeYou although of course it works fine with FlyChart. I'll check into this more.

Enough of my complaints. Change is hard.

The instrument works fine and has all the functionality of the 5030, which I appreciate. I'm happy that I bought it.

Discuss 6030 at the Oz Report forum
   
 
 
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