Are you actually getting heading (where the nose is pointing), or are you getting something derived from the ground track? Those are different and really critical for backing out the wind. Have been thinking about this because gliders rely on having really accurate heading info to calculate realtime wind - used in the Hawk and LARUS variometers.
Only airliners transmit heading and indicated airspeed, and even then only in certain locations such as Europe. Smaller planes only transmit GPS position/altitude/track/speed and barometric altitude, and in North America you generally only see this as well as the other data isn't required by FAA or Nav Canada as far as I'm aware.
What year do you place “2.5 years after mainstream public buy-in” for aviation? I think you’ll find that in most periods, people with the means were paying a lot for the ability to “get there faster”, despite a bad early safety record. It did work great when it didn’t kill you, and despite that risk it was a hit (for those that could afford it).
Yes! As a PPL that recently picked up gliding, I hugely recommend it. It’s a proper sport with a super high skill ceiling, supportive clubs, and competitions/racing when you’re ready. In studying for the glider rating, you’ll cover quite a bit that’s also applicable to flying “power”.
Plus, the economics are great. I bought a glider earlier this year for about 15k. I recently flew 5 hours from a $50 aerotow to 2500ft on a weak day and had a blast fighting my way around the course I was trying to fly. That’s compared to the $170/hr my club Cessna rents for, and which is nowhere close in terms of joy-per-hour.
Airplanes are for transportation, gliders are for sport!
isn't gliding more dangerous that GA? I've been wanting to try it, but the idea of not having an engine if you really need one, scares the crap out of me. Would love to fly in a motorized glider
In some sense yes, you learn a lot about energy management and you are acutely aware that you have no engine. On the other hand you always have no engine, so you learn to fly and manage your situation accordingly. At the more expensive end of the spectrum, some racing gliders have "get me home" mini props.
When you train, you initially fly in the vicinity of your home airfield and the risk is pretty low unless you do something stupid. For cross country, you train to do field landings and those are common enough in competition season. Basically you learn how to land out in situations where you can't sustain flight. You also tend to not fly over places that would make it difficult (eg built up areas or controlled airspace). Landing is always a decision made with plenty of time to spare, flown as a normal traffic pattern and usually starting the final glide with a lot of height. Competition pilots get more... close to the wire, but single seat gliders just want to stay airborne.
I don't know the accident rate proportionally, but glider related fatalities are extremely rare. In GA if you truly lose your engine, you have fewer options and you have to think a lot faster. While gliding you do also fly with a parachute, though there is scepticism about how effective it would be for a low altitude ditch.
Lots of pilots don't bother with cross country and just mess around their local airspace - still great fun.
It’s a fun coincidence that this is named “Glider”, since a fair number of glider (sailplane) pilots use e-ink displays (rooted kobo/kindle readers usually) due to great sunlight readability, commonly running something like XCSoar: https://www.xcsoar.org/hardware/
So submarines are controlled with logitech controllers, gliders use e-ink readers as displays. Wonder what other tech is being reused inside of niche transportation methods :)
code I wrote as a 12 year old beginner in python is running all of the Deutsche Bahn, I think. I suspect it anyways, it has the same performance characteristics.
One of my tasks at my first job at 17 was writing some visual basic involving train track tilt formulas for a national railway. I dearly hope no-one is actually using it anywhere, and has never used it anywhere.
I’ve done this for the past 3 years - two startup clients for 20 hrs/week each, just over 500k total pretax. Mostly staff-eng work, lots of independence, got to run some projects, pretty indistinguishable from full-time except for fewer meetings and no health care or equity. I’ve loved it - and so have the startups - they get a staff-level eng for the cost of a mid-level, just for half the hours. I think there’s value there.
Just wanted to put out a data point that it is possible and enjoyable.
Are you open to discuss how did you do it, here or over email? I don't have a network and I wouldn't even know where to start. I am quite capable and this has been recognized by people in the past but I am basically stealth mode (never invested in blogs, proper LinkedIn presence or any other really) so I am wondering how does a capable senior dev finally get to the big bucks?
