Task setting - TP properties tabs - Units

[DanD]

I just sat down to create my new task in C3. I have submitted 146 tasks in C2 to Condor Club.

I was very disappointed to find TP Properties tabstill requires me to convert feet to metres when doing start and finish heights. I seems trivial to have the bottom two lines, Min Alt [m] and Max Alt [m], switch to feet when I have selected either "Imperial" or "Australian" in the 2.7 Set other Condor simulation options (Condor Manual 1.01, page 19, "Units".

I attach a picture of which shows the Start point selected when I am in "Austalian" units, it is the same when I am in "Imperial". Pilots in North America use feet for height.

Adding a field to the "Setup" page, "Options" tab, "Miscellaneous" box: "TP heights" with a drop-down menu "Metres" and "Feet" would also achieve the aim. Set in once, and it's always there.

[edit] - change it for the Penalty Zones as well.

Constructive suggestion for the manual:
Condor 3 Manual 1.01, page 19 paragraph "Units"
Select units (metric, imperial or Australian) used in menus and in game
switch to:
Select units (metric (height M, distance KM, speed KPH), Imperial (height FT, distance NM, speed KTS), Australian (Height FT, Distance KM, Speed KTS)
Rationale:
It would be better to say what the units are, not just the names metric, imperial, Australian; it is not intuitively obvious for a newcomer, and it may not be as simple to find as one might think; For example, if you Google search "Australian Units", it returns "Australia uses the metric system, or the International System of Units (SI), for most quantities." which is true, but not helpful.
I do find the new manual to be quite good.

Trying to learn all the new tidbits like weather make creating a great task harder; making me dive for a calculator for Start, FInish, and Turnpoint heights is bothersome.

Cheers
Dan
2D
Gatineau Gliding Club - 260 feet ASL

[rob.williams]

I was also hoping to see this in Condor 3. It would be helpful to me and I'm sure many other Canadians, Americans, and others.

[NickB]

This was requested many years ago for Condor-2 on this forum. There are very complex features in Condor-3 and a unit conversion seems so trivial by comparison, I don't understand why it isn't done yet since it is already done for the PDA, altimeter, ASI, vario, etc...

[Vertigo]

Maybe its not that trivial, after all, its saved in the FPL in metric, and any rounding errors could result in a "different"/modified FPL.

But if it makes you feel any better, we metric users also need our calculator now, because airspace is usually in feet. Id say we are even now

[wickid]

Maybe its not that trivial, after all, its saved in the FPL in metric, and any rounding errors could result in a "different"/modified FPL.

I think this is the issue too. AFAIK altitude values are stored as integers in meters, not floats. So feet values may lead to rounding errors. These boxes are also data entry boxes. So there may be issues there as well. I don't know how the GUI is coded.

That being said, I've seen this request many times before. So hopefully it gets picked up. I know it is annoying for the metrically challenged

[Geepers]

I think this is the issue too. AFAIK altitude values are stored as integers in meters, not floats. So feet values may lead to rounding errors. These boxes are also data entry boxes. So there may be issues there as well. I don't know how the GUI is coded.

That being said, I've seen this request many times before. So hopefully it gets picked up. I know it is annoying for the metrically challenged

Storage can be kept as integer meters - just a question of how that integer meter value is displayed (and converted back on data entry). So hopefully not too big a deal.

Also... the New Zealand Nationals are on atm (Jan 2 to 11). Although gliding here uses knots and feet, the max start height has been 2.133 km every task and all the results are shown in course km and speed as kph.

Meanwhile, George Washington lets us in all what it was all about....

[DanD]

Hi wickid, I'm not metrically challenged on the ground, Canada's used SI for decades. I haven't used m for altitude when flying except when calculating my Diamond Climb IRL - this includes 35 years as an Air Navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force, including instructing at our school, and gliding since 1974. What would make my life easier would be to be able to set Start Altitude in the same screen as thermal height/top of convection minus 500' (to keep it legal), and to set Finish Altitude as the height of the finish point plus 750' automatically. I use those on all my tasks. Penalty Zones are a pain when duplicating circular airspace (convert base and top of each slice). Having airspace within landscapes should make that go away eventually.

I get that a majority of users use metric. I also get that it holds a lot of creative people who don't back from making wonderful tasks for the rest of us. Most do one (or don't get it finished) and never do another. This is not a "Complete Soaring Simulator", rather, a "Complete Soaring Simulator except for North America and the Antipodes unless you can tolerate repeated, tedious, error-prone manual calculations for something that should have been automated long ago". No wonder there aren't many tasks written over here.

But I'm not bitter.

Dan
2D

[Vertigo]

Look, Im sympathetic to your request, but lets also not overstate the problem. 99% of my tasks require one single altitude for the task: the start line max alt. TPs never have altitudes, the finish only rarely, and if it does, its almost always the same number: 200m agl. Maybe put that (or whatever safety finish altitude is common there) on a post-it note. The rest of a task may take me many hours of experimenting and testing, making briefings etc; doing a single conversion (which you can easily do without a calculator, multiplying by 3 is close enough for start line<> cloud base clearance) is surely not whats preventing more people from making tasks?

[timbaeyens]

Although I understand somewhat the request for non-SI units, I also don't completely.

Whenever an EU pilot steps into an motor plane, they are faced with ft, ft/min, FL, nautical and statute mph etc, and just adapt.

Similar I guess for those simmers in MSFS...

[wickid]

Having airspace within landscapes should make that go away eventually.

We have airspace in Landscapes...

I get that a majority of users use metric. I also get that it holds a lot of creative people who don't back from making wonderful tasks for the rest of us. Most do one (or don't get it finished) and never do another. This is not a "Complete Soaring Simulator", rather, a "Complete Soaring Simulator except for North America and the Antipodes unless you can tolerate repeated, tedious, error-prone manual calculations for something that should have been automated long ago". No wonder there aren't many tasks written over here.

I get it mate, however, programming time is at a premium

[DanD]

I understand. My other, older suggestion was to put a "buy me a beer" or "buy me a glass of wine" button to let us push it to show our appreciation for all the great work!

[MarkRebuck]

Let me add "Please display wingloadings in consistent units" to the list... The contests I'm flying these days all spec a max wing loading (displayed as kg/m2 in the NOTAM page), but I fly with Imperial units (so the hanger settings show lbs/ft2). I know that 50 kg/m2 is 10.2 lbs/ft2 because I've done this dance a few times, but it is still a pain. Even better would just be a checkbox for "max wingloading allowed by the NOTAMS", and Condor sets it for me, because I'm exactly that lazy . And for the JS3-15, there are three "clicks" which all show 10.2 lbs/ft2, at 187/190/192 pounds of ballast. I can't do the 192 pounds of "10.2 lbs/ft2", but 190 works. Another digit of precision would help here.

I realize this is all "small stuff", but the presentation/details matter .

The LXSim Condor program also fails to change the "XCspeed" field to imperial units when you select imperial in the settings. Every other field changes, but that one sticks at km/h. Took me quite a while to figure out why one and only one data field was showing metric.

[witor]

Even better would just be a checkbox for "max wingloading allowed by the NOTAMS", and Condor sets it for me, because I'm exactly that lazy .

I thought I was the only one who dreamed about planes always loading at the maximal allowed wing loading.

[Vertigo]

[DanD]

I was happy to see that airspace using Australian units displays in feet now that I'm setting C3 tasks in Slovenia.