iFly GPS Forum

I was flying with a fiend the other day in his new Sting, Sirius and it has a Garmin system that tells him the winds and cross wind component when on the approach. I was wondering if this would be possible with our 720/740 units? (Although sometimes it better to no know the crosswind component when landing.)

Just wondering,

Jim Mantyla

Thorp T18

The Garmin G300 in the SkyCatchers I fly shows this for all phases of flight. The depiction is two crossed arrows, one aligned with the logitudinal axis of the plane and one aligned with the lateral axis. The arrows point in the direction of the wind component, ie. headwind, tailwind, crosswind from the left, crosswind from the right. Each arrow is labeled with the wind component in knots.

To calculate this, you would need airspeed, ground speed, heading, and ground track. We don't have airspeed or heading with IFly GPS. You could use the latest and closest reported wind speed and direction, but that would not be very accurate.

It's true the iFly can't calculate winds aloft (or crosswind components) based on its own sensed data, because it doesn't have the sensors required to do it (airspeed and heading).

If all we're talking about is a visualization of the winds at an airport so you can mentally prepare for an approach, wind barbs at the airport based on ADSB reports could be helpful, and they could easily be decomposed into head/tail/crosswind components.