nav aid comparison

[Stephen Coan]

So what's better: ClearNav II or a LX9000 series

[Dan Daly]

What is your use case?  Beginning cross-country, advanced cross-country (diplome, state/country/world records?), competition flying? Size of panel if existing, or type of glider buy you're considering? Other equipment it will have to 'talk' to? Max power draw? Is cost a factor?

[Ryszard Krolikowski]

Is there any other frick who flew for 7 yrs with CN1 and CN2 or  6 yrs CN1 and LX9000 simultaneously over 100hr a year?

Ryszard Krolikowski.

Ps. I'm looking for used CN, mine 15yrs old is dying. I love simplicity and incredible good final glide, thanks to brilliant US champion and programmer Cheap? Gardner.

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[Richard Pfiffner]

LXNav Lx9000 with hawk

The LXNAV LX9000 is a high-end flight computer designed for gliding, featuring a 5.6” anti-glare color display, a high-level IGC-approved flight recorder, and preloaded worldwide terrain, airspace, and airport databases. It supports complex navigation tasks, real-time flight optimization, and offers options like a touchscreen, WIFI (great for hardware updates), V8/V9/V80 variometers, and a customizable interface for top-level competitors and beginners alike.

Fast Vario Response: The blue HAWK vario pointer reacts quickly, closely matching the pilot’s seat-of-the-pants feel, ignoring gusts to avoid false thermal indications, improving cross-country speed.

The HAWK option is an advanced software add-on for the LX9000 (4th generation and newer), enhancing variometer performance. Key features include:

Fast Vario Response: The blue HAWK vario pointer reacts quickly, closely matching the pilot’s seat-of-the-pants feel, ignoring gusts to avoid false thermal indications, improving cross-country speed.

Real-Time Wind Calculation: Uses sensor fusion and an extended Kalman filter (EKF) to provide instantaneous 3D wind readings (horizontal and vertical) without relying on energy conservation laws, ensuring accurate netto vario readings

.AHRS (Attitude and Heading Reference System): Displays an artificial horizon on the LX9000, customizable via LXStyler

.Dual Vario Needles: Shows red (Total Energy) and blue (EKF) needles simultaneously for better thermal centering

.Hardware Compatibility: Requires V8, V9, V80, S10, or S100 variometers. The HAWK option, including AHRS, costs around $1,310 as an add-on.

Availability: HAWK is available for GEN4 or newer LX80xx/LX90xx systems. A 31-day free trial is offered for S10/S100 variometers via a demo activation file.

User Feedback: Pilots praise HAWK for its intuitive wind and thermal detection, with one describing it as feeling “almost like being a bird.

[Ryszard Krolikowski]

$1200 Hawk was a public admission LX 9000 had no clue about the wind.

Now I think I love it
Ryszard Krolikowski

Ps . LX 9000 has sooo many options, so you need to start with options taken by your friend. They also have super tech support. Thank You Uros.

ClearNav became less expensive match.

Proposed flap setting, or downloaded time and location weather  are I hope on the CN list.

Love u all

Ryszard

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[Matthew Scutter]

Inflight satellite and weather data is something I won't be giving up any time soon. Not (yet?) possible on CN.

On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 12:20 AM Stephen Coan <stevi...@gmail.com> wrote:

So what's better: ClearNav II or a LX9000 series

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[Ryszard Krolikowski]

Mathew,

Valid point.

But we don't know  the asking pilot profile.

Maybe he is not talking about 1000km triangle.

I'm sure my friend Rex would welcome your codding help to implement your subscribers view it on CN platform.

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[Eric Greenwell]

Chip Gardner. I haven't heard of him for many years, though I used to contact him regularly about glide computers, even before CN1. Does anyone know how he is doing? 

[Gordon Wingate]

I love the Hawk. The Hawk needle tells me when I am in the thermal and the TEC needle tells me when I have gained energy, which is delayed. I'm just getting to the point where my brain is integrating the two into a single mental picture of the lift. It's a game changer. And I am just discovering how to set up and modify an AAT in flight to optimize your time and score. It has a ton of features that I haven't gotten to yet but I like it. The user interface that is required to deliver those many features gives it a reputation of being overly complex, but I'm gaining on it.

For my instruction and flight in club gliders I also have an Oudie N. I would recommend getting the FANET+ module so you can have FLARM capability that you can move between planes, and if you want to fly for badges and records you will need the Oudie N IGC version. Reasonably capable and much lower price point than LX.

I've not flown with ClearNav but hear it is an easier interface. Is anyone here who has flown with both LX9000 series with Hawk and with the Navia from LX Navigation, or with the Stefly NAV? 

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[Greg Arnold]

Chip Garner.  Not Gardner.

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[George Haeh]

Paragliding people in Belgium have developed the Air3 7" tablet which I liken to an Oudie N big brother (1⅔ larger display) once you install SeeYou Navigator. You will need a Naviter dongle to receive Flarm and vario data from your glider instruments. 

I have it on a NavPad on my leg as it's too big for my panel and a suction mount would block too much of the view outside. 

The 7" display works wonderfully with my presbyopia. 

I did try to contact two North American dealers, but lack of response had me  ordering direct. 

[*Eric Greenwell1*]

Oudie N is 5.5", so the Air3 is 7"/5.5" = 1.27 bigger (a bit less than 1-1/3). Mount the Oudie N somewhat closer than the Air3, and the apparent size is similar. Still, it seems like a good option to consider for pilots with the space for it.

I mount my Oudie N about 5" from the panel of my ASH26E, a comfortable distance to reach it, and with the Oudie N font set to "Large". I can read it easily when wearing my prescription bifocal sunglasses. They have a gradient tint: darker near the top of the lenses, and are almost tint-free for the bifocal region at the bottom. Also good while driving!

Eric

[George Haeh]

Doubling the diagonal quadruples the area. dArea/dDiagonal is a function of width/length. 

I measured the length and width of the active Air3 display to compare areas and took the Oudie N measurements off their website. 

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[*Eric Greenwell1*]

The 5.5" and 7" diagonal numbers I used are from the respective websites. I don't think area is a useful number for cockpit displays, as the picture quality is primarily a function of the pixel count, and they are almost the same. Spreading them over a larger area does not improve the picture quality or allow more or sharper images. The diagonals are useful, since the screens are nearly the same shape, and that's why it's commonly used for TV, monitor, and phone screen sizes.

The apparent size of the image depends on the distance from the pilot's eye, and in my situation, I can mount the Oudie N closer to me than I could mount the Air3, so it would not provide me with an image that looked larger.

I wish I could mount the Oudie N closer to me so the image would appear larger, but haven't figured out a good way to do it without interfering with the canopy latches or the forward view.

Interesting fact: the Oudie N and Air3 have five times as many pixels as the LX9070.

Eric

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[Frederic Bick]

Going back to the original question as to “better, “CN II or LXNav9000 series, I agree use case drives. “Better” is a relative term, and is in the eyes of the beholder. Also, there are many options out there besides CN and LXNav, but the question is specific to CN II and LXNav 9000 series. As a note, I have flown several years with CN variants (10 years), LXNav 9000 (3 years), and Oudie variants (too many to count). I’ve never thought of one being better, just a different approach to providing needed flight information to a pilot regardless of how they are flying. I love the CN II approach and how it performs, but I also love the LXNav approach and how it performs. Sometime you don’t know until you’ve tried them

A note on cost: The LXNav with vario can run pretty high when HAWK is added, plus other options such as WiFi and touch screen. However, either  system is expensive by my bank account.

In answering this question, not as “better,” but as what the user wants, needs, and intends. I posit these points to ponder:

1.      Support – presale, after sale, parts and/or repair available, calibration (for badges, records), documentation, tutorials, manufacturer customer support

2.      Pilot friends who are available for consultation - what do pilots use where you fly?

3.      Installation ease – DIY or into the shop

4.      Ease of use, including brightness, size of font, color vs. B/W

5.      Tailorability/flexibility – ability to grow as pilot experience and goals develop

Quick take:

Pros (extremely briefly)

CN – straightforward interface, easy to use in flight, easy to set up. Good and bright display (no touch screen). I found that I could step into my glider in the spring after a winter layoff, and immediately know how to use the CN, so downtime was not an issue. Also, relatively easy to install. Color vario is  outstanding, and great thermaling assist.

LXNav – many options, extremely versatile. Good display. Great for flying tasks, and easy to change stuff, once you know where all the pages and subpages are. After I learned to use the task page, I found the information it provided was invaluable for flying the whole task, and for final glide. Installation more involved than for CN - many settings to set. HAWK stepped up the game for LXNav FCs for thermaling and winds overall. I’m not yet convinced its equal to or better than the CN Vario, but I know many pilots who are.

Cons

CN seems to be losing the bubble a bit on updates and adding features pilots have requested.

LXNav is intimidating to start with all its page trees. However, the more I fly with it, the better I understand what it does, and now have no issues. However, a layoff over the winter means I will have to refamiliarize myself with the unit when soaring season starts before taking the first flight of the season.

Bottom Line

Either system is great for a pilot at any stage of experience and goals. There are lots of bells and whistles that can be added to the avionics for specialized type flights. Either of these systems will work for tasks, records, OLC flying, contests, or just soaring about. 

[Mark Burton]

Excellent input.

I had never heard of LX Navigation Navia before reading this thread. Having now looked at it on the LX Navigation website it looks like the most modern glider information system. However, personally, I would beware of being an early adopter of something totally new. These companies have a history of unreliability in the early days of new generation products.

I consider that what your friends have and can help you with is - after reliability - about the most significant aspect to consider.

In my 2 seat glider I have an LX9000 v5 with touch screen, AHRS, wifi and radio bridge and I think it is great. I also have an S10 with Hawk and an Oudie N - all are good. My main problem is with power adequacy!

[Bruno Ramseyer]

There is also the Tripltek unit     https://www.tripltek.com/    which is still available. Used to be for sale with Paul Remde and was highly praised by him. However it looks like he was stopped from selling it as it competed with the LX .

[Gordon Wingate]

Mark, I saw the Navia at Oshkosh and was very impressed with the interface. They were saying that Navia was a new approach and more intuitive designed around the touchscreen as everything is now. Their point was that the LXnav systems were into several generations and confined to software were backward compatible with all of the older models. 

The challenge is that being a much smaller user community it would be more difficult to compare notes with other pilots. I've got 3 other LXnav users to compare task and feature set up with. I'd be on my own with the Navia. Plus, my glider came with the LX9070 and V8, and I've added Hawk and wifi. If it's working, don't fix it!

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[Eric Greenwell]

The Navia looks like a great bit of hardware, but I didn't see anything about the gliding software. I think I have pretty good hardware already, with a Butterfly vario (aka Display S) and an Oudie N. What would make the biggest difference to me would be a software addition: an "amoeba"  for the Oudie N, like ClearNav and LX 9000 et al. 

But what would really be useful would be better landing place databases for the areas I fly. Andy Blackburn and others are working on this, or at least the means to produce and maintain such a database. Then, 2nd most useful might be a "thermal prediction" database like WeGlide's Copilot, but I haven't used Copilot, so I don't know how well the thermal predictor works.

Eric