NOS PZL varios & airspeeds

[mrop...@gmail.com]

There is a fellow in Poland who has come across
a number of NOS (New Old Stock) PZL pneumatic
varios and 1.5 turn airspeeds, all calibrated in Kts /
FPM. Prices vary with the 57mm vario being the
most expensive at 100 Euros + shipping. We have
taken the opportunity to buy several of these
instruments to replace left over metric varios which
are still in some of our club gliders. They appear to
be "as advertised", and shipping took about a week
at a reasonable cost. Also available separately are
flasks and KWEC TE compensators for those who
don't use a TE probe. He has an ad up on Wings &
Wheels:

https://wingsandwheels.com/classifieds/misc/pzl-varimeters.html

Mike Opitz
RO

[Chip Bearden]

Nostalgia! I haven't seen a KWEC compensator in...50+ years? (sigh) I recall several discussions about which way to mount them and if/how they could be adjusted. The first low-drag venturi TE compensators (Althaus?) blew them out of the market, and about that time, Wil Schuemann's compensators arrived.

In the U.S., PZL used to be THE vario of choice, before the Ball (still have fond memories), the early (pre-MNAV) Cambridge varios, and the various European brands (from memory: Peschges, Blumenauer, Westerboer, et al.). I'm ignoring early ('60s) American electric varios (e.g., Crossfell) because they never seemed to reach critical mass/broad acceptance. Rico was in there for a while, but a little later, IIRC. And then there were the Schuemann varios (and TE compensators) that raised the bar for everyone, mechanical and electric.

Winter was/still is a good mechanical vario (it's what I have in the panel next to my ClearNav vario), but for some reason PZL seemed to be most prized back then. Other than for an occasional Schuemann (Sage) vario, I don't see that many mechanical varios in panels these days.

RO, are you still flying with a mechanical backup? Actually, I can check. I believe your glider is here at Dansville.

Showing my age. Pretty soon I'll be mumbling about "gas wars" and occasional 16-cent/gal. gasoline. Or the Cosim pellet vario. :)

But RAS readers, feel free to correct/amend/apend your own comments. My memories are imperfect.

Chip Bearden
ASW 24 "JB"

[Moshe Braner]

The RICO VACS had the best audio, IMO. I wish you could program the
current computerized varios to imitate that audio. It was short pulses
that almost sounded like ticks, but the pitch of the ticks, as well as
how quickly they followed each other, rose with the strength of the
lift. Even at low volume it was easy to hear over the air noises (even
engine noise, when I tried it in a powered airplane). Many a time I
found wave lift by noticing a slow ticking. I have several of these on
hand, but fixing them got too hard as they got 30, 40 years old. The
pneumatics and electronics just wore out.

I kept the mechanical backup vario for many years, but finally realized
I have never actually lost power. Replaced the backup vario with a B40
with the piggy-back 9V battery. That way I got rid of the flask,
although that didn't seem to change the behavior of my main e-vario.