ORIGINAL: JPMacG
Bill,
I agree that cycling our packs after flying to determine remaining capacity is a good thing to do. I do that myself and have been preaching it to others for years.
I do take issue with your emphatic statements that voltage readings are "meaningless", "cannot possibly tell you where you are on the discharge curve", tell us "absoultely nothing". Loaded voltage readings can and do tell us something. The voltage discharge curve on the site you mentioned,
http://www.scaleaerobatics.org/cycle.html clearly shows the relationship between voltage and remaining capacity.
What it show is that without the tiem element you cannot know where you are on the curve. Is this somehow not clear.?
Look at that curve. Say the voltage is 9.8 or 9.9 volts. Please tell me how you know if you are at the 60 minute end or the 270 minute end. That is all I am saying.
You are likely keeping track of time whether you realize it or not. You know how many flights you have made and about what voltage to expect.
My method just makes it a little more precise.