Hello Guys,

I had the opportunity to visit the Weatronic headquarters yesterday.
As you probably all know now, the founder of the Company, Alex died a few days ago.
I found a team in pain but working hard to catch up with the additional work. The legal issues raised by their loss has been sorted out and Christopher has now all the rights regarding management decisions and is fully accountable. So their business is now going back to full pace and as a matter of fact, they were still working a 7 pm when I left the place.

I had a very long discussion with Alwin regarding the new firmware and had the chance to play with the new upcoming devices like the standalone GPS and the vario unit.
The new firmware will incorporate a lot of new features like the GPS/vario voice annunciations and also correct a few minor issues found previously.

The new standalone GPS incorporates the latest SIRF Prima chipset and will enable ultra fast initialization and update ( 4 times per second ). It will be backed up by the new voice annunciation option embedded in Gigacontrol. Multiple options will be available like minimum, maximum speed voice callouts, periodic speed/height/distance position callouts, switchable modes etc…
The vario module is amazing and based on a well established German technology. It is specifically designed for glider and electrical glider. However I think that many options would be interesting for EDF jets like the pitot tube, voltage and current monitoring and battery level warning, temperature probe, all with real time datalog cappability and voice annunciation.

The next sensors to come will be a Booster/Evojets/Hammer interface, standalone pitot tube and more. I have insisted so that the Weatronic team gets closer to the Jetcat team to be able to access their ECU data as well. Lets wait and see what comes out.

They have also finished the development of multiplex modules for Futaba/JR/Graupner systems. This allows to expand one radio channel into 8 low speed switchable channels for up to 24 additional channels ( on top of the 12 inputs already available ). The big 12-22 unit will be fully loaded on that respect, and the micro 12 receivers will get the possibility to be upgraded by adding an additional receiver module for output expansion.

In the near future, a new Tx module will be developed, that will get a much higher capacity flash rom and will be able to output more voice annunciations and cope with the high refresh rate of the remote GPS unit. This will also hold in memory all the files required to upload firmware updated and treat the high bandwith required by adding the remote sensors.

I have also spent a good amount of time talking with Alwin about advanced procedures and will start writing an article about this in RCJI once the new firmware will be “digested”.

I would like once again to extend my deepest sympathy to Axel wife and the Weatronic team and thank them for their warm welcome in such a difficult time.