The TEK nozzle is the ideal complement for our GPS-Logger 2, which has a TEK connection on the Vario and together with the TEK nozzle allows a Vario experience like with the man-carrying glider pilots.
Our TEK nozzle works on the principle of the "Braunschweiger nozzle". Man-bearing aviation today uses this type almost exclusively. The construction is more complex than the simple curved nicks nozzle, but is unsurpassed in compensation and also delivers perfect results in model flying.
The nozzle is completely made of stainless steel and brazed.
The nozzle head is held on a scale of 1:2. This sounds bigger than it is because the nozzles are very small in the original. The nozzle appears correctly dimensioned on models of practically any size.
The tube with 2.5 mm diameter is about 240 mm long and 40 mm high in the angled version for installation in the fin. In the original this length is about 750 mm, so that our nozzle has the correct length for 1:3 model. On smaller models the tube can be shortened slightly, on larger models it could be extended and stiffened with a carbon fibre tube.
The straight version for installation on the back of the fuselage is about 120 mm long.
What is TEK anyway?
TEK simplifies the fading out of the "billet thermals" by taking into account the travel of the model. This is achieved by connecting a TEK nozzle to the Vario sensor.
For slow models that fly at a constant speed, the simple Vario without TEK is often sufficient. Here the errors are not so large by controlled height changes and one can already recognize the thermals by the Vario well. The cleaner you fly and the smaller the speed changes are, the better the Vario works without a TEK nozzle.
With dynamic models or even with not perfect flying style, however, there are always vario outputs which do not indicate the real ascent and descent of the model, but only a controlled speed or altitude change, the?stick thermal? In fact, the only thing that really matters in a thermal search is whether you are flying in rising, falling or neutral air mass. As independent as possible of how the aircraft is currently moving.
Exactly this behavior is achieved by using a TEK nozzle on the variometer. This nozzle generates a travel-dependent negative pressure and thus simulates a rise as the speed increases, which compensates for the height loss. So you press, the height decreases and the vario without TEK would indicate sink. The TEK nozzle compensates for this by showing rising speed as the pressure increases. The conversion of height (potential energy) into speed (kinetic energy) is no longer interpreted incorrectly as sinking or rising with the TEK nozzle.
Ideally, with complete compensation, the Vario always shows the aircraft's current sink rate in absolutely calm air. This is of course not a constant value, but depends on speed, lift and other factors.
