LXNAV SxHAWK Variometers with HAWK and GPS Flight Recorder

Available for a limited time!
The SxHAWK is available only until April 1, 2025.

The SxHAWK stand-alone variometers use the proven hardware of the popular LXNAV S10 and S100 variometers. The SxHAWK is a lower-cost version with some software features removed.

HAWK (HAWK winds, HAWK vario, and AHRS) is included as standard in the SxHAWK.

Features from S10/S100 that are NOT included in the SxHAWK varios:
Note: These features cannot be added to the SxHAWK. The SxHAWK is not upgradeable in regard to these software features. It is NOT possible to buy a software upgrade for these features. If you think you may want these features - consider an S10 or S100 instead.

No Waypoints - waypoint files are supported, waypoints not displayed, no moving map, no waypoint screen/mode, no navigation
No Tasks, no task screen/mode
- A task edit screen will be accessible through the Settings, Flight recorder screen. It can be used to create a task that will be used at the task declaration for badge and record flights.
- The NanoConfig program on an Android device, which is normally used with a Nano logger, can also be used to upload a task declaration to an S10, S100, S8, S80, or SxHAWK vario.
- Soaring software can be used to send a task declaration to the SxHAWK - the same as done with an S10 or S100 or S8 or S80. This can be done over Bluetooth or using a cable connected to the PDA port on the back of the vario.
A task edit screen will be accessible through the Settings, Flight recorder screen
No Airspace - airspace files not supported, airspace not displayed, no moving map, no navigation
No Navigation
No Final Glide Calculations
No Profiles (settings files - sometimes called pilot profiles)

Advantages of an S10 or S100
If you want the full set of features, I recommend the S10 or S100. You may think you don't need the vario to support navigation or airspace display because you have those features in an Oudie N or SeeYou Navigator on your phone. But having those features available in the S10 and S100 as a backup could be extremely handy if you drop your handheld navigation device on the hard runway before takeoff, or if your phone overheats and shuts-down in flight. It may be very important to able to use the S10 or S100 to help you navigate home, or around a task, or for staying clear of controlled airspace. In a soaring club's sailplane, having the airspace displayed on the S10 or S100 can be very important.

Features of the SxHAWK

Same hardware as the S10 and S100
2 sizes: 57 and 80 mm
HAWK Vario, HAWK Winds, AHRS, Angle of attack
Speed-to-fly variometer
Thermal Assistant
Vario compensation using either a Total Energy Probe, or electronic TE compensation
Bluetooth Radio built-in (works great with Naviter Oudie N and SeeYou Navigator)
GPS engine built-in
Fully IGC Approved GPS Flight Recorder
Engine Noise Level (ENL) sensor for motorgliders
G-Meter
Backup battery built-in (up to 3 hours)
FLARM and ADS-B traffic display
FLARM and PDA RS-232 ports for connection to FLARM units and older navigation devices like Naviter Oudie2 and Oudie IGC

The SxHAWK varios are very powerful speed-to-fly variometers with IGC Approved GPS flight recorder with Engine Noise Level sensor, built-in back-up battery, built-in Bluetooth, and built-in HAWK with AHRS. The SxHAWK-57mm fits into a standard small 57mm instrument hole. The SxHAWK-80mm fits into a standard 80 mm instrument hole. Other than the size of the display, the SxHAWK-57mm and SxHAWK-80mm are functionally identical - the screens even have the same number or pixels. They have an extremely powerful processor and use a MEMS inertial platform and pressure sensors. The built-in 320 x 240 pixel color displays are used to display parameters such as vario average, thermal average, altitude, battery level, speed-to-fly push/pull indicator, MacCready setting, etc.

HAWK Vario, Winds, and AHRS

Features:

HAWK’s blue vario pointer is fast and closely matches the lift you feel in the seat of your pants.

Better than any other vario - ever!

Ignore fake thermals caused by gusts

How many times has this happened to you:

You’re cruising.
You feel a bump.
The red Total Energy vario pointer goes up.
You stop to circle and find no usable lift.
It’s not a thermal. It’s a gust.

With HAWK:

The blue HAWK vario pointer remains flat. HAWK knows it’s a gust!

Never again waste time stopping to try a “thermal” that is really a bump from a gust.
Greatly increase your cross-country speed (worth every penny of price)
Know exactly what the wind is doing in real-time
HAWK software uses accelerometers and GPS for:

Fast vario which ignores horizontal gusts
Fast wind data for optimizing flight in convergence and wave
AHRS

The HAWK and AHRS sensors are built-into all V8, V80, S10, S100, and SxHAWK varios. The artificial horizon and airspeed and altitude items can be setup to display on any page on the LX80X0 or LX90X0 display using the LXStyler program - or using the controls on the flight computer. The artificial horizon also displays on the vario's display.

HAWK details are available in the LX80x0 or LX90x0 or S10, or S100 manual which is available here.

"Are you dreaming about having a real time wind indication in your glider? Do you feel sometimes in the mountainous regions or areas of convergence that the wind suddenly changes?”

Get real-time wind with HAWK
Real-time wind indication – 3D wind. HAWK option enables instantaneous wind readings on all 3 axes.

Measurement
HAWK uses sensor fusion and advanced digital signal processing to estimate the air mass movement.

3-dimensional wind triangle
HAWK applies an “extended Kalman filter” (EKF) algorithm that jointly estimates all three dimensions of the air mass movement.

Instant results
EKF estimates the wind direction and velocity instantaneously (horizontal and vertical). No more waiting!

No compensation, no compromise
No compensation needed, since it uses no law of energy conservation. More accurate netto vario readings independent of glider speed.
No false thermals due to wind gusts = No more “stick” lift.

Wind indication
Wind screen enables you to view the instantaneous wind on the blue arrow and the wind average on the white arrow .

2 needle vario
A red and blue vario needles at the same time. Red shows the value of computations of the TEK while light blue shows the value of the EKF.

AHRS
The results of the attitude estimate of the EKF can also be displayed as an artificial horizon.

HAWK Article
https://gliding.lxnav.com/wp-content/uploads/press/SegelfliegenMagazin_ENG.pdf

Training Videos

HAWK Setup in an S100 (and S10) Variometer - Training Video
by Paul Remde
https://www.patreon.com/posts/lxnav-hawk-setup-75004480

LXNAV S8, S80, S10 and S100 Vario Overview
https://www.patreon.com/posts/lxnav-s8-s80-s10-30594890

LXNAV S7 Variometer - 3 of 3 - Vario Sounds
(also applies to S3, S8, S80, S10, S100, V5, V9, V8, and V80)
Duration: 6+ minutes
One of 100+ videos in the Soaring Product Training series

I am especially impressed with the way the vario 20 second average (red diamond), MacCready (blue triangle) and Thermal Average (green "T") are displayed on the vario scale - making it easy to compare the MacCready setting to the thermal average, 20 second vario average, and instantaneous vario reading (red pointer). Another interesting feature is that a yellow arc is displayed around the inside of the variometer scale which indicates the maximum and minimum lift lift/sink rates over the last 20 seconds. That will be useful while centering thermals and deciding when to leave a thermal. Alternatively, the red diamond and yellow arc can be configured to display g-meter instantaneous and min and max readings. The g-meter can be reset manually and it automatically resets on take-off. A built-in logbook feature is also very nice. It makes it easy to update your personal of sailplane logbook with dates (if a GPS is connected) and flight times. The S8 can provide 5V power for a PDA or PNA.

Easy and Fast Flight Log Downloads
Since a microSD memory card slot is built-into the face of the vario, it is easy to transfer flights to the memory card and take them home at the end of the day. Flight logs are transferred in a second or 2 using the logbook screen. Firmware upgrades are also done using the built-in microSD memory card reader. Waypoint, airspace and FlarmNet files are also loaded using the memory card slot.

Flying Modes

Note: The vario ring around the outside of the screen is visible in all the flying modes. It is easy to rotate through the flying modes using the center button on the right side of the unit.

Status Mode - GPS status, etc.
FLARM Mode
Thermal Assistant Mode
Vario Mode - This screen displays the variometer dial, up to 4 numeric information boxes, and many other small status indicators - such as GPS status, vario units, cruise/climb mode indicator, etc.. Use the top and bottom push-buttons to cycle through the 3 screens in this mode: Vario, HAWK Winds, and AHRS.
Setup Mode

Features

Built-in GPS Flight Recorder with Engine Noise Level Sensor and IGC approval
Built-in back-up battery - lasts about 3 hours - However, the vario and logger data ports both shut-down when operating on backup battery power.
Built-in BlueTooth radio - for connection to a PDA or PNA
Inertial platform 3 axis digital +/-8g accelerometer, 3 gyroscopes (for inertial vario, AHRS and wind calculation)
Audible Thermal Assistant
ARM Cortex-M4 processor running on 160MHz
SxHAWK-57mm Display: 2.5'' QVGA sunlight readable screen (320 x 240 pixels) with 1200 nits of brightness
SxHAWK-80mm Display: 3.5'' QVGA sunlight readable screen (320 x 240 pixels) with 1200 nits of brightness
Audio equalizer
Voice module provides voice alerts - such as: "Warning, traffic, 2'o clock, 3 kilometers, 200 meters below"
G-meter with minimum and maximum display and reset feature
Built-in AHRS
micro SD memory card slot on the face of the unit for firmware and FlarmNet updates. Flight logs can also be transferred from the vario to the memory card using the logbook screen.
Fast wind updates
Digital temperature compensated pressure sensors for altitude and airspeed
6 digital inputs
3 push buttons for adjusting settings
2 rotary control knobs
Ambient light sensor (ALS)
RS485 Bus - for connection to optional stick-mounted remote, flap sensor, MOP sensor, etc.
CANbus
Built-in voice module
An S10D or S100D can be used as a 2nd-seat repeater with an SxHAWK vario in 2-seat aircraft. The SxHAWK sends vario and GPS and other data to the S10D or S100D.
Power input 10-16V DC
Consumption: 120 to 190 mA at 12V
SxHAWK-57mm Dimensions: 61mm x 61mm x 95mm (not including the connectors and knobs)
SxHAWK-80 Dimensions: 81 x 81 x 95mm
SxHAWK-57mm Weight: 330 g
SxHAWK-80mm Weight: 460 g

Input & Output

GPS port input/output on RS232 level (standard IGC 6 pin connector RJ11)
- Connections (from left to right): 1: +12V, 4: Receive (RS-232), 5: Transmit (RS-232), 6: Ground
PDA port input/output on RS232 or TTL level for PDA/PNA devices with 5V power supply (8 pin RJ45, 5V output max 2A)
- Connections (from left to right): 1 & 2: Ground, 3: Transmit (RS-232), 4: Receive (RS-232), 5: Transmit (TTL), 6: Receive (TTL), 7 & 8: +5V
External Speaker (included), 3 mm phono jack
1Mbit CANbus for connection to S8D repeater
microSD memory card slot on face of SxHAWK - for firmware and FlarmNet updates and for transferring flight log files

SxHAWK GPS cables:

LXNAV-S7-GPS-IGC, "Straight-through" 6-conductor RJ12 cable for use with "standard IGC" devices - such as the LX Navigation Colibri and Colibri II's LX-ColibriII-Pwr-Data adapter, or a FLARM with 6-pin RJ12 connector.
LXNAV-S7-GPS-PF, S7, S8, S80, S10, S100, or SxHAWK GPS port to RJ45 connector with "standard IGC" connections, for use with PowerFLARM Portable, K6 Mux (output port only), Volkslogger (version with RJ45 connector)
LXNAV-S7-GPS-PFCore, S7, S8, S80, S10, S100 or SxHAWK GPS port to DB-9m connector for connection to PowerFLARM Core, The vario port powers the PowerFLARM Core with 12V.
Cable-PFLARM-Pwr-DB9m-S7-0p5, Cable for connecting a S7, S8, S80, S10, S100 or SxHAWK's GPS port to a PowerFLARM Core's DB-9 port. 12V power leads are also provided for powering the PowerFLARM Core with 12V. This cable does not pass 12V power from the vario to the PowerFLARM Core.

SxHAWK PDA Cables:

LXNAV-CC-NP-Oudie, SS7, S8, S80, S10, S100, or SxHAWK PDA port to Naviter Oudie or Oudie 2 or Oudie IGC. The vario powers the Oudie with 12V.
LXNAV-CC-NP-Kobo, for connecting an S7, S8, S80, S10, S100, or SxHAWK vario's PDA port to a Kobo e-reader display. The vario provides power to the Kobo.
LXNAV-CC-NP-232, S7, S8, S80, S10, S100 or SxHAWK PDA port to to DB-9f connector,
LXNAV-CC-NP-IPAQ310, S7, S8, S80, S10, S100 or SxHAWK PDA port to HP iPAQ 310 or 314 Travel Companion
LXNAV-CC-NP-38, S7, S8, S80, S10, S100 or SxHAWK PDA port to iPAQ h2200, h3800, h3900, h5500, hx4700, hx2000, etc.
LXNAV-CC-NP-LX, S7, S8, S80, S10, S100 or SxHAWK PDA port to 6-conductor RJ12 connector, for use with LX Navigation MiniMap (RX/TX are crossed)
Use an RJ-Coupler-RJ45-Rj45-Panel and Cumulus-Cable-RJ45-RJ45-0p5 to move the PDA connector out to a panel-mounted RJ45 connector. This is a perfect option for soaring clubs - allowing club members to easily connect their own PDA cables.

Included

GPS Antenna
microSD memory card
Printed manual (printed by Cumulus Soaring, Inc.)
Wiring harness with 12V power connections, outside air temperature probe, digital inputs and RS-485 connector

Optional