No, colour is generally better than monochrome, all other things being equal. But for outdoor use under an open sky a high contrast monochrome display is preferable given that any colour display apart from coloured ePaper is going to be washed out and hard to read, especially with direct sunlight on the display.
Thats no different from trying to use a viewfinderless camera outdoors on a sunny day, but you'll know that.
Because there is nobody at my club who is using a Kobo. Question posted on rec.aviation.soaring
It doesn't, but it does tend to get you a commercial device with standard standard APIs for accessing its colour display and touch screen, enough flash memory to install the app on and facilities for uploading maps etc and for downloading flight logs.
Indeed, and it gets you a device that is small, light, not particularly hungry and cheap. As I said, I have a feeling that LK8000 has been ported to it, which would mean that somebody has added code to use SPI or I2C to handle small displays. It has to be them since we know there are no suitable HDMI displays and, although the el-cheapo Chinese back-up video displays accept a composite signal, the resolution looks to be unacceptably low.
The Beagle Board might also do the trick, but (so far) its not been mentioned as possible hw for LK8000.
Some of the better varios are using 3D accelerometer arrays, but that's for gust sensing. Similarly, solid state blind flying panels are now common, good and quite cheap but lets not go there: they are for a rather different purpose.
Batteries. Wind driven generators cause drag which stuffs glide performance. 12v systems are almost universal (Light aircraft use higher voltages). I carry a pair of 12v 7AH lead-acid batteries which can easily run my electronics for more than the longest day.
Wander over one day, take a look and ask questions. Pilots are friendly and generally happy[*] to talk, answer questions and show you stuff
- just don't talk to a man who is in the middle of assembling and pre- flighting a glider: he needs to concentrate on what he's doing. Propellers: some gliders do have them because they carry auxiliary engines: if conditions deteriorate they can fire up and fly home rather than ending up in some farmer's field. Usually the engines and props are retracted behind the cockpit so you can't see them and come out on a pylon when needed, but nose-mounted, electrically driven folding props and small gas turbines are becoming popular. However, piston engines are still the most common, if the most problematic - because they add a huge amount of drag when extended, which is a big problem when it doesn't start. Thats why electric and jets are coming in: electric always starts and an extended jet adds very little drag even when not running.
I fly a pure glider and usually winch launch rather than aero tow.
Depends: at one extreme the Antares 20E is a 20m span electric self- launcher with a pop-up 47 kW brushless motor and wings full of batteries. It has the power to take off and climb 10,000 ft. I have no idea what its batteries weigh. At the other end of the battery scale my pair of 7AH motorcycle batteries only add about 5 Kg to a glider with a normal flying weight of 280 Kg.