Altitude Setting

[wbond]

Does this actually work? Can anyone confirm this? I have tested it at 500 and 5000 ft using a 7 iron and compared very similar shots and they show no difference in carry/total distance.

[TWiG]

As I don't have my unit yet what other setting is there that you need to manually enter ?

[DeaconBlooze]

I believe the other settings are humidity and temperature. You can also adjust wind.

[lterryjr]

I have been saying this, before the update my drives are going between 275 and 295 at 4500 feet. I live in Salt Lake. Now after the update they are going 260 at best. By the way real conditions I hit it between 270 and 300. At the alltitude it should be 10% or a little more from sea level. SkyTrak says they have not changed anything, I really believe that this is not the case.

LT

[TWiG]

You can get an altitude app of the AppStore and im sure a little temperature clock or similar would give you humidity and temp to get all the settings right.

[Wrightson]

So please chime in skytrak. Does the altitude setting work. Is the ball speed on the driver affected by the update.
I am swing out of my shoes to get a 240 carry with driver.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

Yes, it does work. In v1.8.6, to test this, just hit a shot with the altitude set to 0ft. Then change the altitude to 5,000ft and use the replay button in the range. You will be able to see the effect of altitude on the exact same shot.

[NOstroke]

I'm no expert, but I do have a lot of experience with Long Range Shooting, Altitude has nothing to do with a bullet traveling farther, Air temperature is the determining factor, typically at altitude the temp is colder and there is less resistance. So I am thinking it would affect a Golf Ball the same way. Not trying to stir the pot just throwing out info that might be helpful

[rbarthle17]

I'm no expert, but I do have a lot of experience with Long Range Shooting, Altitude has nothing to do with a bullet traveling farther, Air temperature is the determining factor, typically at altitude the temp is colder and there is less resistance. So I am thinking it would affect a Golf Ball the same way. Not trying to stir the pot just throwing out info that might be helpful

At altitude the air is THINNER, and that is what causes the decrease in resistance. Temperature has nothing to do with it, it is just a by product of thinner air.

[Dax]

I think that temp and humidity do have an affect on the distance as well. I wonder if a bullet does not travel further due to how fast it travels over a the total distance of its flight and that gravity plays into the equation more than the thinner air (assuming you are not shooting off of a mountain).

[Hoosierdaddy]

I am not sure what climate you guys play in. But, from where I am from, when it's cold I have to use an extra club to get the shot to travel a given distance. And the air temperature (I thought) only affects the ball temperature. A cold ball flies a shorter distance than a warm ball when the same force is applied. And when the humidity is high, again the ball does not fly as far due to the thick air and the resistance it applies to the ball in flight. So with that thought in mind higher altitudes having thinner air should create less resistance if the humidity is low.

Raising the altitude setting and the temperature, and lowering the humidity should increase distance. But that would be a global change affecting every club in the bag. That might bring the driver distance into specs but may take other clubs out of spec.

My guess is the temperature setting deals more with calculating compression of the ball and not the affect air temperature would have once the ball takes flight. And compression is a key factor in all the physics calculations that take place to give you the correct ball flight. But that is like I say only a guess.

[Dax]

Surely the air density would have an effect on ball flight. At altitude the air is thinner and less dense and would this not mean that there are less air molecules that would have an effect on the ball? Perhaps the drag is reduced? I thought that dimples on the ball were found to decrease drag to allow the ball to fly further. If the air is less dense then would the drag on the ball not be decreased further?

[Ronsc1985]

What you are trying to do is provide the inputs so the program can compute the air density. Air density has two effects..1. higher density means more air resistance. 2 Higher air density means more lift from spin but also more drag. The converse is also true.

Higher relative humidity means thinner air contrary to popular opinion. The three things you need to know to compute air density are temperature, absolute air pressure and relative humidty or dew point.

At altitude the ball may go further or shorter depending on your launch condition. For most people the ball will go further but if you have a very low ball speed and are depending on lift to keep the ball in the air for a decent time you may be shorter.

There are free programs available to which you can input the above parameters along with your launch parameters to see what effect the various air conditions have on the ball flight. One is a program called Trajectoware available at Dave Tutelman's web site.

These ball flight programs have been around for a long time since they are fairly straight forward physics.

[NOstroke]

Like I said I'm no expert , here is a Link about this. http://www.usgtf.com/articles/summer12/page33.html