I recently dug my old bräuniger competino out of a storage bin, and it's amazing how much nostalgia one little orange-trimmed box can trigger. If you've been paragliding or hang gliding for more than a decade, you know exactly what this device represents. It was the bridge between the old-school "beep-only" variometers and the high-tech, full-color flight computers we're all carrying around today.
Back when I first started getting serious about cross-country flying, the Competino was the piece of kit everyone wanted. It wasn't just a vario; it was a statement that you were ready to go places. Even now, in an era of iPads and specialized Android tablets strapped to our flight decks, there's something remarkably solid about the way this thing handles.
The Legend of the Orange Box
It's funny to think about how much the bräuniger competino changed the game. Before this, you usually had a vario on your upright or flight deck and a separate, handheld Garmin GPS taped somewhere else. Trying to coordinate those two during a rowdy thermal was a nightmare. Then Bräuniger (along with their partners at Flytec) decided to smash them together into one unit.
The Competino was essentially the "lite" version of the 5030 or the Compeo, but for most of us, it was the sweet spot. It gave you everything you actually needed without the overwhelming complexity of the high-end competition models. You got your altitude, your climb rate, and—most importantly—your ground speed and wind direction. That little arrow telling you where the wind was coming from felt like magic the first time I used it.
What's Under the Hood?
If you look at the specs of a bräuniger competino by today's standards, it looks like ancient history. We're talking about a monochrome liquid crystal display and a processor that probably has less power than a modern toaster. But that's actually its greatest strength.
The display is incredibly high-contrast. Have you ever tried to read a smartphone screen in high-altitude summer sun? It's almost impossible without cranking the brightness and draining the battery in forty minutes. The Competino, however, thrives in direct sunlight. The more light you throw at it, the clearer it gets.
The battery life is another thing that modern pilots should be jealous of. I remember going on a week-long flying trip and realizing halfway through that I'd forgotten my charger. With a modern instrument, I'd be grounded. With the Competino, I just kept flying. It sips power. If you're using standard AA batteries or the built-in NiMH pack, you get dozens of hours of flight time. It's reliable in a way that modern tech rarely is.
The Famous Bräuniger Beep
We can't talk about this device without mentioning the sound. Every vario manufacturer has its own "signature" tone. Some are harsh and shrill, while others are soft and mellow. The bräuniger competino has that classic, crisp European beep that's burned into my brain.
It's highly customizable, too. You can dive into the settings—which, admittedly, involves a lot of button-pushing on a menu that feels a bit dated—and adjust the threshold for when the sink alarm goes off or how aggressive the climb tone sounds. There's a specific "near-thermal" tone that's a lifesaver when you're scratching in light lift. It's a sort of rhythmic buzzing that tells you you're in rising air, even if you're not quite climbing yet. It helps you stay centered before the lift really kicks in.
Navigating the Menus
Okay, let's be honest: navigating the menus on a bräuniger competino in 2024 feels a bit like trying to program a VCR from 1994. It's not exactly "intuitive" by modern standards. You have to remember which button enters the menu and which one toggles through the pages. There are a lot of abbreviations that take a minute to decipher if you haven't looked at the manual in a few years.
But once you have it set up, you don't really need to touch it. You set your altimeter at the launch site, make sure the GPS has a lock, and you're good to go. The device handles the transition between flight screens automatically. It knows when you're circling and switches to a layout that emphasizes your thermal data. When you head off on a glide, it switches back to showing your glide ratio and distance to the next waypoint. It was doing "smart" UI before that was even a buzzword.
Dealing with 20-Year-Old Tech
If you're thinking about picking up a used bräuniger competino today, there are a few things you should know. The biggest hurdle is getting data off the device. It uses a serial connection, not USB. Most modern laptops don't even have a serial port, so you'll need a specialized adapter and a bit of patience to get your IGC files uploaded to an online contest like XContest.
Then there's the GPS. It's a 12-channel receiver, which was great back in the day, but it takes a little longer to "find itself" than your phone does. I usually turn mine on and set it on top of my car while I'm getting my wing out. By the time I'm clipped in and ready to launch, it has a solid lock. If you wait until you're on the move to turn it on, you might be waiting a while.
The internal backup battery is another thing to watch out for. There's a tiny coin-cell battery inside that keeps the clock and the memory alive. If that dies, the unit might act funky or lose your settings. It's a bit of a surgical procedure to replace it, but it's totally doable if you're handy with a screwdriver.
Why Some Pilots Won't Let Go
I know guys who have brand-new, top-of-the-line Naviters or Oudies, and they still have a bräuniger competino mounted right next to it. Why? Because it's the ultimate backup. If the fancy color screen freezes or the software crashes (which happens more often than we'd like to admit), the Competino just keeps chugging along.
It's also about the simplicity of the data. Sometimes, having a moving map with 3D airspace and terrain gradients is just too much information. When things get turbulent and you're fighting to stay in a tight core, seeing a giant, clear number for your climb rate is more helpful than a bunch of pretty colors.
There's a tactile feel to the buttons that you just don't get with touchscreens. When you're wearing thick winter gloves, you can still feel the "click" of the Competino's buttons. You don't have to look down and hope your finger hit the right spot; you just know.
Final Thoughts on a Classic
The bräuniger competino isn't going to win any beauty contests in the 2020s, and it won't help you find the nearest coffee shop or play music during a long glide. But as a tool for flying, it's still remarkably relevant. It does the fundamentals—measuring pressure and calculating GPS position—with a level of precision that many modern "all-in-one" apps still struggle to match.
If you find one for a good price on a used gear forum, it's a fantastic entry-level instrument for someone getting into their first XC flights. It's also a great secondary device for seasoned pilots who want something they can trust when their primary electronics fail.
It's a reminder of a time when gear was built to last for decades, not just until the next software update. Every time I hear that specific beep, I don't just hear a climb; I hear all the flights I've had over the years with that little orange box by my side. It's more than just a variometer; it's a piece of free-flight history that still works perfectly well today.