User Tools


Features

  • you draw your flight, and XC Planner calculates the maximum score
  • support for all XC leagues, and auto-detects your country's league
  • speed and duration calculations
  • airspace
  • thermals

User guide

  • drag the red stars around to create your route
  • drag the arrows (halfway between the stars) around to add extra points
  • double-click on red stars to remove them
  • right-click adds a red star
  • click, or use your mouse wheel to change the airspace, speed, duration, or thermal layer
  • clicking on the yellow distance box expands or collapses the control panel
  • you can set the XC league and the units by clicking on Preferences

Close flight

just added a “Close flight” button to XC Planner v2 for closing your triangle and out-and-return flights. This places the finish turnpoint at the exact position of the start turnpoint.

This was requested by UK XC League pilots: the UK XC League does not consider a declared triangle closed if the start and finish turnpoints are not exactly the same.

The algorithm used is: - If the start and finish turnpoints are less than 1km apart, then move the finish turnpoint to the exact position of the start turnpoint. - Otherwise, add a new finish turnpoint at the exact position of the start turnpoint.

If you're planning a declared closed flight for the UK XC League then I strongly recommend clicking “Close flight” before downloading the turnpoints

Average speed

The average speed is the average speed that you must maintain to complete the flight (via all turnpoints, not just the scoring turnpoints) in the duration that you have set.

It does not include wind. As a rough rule of thumb, if you're flying downwind then the wind adds about half its speed to your average speed. For example, if you're flying a 15km/h average in zero wind, and the wind speed is 20km/h, then your actual average speed will be roughly 15+20/2 = 25km/h. This way, you can factor in the wind speed that you expect.

That said, average speed is less relevant for downwind flights because downwind flights are typically terminated by airspace, not finding a thermal, or running out of land. This is quite different to mountain flying where (generally) thermals are more predictable, you can more easily avoid airspace, and you rarely run out of land.


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