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XCSoar 6.8

1. 4 4 Panning the map 45 Waypoints en 46 Active task 02 000 eee eee 4 7 Terrain and Topography AS A ead Oe A ee hice nc ik ead See eS 10 10 11 12 13 XCSoar User Manual Contents 4 9 Markets ohm A ew ET Oa wea 48 4 10 Thermals ne 48 4 11 Glide range line 48 4 12 Status tabs Flight and TIME 50 4 15 Ro te Sito e a der pk Hee Rx Reus 50 5 Cross Country Tasks 52 5 1 Goto tasks 4 dot a Rm me 52 5 2 Editing tasks 522 on omm RE RR 53 5 3 WaypointInformation 53 5 4 Waypoint selector dialogue 56 5 5 Task manager 57 5 6 Tasktypes lees 59 5 7 Turn Points task rules 61 5 8 Advancing and restarting tasks 63 5 9 Alternate starts o 64 5 10 Abort resume the task and Alternates 65 5 11 Task Status 2e eom a a oe a 66 5 12 Assigned Area Tasks o 66 5 13 OnLine Contest o e e 71 5 14 Logger 203 ae ee wor hg be RES UR edu aides 71 5 15 Hlightanalysis o 74 5 16 Sunlight and time o 75 6 Glide Computer 76 6 1 Flight modes llle 76 6 2 MacCready setting o 78 6 3 Glide polar 2 6 as a A 78 6 4 Flight setup dialogue o o 80
2. Head wind component simplified Head Wind Outside air temperature OAT Relative humidity Rel Hum Forecast temperature Max Temp 12 6 MacCready MacCready Setting MC mode Speed MacCready V MC Percentage climb Climb 12 INFOBOX REFERENCE Wind bearing estimated by XCSoar Adjustable in the same manner as Wind arrow Wind speed estimated by XCSoar Adjustable in the same manner as Wind arrow The current head wind component Head wind is calculated from TAS and GPS ground speed if airspeed is available from external device Otherwise the estimated wind is used for the calculation The current head wind component The simplified head wind is calculated by subtracting GPS ground speed from the TAS if airspeed is available from external device Outside air temperature measured by a probe if supported by a connected intelligent variometer Relative humidity of the air in percent as measured by a probe if supported by a connected intelligent variometer Forecast temperature of the ground at the home airfield used in estimating convection height and cloud base in conjunc tion with outside air temperature and relative humidity probe Touch screen PC only Pressing the up down cursor keys ad justs this forecast temperature The current MacCready setting the current MacCready mode manual or auto and the recommended spe
3. Change the bugs ballast settings as required Refer to the Analysis dialogue as required Refer to the Status dialogue as required This shows the start time elapsed time on task estimated arrival time av erage task speed etc At any time when the altitude difference bar is a green arrow pointing upwards the glider can finish the task As described in Section 11 1 11 3 AAT Task Manual Arm In this scenario the pilot intends to fly a triangle AAT task and will manu Prior to takeoff il 2 ally arm the waypoint advance system Turn on the device Open the Flight Setup dialogue and adjust the bugs and ballast as required Set the maximum forecast temperature Close the dialogue 131 XCSoar User Manual In flight When the pilot is ready to start the task press the Arm Start 11 QUICKSTART Open the Task Edit dialogue and create a blank task by pressing New Select AAT as task type Once the task is created move the cursor to the add way point item and press enter Add waypoints in the already described way The AAT requires additional input to the kind and size of the obserservation zone Adjust AAT sector parameters for this waypoint and press close or escape Repeat the last two steps as required for additional way points The last waypoint is the finish waypoint The A
4. Home Dist 12 INFOBOX REFERENCE Additional altitude required to finish the task Distance to finish around remaining turn points Distance to the home waypoint if defined 12 8 Competition and assigned area tasks Speed task average Speed task ins V Task Avg tantaneous V Task Inst Speed task achieved AAT delta time V Task Ach AAT time AAT Time AAT dT AAT max distance AAT Dmax AAT mi n distance AA Dmin AAT speed max distance AAT Vmax AAT speed mi n distance AAT Vmin AAT distance around target AAT Dtgt Average cross country speed while on current task not com pensated for altitude Instantaneous cross country speed while on current task com pensated for altitude Equivalent to instantaneous Pirker cross country speed Achieved cross country speed while on current task compen sated for altitude Equivalent to Pirker cross country speed re maining Assigned Area Task time remaining Goes red when time re maining has expired Difference between estimated task time and AAT minimum time Coloured red if negative expected arrival too early or blue if in sector and can turn now with estimated arrival time greater than AAT time plus 5 minutes Assigned Area Task maximum distance possible for remain der of task Assigned Area Task minimum distance possi
5. If as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason not limited to patent issues conditions are imposed on you whether by court order agree ment or otherwise that contradict the conditions of this License they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all For exam ple if a patent license would not permit royalty free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indi rectly through you then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system which is imple mented by public license practices Many people have made gen erous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent
6. To enable disable Auto MacCready use the menu When Auto MacCready is enabled the MacCready infobox dis plays MC auto instead of MC manuell and the MacCready indi cator in the variometer gauge displays AutoMC instead of MC To benefit at max from the automatic MC adjustment XCSoar prop agates the MC value to the connected inteligent variometer if it supports The Auto MacCready methods are described in further detail be low When above final glide altitude the MacCready ring setting may be increased resulting in a higher speed to be commanded Be cause the ring setting has increased this also increases the min imum strength of the thermal that would be efficient to stop and circle in Similarly when below final glide altitude the MacCready ring set ting my be decreased resulting in a lower speed to be commanded Because the ring setting has decreased the pilot may be prepared to stop and circle in weaker thermals 90 XCSoar User Manual a Below final glide Average climb Mc 4 Mc 3 VOpt 90 VOpt 80 T Safety height gt 6 GLIDE COMPUTER Auto MacCready performs this adjustment automatically and con tinuously Typically it is meaningless to enable this mode before reaching final glide altitude or nearly so because early in the flight the glider will be very much below the final glide altitude and the Auto MacCready function would then drive the MacCready ring setting
7. On top of the polar and mass configuration the glide polar is ad justable in flight to take into account performance degradation due to bugs or rain droplets The build up of bugs on the wing s leading edge as well as rain droplets on the wing affect the aerodynamic performance It is the pilot s responsibility to judge and update the bugs value during flight The bugs value is expressed as a percentage of degrada tion compared to the clean glider s performance For example at 096 bugs value the glider performs as a clean glider and at 5096 bugs value the glider s sink rate is doubled when compared to a clean glider The calculation scales linearly in between ws W Brg BIN 0 Bugs clean S 30 Bugs N 1 428 times more sinkrate L D 42 at 121 km h z NM E at 113 km h Min sink 0 46 m s Min sink at 57 km h 0 65 m s EN 3 3 at 57 km h s Mass 472 kg Bas saeciky Wing loading 40 0 kg m2 Wing loading 40 0 kg m2 4 80 120 160 200 80 120 160 200 240 240 V km h V km h Knowing all this a meaningful setting for a worst case bug pol luted wing could scale down the polar by 30 Some experi mentation may be required to determine appropriate settings for bugs because the performance degradation experienced by dif ferent glider types may be different Alternatively you can enable the Auto bugs feature which adds 1 to the bugs setting after each full hour of flying This feature is set via Conf
8. lower the MacCready setting Setup Allows you to change the behaviour of the setting related Changing InfoBox sets 3 7 Status messages Takeoff to the InfoBox for example changing from auto to manual MacCready mode or to change the InfoBox itself by press ing Switch InfoBox then choosing from a list of all available InfoBoxes Examples of InfoBoxes that can be adjusted include MacCready setting wind speed and altitude QNH An entire set of InfoBox can be composed by the Setup System configuration dialogues on the Look InfoBox Modes and Look InfoBox Pages 13 22 setup page The dialogues give a wide variety to set up the look and feel of the XCSoar pages Status messages appear over the map area to present text for a short period of time The message disappears after the time period has elapsed and different types of message have different periods Additionally status messages can be made to disappear by acknowledging the message Acknowledgement is achieved by either pressing the enter key rotary knob on Altair touching the status message on touch screen devices or clicking the screen mouse enabled devices Additional user buttons may be assigned to a status message re peat function which brings up the last message again Typical status messages include Airspace queries Airspace warnings User interface events e g changing display modes e Glide computer events
9. decreases so that the estimated task time exceeds the assigned task time by less than five minutes The range is adjusted target wise In typical use all targets are set to auto that means the pilot does not have to manually adjust the range to find the course 58 XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS for arrival at the assigned task time thereby reducing pilot work load This page displays an ordered list of the points in the current ac tive task If there are no waypoints in the active task there will be only an option to Add Turnpoint By highlighting tapping the Add Turnpoint function then tapping in the highlighted region the waypoint selector is displayed as described above Highlight ing a waypoint from the list and then tapping on the highlighted region adds the waypoint to the task This page allows for invoking all operations needed to create new or manage already defined tasks New Task Clears the current task and resets the task rules to the de Turn Points Turn Points Manage Manage Rules fault values Declare If an external logger is connected this will allow uploading the active task to the logger and declaring it Browse Displays a list of all the saved tasks allowing the pilot to load a previously saved task Note that this option will overwrite the current active task Save Saves the current active
10. 467 m Alt diff MC current 410 m E Runway 06 200 m Location 47954 01 N 008 09 43 E Elevation 857 m SS Daylight time 04 43 20 04 Alt diff MC 0 497 m Bearing and Distance 232 16 4 km E As mentioned above the Waypoint info dialogue also shows three forms of altitude difference additional altitude required to reach the waypoint at the safety height for the corresponding waypoint Alt diff MC 0 Altitude difference at MC setting of 0 Alt diff MC safety Altitude difference at the abort safety MacCready setting see 6 7 Alt diff MC current Altitude difference at the current MacCready setting From the main Waypoint Info screen you can access the second page by using the of the page gt and lt buttons in the bottom left corner 54 XCSoar User Manual Task actions menu 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS This page contains a column of buttons allowing various actions to be performed Replace in task Insert in task Append to task Remove from task Set as new home Pan to waypoint replaces the active waypoint in the task with the selected waypoint inserts the selected waypoint before the active waypoint in the task adds the selected waypoint to the end of the task removes the selected waypoint from the task Note that this option
11. Flymaster F1 Flytec 5030 y GTAltimeter ILEC SN10 ASAA IMI ERIXX LX20 Colibri LX Vario LXNAV Nano LL RL 2 lt L lt lt lt lt I lt lt Baro altitude A Se um LXNAV V7 PosiGraph Triadis Altair pro Triadis Vega S Sd lt A AAA EA S Volkslogger Westerboer VW1150 Westerboer VW921 922 Zander SDI SIS US SL L44 X A S V v While most Windows CE based devices have a serial port such legacy hardware is not present in modern Android devices Those can either use Bluetooth or the Android IOIO board To use Blue tooth you need to connect the external device to a Bluetooth to Serial adapter such as the K6 Bt or the Glidertools VFBT 1 2 6 Software installation The software is available as a free download from the XCSoar website http www xcsoar org This section describes which file should be downloaded and how to install it LX Navigation offers a variety of intelligent vario devices such as LX1600 LX5000 LX7000 They all share their NMEA functionality The offered func tionality in connection to XCSoar depends on last not least e g the vario s firmware revision 17 XCSoar User Manual On Android On a Kobo Mini Hacking the Kobo 2 INSTALLATION Obtain XCSoar from Google s Android market or install the apx file manually Copy the data files on the SD card in the directory XCSoarData The Kobo Mini is a cheap e book reader It has a black
12. Up cursor Outer knob clockwise Down cursor Inner knob counter clockwise Left cursor Inner knob clockwise Right cursor Knob button press Enter key Dynamic menu labels For Altair the buttons along the edge of the display can be used as alternate ways of navigating in dialogues The F4 key directly above the rotary knob can be used as an alternate ENTER key instead of pressing the rotary knob in dialogues The F6 and F7 keys directly to the right of the rotary knob can be used to select the next or previous page in multi page dialogues Certain menu items have dynamic labels to make it clearer what happens when the menu item is selected Furthermore items that are not available are greyed out to indicate that selecting the menu item will not do anything The convention used for dynamic menu labels is for the labels to display the action that will be performed once the menu item is selected For example Lights On will turn the lights on and the menu will be updated to display Lights Off which would then if pressed turn the lights off This convention is used throughout XCSoar A selection of key dynamic menu items is presented below Next Turnpoint Greyed out if the task is cleared or if the active turnpoint is the finish If the currently active turnpoint is the turnpoint prior to the finish this displays Waypoint finish Previous Turnpoint Greyed out if the task is cleared or if the
13. XCSoar 6 8 the open source glide computer User Manual May 27 2015 For XCSoar version 6 8 alpha4 http www xcsoar org Contents Introduction 1 1 Organization of this manual 1 2 NOt S i o Robo ok e e e eet 1 3 Platforms 22 66 244 o RR e oer 14 Technicalsupport 0 1 5 Tramini esdi 4 we Rome Sce Se EUR 1 6 Using XCSoarsafely o Installation 2 1 TorunXCS0A cens 2 2 Before you go out flying the first time with XCSoar 2 3 Howto get the most from XCSoar 24 XCSoar Checklist 2 9 Compatibility o 2 6 Software installation 27 Dataflles arre coi eA a 2 8 Running XCSoar len User Interface 3 1 Display elements o e 3 2 Interaction 4 9k ss 3 3 The main button menu 3 4 Menu item overview 35 Default menu buttons o 3 6 InfoBoxes and screen pages 3 7 Status messages 2 2 ee 3 8 Dialogue windows 3 9 Acoustic alert and sound feedback 3 10 Screen visuals o o e e 3 11 Helpsystem o o e 3 12 Interfacing with gestures o Navigation 4 1 Mapdisplayelements 4 2 Glider symbol map orientation 4 3 Zoom and map scale
14. XCSoar User Manual Terrain display Topography display Terrain colours Slope shading Terrain contrast Terrain brightness 13 CONFIGURATION Draws digital elevation terrain on the map Draws topographical features roads rivers lakes etc on the map Defines the colour ramp used in terrain rendering Various schemes are available which works best for you will depend on how mountainous your region is The terrain can be shaded among slopes to indicate either wind direction sun position or a fixed shading from North West Slopes faced to the wind or sun get displayed brighter and the averted slopes get darker Defines the amount of Phong shading in the terrain render ing Use large values to emphasise terrain slope smaller values if flying in steep mountains Defines the brightness whiteness of the terrain rendering This controls the average illumination of the terrain The available terrain colour schemes are illustrated in the table below p EE gt 1025 Lowlands m 1275 1525 1775 151 Grey m 200 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFIGURATION 13 9 Map Display Airspace This page is used to determine how the airspace information is displayed and how warnings are issued Airspace display Airspace display Auto Margin 300 m armings On Clip altitude Margin Warnings Warning time Acknow
15. e Hardware command input devices provided by enthusias tic hardware developers there even were few cases pilots involved gamepad hardware e About possible future things New components classes to be integrated under discussion as might be transceivers motor management transponders etc as is with January 2014 Application Whenever you think of a new killer feature to be integrated or just want it all set up a Reference Developer XCSoar system Ad ditionally feel deeply encouraged to test software previews or al pha beta versions after having gained experience with XCSoar s behavior Help improve stability of software updates upgrades or provide some new code In other words Think of the XCSoar project as being part of your passion for glid ing and contribute Please do not only follow this passion by soar ing Get involved in XCSoar s development process and discover the power and beauty of the open source credo Doing so you will discover a close congeniality A Reference Development system is a worthy tool to become a member of the project 123 10 Avionics and Airframe 10 1 Battery life This chapter discusses XCSoar as a subsystem of the aircraft It covers the integration of XCSoar with external devices including GPS switches and sensors and aircraft radio transceivers and other devices Integration with FLARM is covered in Chapter 8 and integration with variometers is covered in Chapter 7 Mo
16. tion change and the typical latency of a PDA makes the map dis play a poor aid at helping to locate the traffic The FLARM targets on the map are drawn as red coloured arrow heads to indicate the direction the FLARM target is heading as well as the collision risk Note that these arrow heads are oriented according to the display orientation For example if the orientation is track up then the arrows show the relative track bearing of the target to the aircraft If the orientation is north up then the arrows show the absolute track bearing of the target Display on the map FLARM of aircraft registration or pilot name is made possible via a look up of the ICAO aircraft ID of FLARM traffic in a file See Section 14 11 for details on this file format 112 XCSoar User Manual FLARM radar FLARM Traffic dialogue Info 1 13 14 58 FLARM Radar 8 AIRSPACE TRAFFIC AND TEAM FLYING Aircrafts with the FLARM privacy flag set will not have any identi fication displayed To remedy this situation when FLARM traffic is received XCSoar shows a small radar style view of the FLARM traffic from the per spective of the aircraft The FLARM traffic is displayed in identical style except that the threatening traffic is emphasized with one or two red circles around the arrow head icon The display corner used for the small radar view can be configured This FLARM display is oriented track up and a small glider ico
17. 6 9 Final glide calculator The final glide calculator uses many sources of information when determining the altitude required to reach your goal or the next waypoint These are e The glider s polar data e The wind speed and direction e The distance and bearing of the goal or waypoint e The MacCready setting e The altitude of the waypoint or goal e A user specified safety margin arrival height and terrain clearance e The glider s total energy if XCSoar is connected to an instru ment with an air speed indicator From the parameters shown above two altitudes are derived Altitude required This calculation is the total altitude required for the glider to reach the goal plus any user safety margin Altitude difference This calculation is the altitude required to glide to the goal plus any safety arrival altitude plus the altitude of the goal minus the altitude above mean sea level of the glider The re sult represents either your height above glide slope or your arrival height at goal If no goal altitude is provided in the turn point file XCSoar will use the terrain file altitude at the goal 85 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER The final glide calculation is extended to calculate the altitudes re quired and difference to complete the entire task This capability is sometimes referred to as final glide around multiple turn points The altitude difference to complete the task is displayed continu
18. It assumes the configuration options have already been set up to the user s preferences These instructions are intended to provide a simple step by step guide to flying tasks of varying levels of complexity but are not in tended to demonstrate all the features of XCSoar Furthermore the system can be used productively in ways other than as de scribed here In this scenario the pilot intends to fly locally or a casual cross country task where navigation to pre determined waypoints is not required 1 Turn on the device 2 Open the Flight Setup dialogue and adjust the bugs and ballast as required Set the maximum forecast temperature Close the dialogue 3 Open the Task Edit dialogue and create a blank task by pressing New 4 Select Touring as task type 5 Once the task is created move the cursor to the add way point item and press enter Select the start waypoint from the list e g first item is the home base and press enter Press close or escape 6 Select another one add waypoint and enter th same way point as finsh point 7 Now the task contains one waypoint to home 1 At the appropriate times set the MacCready manually from the menu task calculator or from the variometer 2 Change the bugs ballast settings as required XCSoar User Manual After landing 11 2 FAI Task Prior to takeoff 11 QUICKSTART At any time the glider ca
19. The tone frequency that is played at maximum sink rate The tone frequency that is played at zero climb rate The tone frequency that is played at maximum climb rate If the deadband feature is enabled the vario will play sounds when the climb rate is below this threshold If the deadband feature is enabled the vario will play sounds when the climb rate is above this threshold 13 17 Task Defaults Task Rules Task rules may be defined to limit valid starts according to compe tition rules Start max speed Start max speed margin Start max height Start max height margin Start height ref Finish min height Finish height ref On Line Contest Maximum speed allowed in start observation zone Set to 0 for no limit Maximum speed above maximum start speed to tolerate Set to 0 for no tolerance Maximum height above ground while starting the task Set to 0 for no limit Maximum height above maximum start height to tolerate Set to 0 for no tolerance Reference used for start max height rule MSL Reference is altitude above mean sea level AGL Reference is the height above the start point Minimum height based on finish height reference AGL or MSL while finishing the task Set to 0 for no limit Reference used for finish min height rule correspondingly to the start rule height reference Determines the rules used to optimise On Line Contest paths The implementation conforms
20. This means that the aircraft is 1300m horizontally separated from the Class D airspace Bern TMA with a base of 1750m and ceil ing at FL100 Another example Bern CTRgld Class C 1350m inside This means that the aircraft is inside the Class C airspace Bern CTRgld with base of terrain surface and ceiling at 1350m If there are airspace warnings any time the airspace warning di alogue is shown you get the details to an airspace by touching it for Altair Selecting and pressing the Enter key Airspace warning acknowledgement When the warning dialogue is visible and an airspace warning is active it is possible to close the warning dialogue without acknowl edging the warning Depending on the hardware used you may press ESC on PC or Altair or the Close button When one or more warnings are visible in the airspace warning dialogue a warning can be acknowledged by pressing one of the buttons along the bottom of the dialogue When the list contains more than one airspace warning the rotary button on Altair or cursor on PDA can be used to select one for acknowledgement The meanings of the acknowledgement buttons are as follows ACK Warn Acknowledge the current warning level A new warning will appear only if the warning level increases Key F5 on Altair ACK Space Acknowledge all current and future warning levels from this particular airspace region while the aircraft is within 2 5km horizontal separation and 500m vertica
21. Turn Points AAT range Manage Speed remaining Achieved MacCready 0 0 m s Achieved speed 100 Cruise efficiency This field displays the estimated total time on task to com plete the task at the provided MacCready setting This field displays the task distance remaining Allows the user to adjust the MacCready value and see the effect it has on the estimated task time Allows the user to adjust the targets within the remaining AAT areas to see the effect it has on estimated task time and task distance This field displays the estimated speed for the remainder of the task at the provided MacCready setting This field displays the achieved MacCready value This field displays the achieved speed 100 indicates perfect MacCready performance greater than 100 indicates better than MacCready performance is achieved through flying in streets Less than 100 is appropriate if you fly considerably off track This value estimates your cruise efficiency according to the current flight history with the set MC value Calculation begins after task is started See Section 6 11 for more details on task speed and achieved MacCready calculations On closing the dialogue the entered MacCready value is used as the MacCready setting If the button is pushed the Mac Cancel Cready setting is unaffected The button for AAT tasks adjusts the range increases or Target
22. aircraft is above final glide In this situation if the glider is climbing the pilot can assess whether to leave the thermal early and commence a final glide descent at a reduced MacCready setting or continue to climb It is useful to switch on the auto MacCready setting as this will automatically adjust the MacCready value to the optimal value and then it is simple for the pilot to com pare the achieved lift rate with the MacCready value When the achieved lift rate drops below the MacCready value the thermal should be left Below final glide e g MC 2 5 and with less heigth Here the display shows that at the current MacCready setting the aircraft is below final glide filed red arrow The tip of the red arrow is chopped off to show that the altitude undercut the 500 meter limit the arrow can scale on The split slightly brighter red ar row shows that by reducing the MacCready setting to zero the aircraft still is far from final glide Below final glide Here the display shows that at the current MacCready set ting the aircraft is below final glide red arrow The split brighter red arrow shows that even at MC 0 the aircraft is well below final glide 6 11 Task speed estimation Some of XCSoar s internal calculations make use of estimates of the time required to reach each waypoint in the task This in formation is used in some InfoBox displays Assigned Area Task calculations and sunset warnings The gl
23. airspace is below you The distance to the next terrain collision along the current task leg At this location the altitude will be below the configured terrain clearance altitude 144 13 Configuration XCSoar is a highly configurable glide computer and can be cus tomised to suit a wide variety of preferences and user require ments The entire configuration is saved in a so called profile file reflecting all configuration settings Whenever a configuration is judged being worthy a backup of the profile file is advisable see 2 8 This chapter describes the configuration settings and options 13 1 Scope of configuration There are several ways XCSoar can be customised 13 2 Modifying settings Modifying configuration settings This is the sort of configu ration most likely to be performed by users and this is given the greatest attention in this document Changing the language or even just to change the wording of text in the user interface Changing the button assignments and button menus This allows the content and structure of the button menu to be changed Changing or adding actions performed when glide computer events take place Defining how long status messages appear and sounds to be played when those messages occur There is a large set of configuration settings that may be cus d from the settings dialogues accessible from the menu Config 2 3 gt System Config 2 3 gt
24. minutes before and your current position that in this case could be almost zero Normally for gliders a good value is 90 120 seconds and for paragliders 15 seconds Lower val ues will give as a result pretty much the same as GR Instant while higher values will look like GR Cruise Other commer cial instruments and software use 2 minutes Account for wind drift for the predicted circling duration This reduces the arrival height for legs with head wind on by de fault 13 12 Glide Computer Wind This page sets the base for wind computations Auto wind Prefere external wind This allows switching on or off the automatic wind algorithm Manual When the algorithm is switched off the pilot is re sponsible for setting the wind estimate Circling Circling mode requires only a GPS source ZigZag ZigZag requires an intelligent vario with airspeed output Both Uses Circling and ZigZag If enabled the wind vector received from external devices overrides XCSoar s internal wind calculation 13 13 Glide Computer Route This page allows control over glide reach calculations and route optimisations Route mode Route climb Route ceiling Reach mode This controls which types of obstacles are used in route planning Please have a look at Section 4 13 for a detailed description When enabled and MC is positive route planning allows climbs between the aircraft location and destination When enabled
25. you may make the judgement that it will be impossible to complete the task In this situation XCSoar can be instructed to abort the task and it will then help you reach a safe landing site An ordered task can be aborted in different ways Either it is done by selecting a waypoint and execute the goto command or by invoking the abort mode In either case the ordered task might be resumed Task Abort Invoking the abort mode forces XCSoar to enter a special case of Nav 2 2 gt Task Abort the final glide mode For a discussion on flight modes refer to sec tion 6 1 In this flight mode the configuration option reach polar determines whether waypoint arrival heights in abort mode uses the MacCready value prior to aborting the task or if the safety 13 13 4 MacCready value is used Default is to use the safety MacCready value When switching to abort mode the MacCready setting is set to the safety value if it is lower than the current setting With invoking abort mode the cross country task is disabled On the map radials are drawn pointing to the nearest landables to in stantly support the pilot s decision As is during the whole flight the group of nearby landables is maintained permanently Radi als and nearest landables may change dynamically when in abort mode so that at any time several landing options are presented and any of these may be selected as the active waypoint Even if no landable is in reac
26. 6 5 Speed command display 81 6 6 Speedtofly o o o oo o 81 6 7 Speed to fly With risk o 82 6 8 Safety heights oo o 83 6 9 Final glide calculator 85 6 10 Display of altitude required 86 6 11 Task speed estimation o o 87 6 12 Optimal cruise track o 89 6 13 Auto MacCready o o e 90 6 14 Analysis dialogue llle 91 6 15 Flight notifications o o e 93 7 Atmosphere and Instruments 94 TA VNanometet 4 22299 Rex xd 94 7 2 Audio Variometer llle 95 7 3 Alrdataiputs e 95 TA Winddisplay rns 95 7 5 Wind estimation lere 96 XCSoar User Manual Contents 7 6 Wind settings dialogue 98 7 7 Thermal profile 98 7 8 Thermal locator o oo 99 7 9 Thermal assistant aoaaa 99 7 10 Convection forecast llle 100 7 11 Analysis dialogue aaa 101 7 12 Weather METAR TAF 102 7 13 Weather forecast RASP 102 8 Airspace Traffic and Team Flying 107 8 1 Airspace display o 107 8 2 Airspace warnings eee 108 8 3 Airspace query and details 111 8 4 Analysis dialogue o 111 85 FLARM traffic o o e 112 8 66 Team flyi
27. 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS The forecast convection ceiling is determined by the altitude at which the atmospheric temperature equals the maximum forecast temperature on the ground cooled adiabatically as it rises accord ing to the dry adiabatic lapse rate Typically the glider will not climb as far as the convection ceiling and so the measured values are extrapolated to find the ceiling If the atmosphere is stable the convection ceiling is reported as zero altitude The maximum forecast temperature on the ground is entered us ing the flight settings dialogue described in Section 6 4 The forecast cloud base is determined by the altitude at which the dew point intersects the maximum forecast temperature on the ground cooled adiabatically as it rises according to the dry adiabatic lapse rate If no clouds are forecast the cloud base is reported as zero 7 11 Analysis dialogue The analysis dialogue is used to see several aspects of the atmo Info 1 gt Analysis sphere Several pages of interest Wind at altitude This shows a graph of the wind speed versus altitude and shows the wind vector at several altitudes The Set wind button opens the wind settings dialogue e g to manually set the wind Set wind Temperature trace This page is only available if a supported instrument is con nected to XCSoar that produces outside air temperature and humidity The chart shows the variati
28. Allows XCSoar and certain connected devices to be config ured Airspace filter Controls enabling and disabling the display and warnings of each airspace class Team code Allows transfer of coordinates between FLARM team mates via a code Devices Selection of various external devices e g smart variome ters FLARM etc Setup Plane Easy reconfiguration of the plane dependent settings e g polar competition ID etc by choosing from a list of previously created plane profiles These dialogues are described in later chapters with the excep tion of the check list status and text entry dialogues which are described below Check list dialogue example Controls The checklist dialogue can display several pages of user defined Harness secure objects s a Airbrakes and flaps free text Typically this is used for check lists It can be accessed Trim and ballast via the menu Instruments Canopy Info Check gt 1 3 List lt E These check lists may include daily inspection preflight out landing pre landing radio procedures and aircraft rigging and Close de rigging instructions Since the check lists may be long the up down keys or rotary knob on Altair may be used to scroll through the text Clicking the and gt buttons selects the previous next checklist Text entry A text entry dialogue is used for entering text This is used for team c
29. COUNTRY TASKS The internal software logger buffers data so that when it starts au tomatically or manually up to 60 seconds of data prior to starting is recorded This means that the software logger now adequately captures the full take off Logger replay Flight logs in the IGC format generated by XCSoar or other log gers can be replayed The logger replay dialogue can be ac e a o cessed via the menu Em Config 2 gt File 21MXA4R1 igc Replay Start Stop E During replay the word REPLAY appears at the lower left corner of the screen During replay the program behaves as if real GPS updates are being received by a GPS The logger replay dialogue does not need to be open during replay To start a log replay first select the file to load and then select the Start button The replay can be performed in accelerated time by changing the time scale from 1x to a higher number and paused by setting the time scale to zero High time scales can result in degraded performance of the wind estimation and other statistics analysis routines Stop the log using the Stop Once a log is started further presses of the has the effect of restarting the replay It is recommended to reset the device before flight after a log file has been replayed in order to ensure that XCSoar s internal statistics are properly reset E When operating XCSoar in FLY mode
30. Plane Config 2 3 gt Devices Invokes the main configuration dialogue for rather static set tings It is in no way intended to be accessed during flight Dialogue for specifying the plane s data with polar and wing loading representing the most important ones This dialogue is to be included in the preflight check if the XCSoar base system is used in different planes Configuration of devices connected to XCSoar Although be ing a system setup dialogue there might be rare occasions this dialogue is required in flight Whenever connections to devices are lost this dialogue might be used to reconnect This dialogue neither was nor will be intended for use in flight Unfortunately buggy operating systems of host hard ware create a demand for occasionally XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFIGURATION 13 3 Configure System Config 2 3 gt System Ea Configuration Menu Expert The system configuration can be accessed through a two layer structured menu or just sequentially through the back and forward buttons Site Files Orientation Glide Computer Elements Gauges Waypoints Task Defaults Terrain Airspace You are strongly discouraged from changing these settings during flight All changes to the settings should be performed on the ground so that their desired effect on the programs behaviour can be verified The setti
31. Pressing the Lookup button brings up the airspace select dia logue This functions similarly to the waypoint lookup dialogue and allows search based on name distance direction and type class Once an airspace item has been located you have the chance to acknowledged it for the day From the airspace management dialogue it is possible to re enable it again The analysis dialogue contains a page showing a cross section of the airspace The display shows along the horizontal direction the distance from the glider out to 50 km in the direction of the glider s track along the vertical direction is altitude The altitude of the glider is 111 XCSoar User Manual 8 5 FLARM traffic A FLARM map display 8 AIRSPACE TRAFFIC AND TEAM FLYING indicated by a white arrow This page is useful to help visualise complex layering of airspace Warnings Close The Warnings button opens the airspace warning dialogue if close to airspace If connected to a FLARM device FLARM traffic is displayed on the map area Each FLARM aircraft received is drawn as a dashed red disk Do not use XCSoar for collision avoidance as FLARM audio de vices are much more suitable in assisting the pilot to be aware of traffic Note that unless one is circling the usual zoom level is such that FLARM traffic will not be easily distinguished When one is cir cling the zoom level might be appropriate but continuous direc
32. The menu is organised into four different groups of functions usu ally in the form of a hierarchy The specific menu layout depends on the hardware button configurations and platform and may also be customised by the user XCSoar can also accept input from external keyboards game pads joysticks stick grip switches etc A wide variety of functions can be assigned to these inputs For Altair there are four major menus activated by pressing one of the vertical strip of hardware buttons on the left of the display When a menu is activated a strip of on screen buttons appear along the bottom of the display Pressing the particular menu but ton again will cycle through several pages of items Pressing the corresponding horizontal button will activate that item At the last page pressing the menu button again will turn that menu off and the horizontal strip of on screen buttons disappear On the PC version these mode buttons are activated by the 1 2 3 and 4 keys The 6 7 8 9 and O keys correspond to the horizontal strip of buttons On the PDA version the mode buttons are activated by the keys to the side of the joystick rocker button If the user doesn t interact with the computer for some time the menu will close automatically This menu time out is configurable The escape key on PC or the PWR ESC button on Altair can also be used to close the current menu Menu buttons appear greyed out if the corresponding function is n
33. XCSoar is connected to a supported instru ment A gauge overlay is either permanently drawn or is invoked by several conditions E g the thermal assistant is shown when XCSoar enters circling mode The Flarm radar is invoked whenever a probable collision is detected Per manently overlayed gauges are the final glide bar as well as the vario bar amongst others Hardware buttons on the device running XCSoar can be used to bring up and navigate smaller on screen menus that are typically laid out such that menu items can be selected by pressing the button adjacent to the item If the device has a touch screen the menu items can be selected by touch 25 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE ing them These buttons are drawn in black text on a grey background Status messages Text is displayed over the screen in status message boxes This text is used to present detailed information to the pilot when certain events occur Dialogue windows Larger dialogue windows usually containing graphics and buttons are used to present detailed data to the pilot re garding waypoint details statistics and analysis etc Main menu The main menu is accessible by double tapping the map Classic vario gauge 3 2 Interaction area or InfoBoxes as well as through gesture If the menu buttons are not pressed after a specified time they disap pear again so as to not obscure the map area As said above gauges might be displayed in di
34. and white e paper screen with excellent sunlight readability Before you begin back up the internal SD card The XCSoar installer may break the Kobo though unlikely You can always re cover the Kobo from a software failure but only if you have access to a backup To install XCSoar connect the Kobo to your PC via USB The Kobo exposes a mass storage device to your PC open it and create a directory called kobo note the leading dot Download the file KoboRoot tgz from the XCSoar website into that directory http www xcsoar org hardware Unplug the Kobo and reboot it switch it off completely and switch it on again You will see the message Updating and after a few minutes the Kobo shows a menu that allows you to launch XCSoar or the Kobo e book reader software To copy data files maps waypoints to the Kobo launch the original Kobo software Nickel and connect the Kobo to your PC again Copy the files into a directory called XCSoarData at the top level Alternatively data files may be downloaded via XCSoar s file man ager after having invoked a W LAN connection just before launch ing XCSoar After installing XCSoar on the Kobo the new boot script checks for a script called XCSoarData kobo init sh and executes it If you know what you re doing you can use this script to do things at boot time for example launch inetd for telnet access When you launch Nickel the original e book firmware the new bo
35. application of that system it is up to the author donor to decide if he or she is willing to dis No warranty tribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License 9 If the distribution and or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces the orig inal copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded In such case this License incorpo rates the limitation as if written in the body of this License 10 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and or new versions of the General Public License from time to time Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns Each version is given a distinguishing version number If the Pro gram specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and any later version you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version pub lished by the Free Software Foundation If the Program does not specify a version number of this License you may choose any version ever published by the Free
36. automatically Thus a very slow and close to the terrain flight won t automatically stop logging the flight If you choose the auto start only logger you have to stop the logger manually To turn the logger on or off manually select from the menu Logger Config 3 ong Start V When the internal software logger is active a small green status led in the lower right corner of the map area flashes once per second By default XCSoar is set up to automatically start and stop the internal software flight logger when it detects the aircraft is flying and when it has landed respectively Only when the logger is manually started does it ask if the flight is to be declared when automatically starting it automatically declares the current task In simulation mode the logger does not get activated automatically If a task has been declared then subsequent attempts at modify ing the task result in a warning message asking to confirm whether the action is to be taken and invalidate the declaration This is in tended to make it harder to accidentally modify the task resulting in a failed declared task The XCSoar software logger when started checks for 500kB of free space on the file storage If there is insufficient space it will automatically delete IGC files oldest first in order to free up 500kB It does not ask the user for confirmation before performing this operation 72 XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS
37. certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software or if you modify it For example if you distribute copies of such a program whether gratis or for a fee you must give the recipients all the rights that you have You must make sure that they too receive or can get the source code And you must show them these terms so they know their rights We protect your rights with two steps 1 copyright the software and 2 offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy distribute and or modify the software Also for each author s protection and ours we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software If the software is modified by someone else and passed on we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors reputations Finally any free program is threatened constantly by software patents We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses in effect making the program propri etary To prevent this we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone s free use or not licensed at all The precise terms and conditions for copying distribution and modifica tion follow GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION 1 This L
38. climb Sets MC to the trending average climb rate based on all climbs Both Uses trending average during task then fastest arrival when in final glide mode If enabled the command speed in cruise is set to the Mac Cready speed to fly in no vertical air mass movement If disabled the command speed in cruise is set to the dolphin speed to fly equivalent to the MacCready speed with vertical air mass movement When enabled and if connected to a barometric altimeter barometric altitude is used for all navigation functions Oth erwise GPS altitude is used When this option is enabled causes the flap switches in Vega to force cruise mode when the flap is not positive This means that when departing a thermal switching to neutral or negative flap will immediately switch XCSoars mode to cruise mode Similarly for Borgelt B50 systems the speed command switch forces XCSoar s climb or cruise mode Average efficiency is always calculated in real time Here you can decide on how many seconds of flight this calcu lation must be done The real distance covered second by second in this period is divided by the final difference of alti tude So if for example you go and return back to the same 154 XCSoar User Manual Predict wind drift 13 CONFIGURATION point after 2 minutes and you have set 2 minutes as period average GR will consider the total distance covered in those two minutes and not the distance between your position 2
39. cup Zander wpz OziExplorer wpt e GPSDump FS GEO and UTM wpt Files are available from the Soaring Turn points section of the Soaring Server http soaringweb org TP Several commercial and freely distributable programs exist for con verting between different waypoint formats If the elevation of any waypoints is set to zero in the waypoint file then XCSoar estimates the waypoint elevation from the terrain database if available Mirrors to this website exist google search for worldwide soaring turnpoint exchange if the main server is inaccessible 167 XCSoar User Manual 14 4 Airspace 14 5 Airfield details 14 DATA FILES XCSoar supports airspace files extension txt using a sub set of the widely distributed OpenAir format as well as the Tim Newport Pearce file format extension sua Files are available from the Special Use Airspace section of the soaring web site http soaringweb org Airspace The following is the list of supported airspace types Class A G Prohibited Danger Areas Restricted Task Area CTR No Glid ers Wave Transponder Mandatory and Other All other airspace types will be drawn as type Other In addition to the OpenAir standard the AR command is recognized as the airspace radio frequency The airfield details file extension txt is a simple text format file containing entries for each airfield marked in square brackets fol lowed by the text to be dis
40. database with XCSoar release v6 4 The XCM map file however contains all these files Terrain to pography and optionally waypoints and airspaces If the latter are contained the e g Primary waypoint file may be left blank and the system will load waypoints from the map file However the user can still specify other files and they will be used instead of the data in the map file See Section 14 2 for more details on map files 147 XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFIGURATION 13 5 Map Display Orientation This page let you specify the favoured map orientation and view Cruise Circling orientation XCSoar Cruise orientation North up Circling orientation North up Circling zoom On Circling zoom Map shift reference Glider position offset Max auto zoom distance This determines how the screen is rotated with the glider depending on it s current display mode Track up The moving map display will be rotated so the glider s track is oriented up The north arrow symbol points to true north The glider symbol may be shown rotated ac cording to the computed heading of the glider taking wind into account Heading up The moving map display will be rotated so the glider s heading is oriented up North up The moving map display will always be orientated true north to south and the glider icon will be rotated to show its course corrected for wind Target up The moving map displa
41. directory My Documents XCSoarData On PDAs data can also be stored on the operating system file store on Compact Flash cards or SD cards under the directory XCSoarData For example SD Card XCSoarData IPAQ File Store XCSoarData If unsure just start the newly installed XCSoar and it creates the XCSoarData directory at the right place XCSoar User Manual 14 2 Map Database 14 3 Waypoints 14 DATA FILES A map database extension xcm contains terrain topography and optional contents like waypoints and airspaces Terrain is a raster digital elevation model represented as an array of elevations in meters on a latitude longitude grid The internal file format is GeoJPEG2000 The topography is vector data such as roads railway lines large built up areas cities miscellaneous populated areas towns and villages lakes and rivers The topography is stored in ESRI Shape files which are generated from OpenStreetMap Map files can be downloaded from the XCSoar web site http www xcsoar org download maps To generate a custom map database with different settings and bounds you may use the map generator http mapgen xcsoar org As far as waypoints or airspaces are included in the map database CXSoar defaults to them An e g separately configured waypoint file will replace all the waypoints given by the map database XCSoar understands the following waypoint file formats e WinPilot Cambridge dat SeeYou
42. glide becomes active when the glider is above final glide path with respect to the given navigational task and safety mar gins The required altitude depends most importantly on the ad justed MC value but also the ground clearance is considered On entering a thermal while in final glide mode for gaining some extra safety margin XCSoar will switch to the circling mode and back to the final glide mode once the thermal is left again and the final glide condition is still met i e the glider is still above the final glide path considering MC setting and terrain As an example a powerful feature to be driven by flight modes is the switch between different MacReady setting s strategies If you decided to let XCSoar manage the setting automatically it will XCSoar User Manual 13 11 E 13 10 SE 6 GLIDE COMPUTER maintain a value based on past thermals worked out successfully until final glide Instantly MacReady is set to achive minimal arrival time or what you set up for final glide see section 6 13 Hence the switch to final glide mode is based on a set of sophisticatedly computed tactical conditions You might force XCSoar to enter final glide mode by skipping all remaining turnpoints if for example conditions get worse and you decided to just go home Abort mode is invoked manually to give you full control in case of emergency via menu No automatics you decide The abort mode might be understood technically as a special fina
43. internal GPS Detailing the various options for different devices is beyond the scope of this document If you have trouble identifying which COM port to set please refer to the XCSoar website and mailing lists Port This setting maps an existing interface port of your glide computer to one of the available slots A to D 164 XCSoar User Manual Baudrate TCP Port Bulk baud rate Driver Sync from device Sync to device Ignore checksum 13 CONFIGURATION Set this to the communication speed of the connected de vice This setting is useful to e g connect to the Condor flight simulator and do some XCSoar training in winter time The baud rate used for bulk transfers such as task declara tion or flight download The item is visible for those devices that support the feature The specific type of device can be selected from a list in or der to enable support for devices with proprietary protocols or special functions This option lets you configure if XCSoar should use settings like the MacCready value bugs and ballast from the device This option lets you configure if XCSoar should send settings like the MacCready value bugs and ballast to the device If your GPS device outputs invalid NMEA checksums this will allow it s data to be used anyway 165 14 Data Files Data files used by XCSoar fall into two categories Flight data files These files contain data relating to
44. land 13 21 SE ing options to the user see section 5 10 The concept of different flight modes enables much more to be automated e The InfoBoxes may be set up differently for each flight mode see section 3 6 77 XCSoar User Manual 13 5 SE 13 15 P 13 14 58 13 6 F 13 21 4 6 2 MacCready setting 6 3 Glide polar Config 2 3 gt Plane 13 28 SE 6 GLIDE COMPUTER e Change zoom level between circling and other flight modes this is called circling zoom see section4 3 e Switch the vario gauge s reading between Vario gross climb rate and airmass lift around you net whilst cruising see section 7 1 e When in circling mode invoke the thermal assistant a small polar diagram depicting the updraft over circular course see section 7 9 e Switch to a so called drift compensation drawing a wind compensated trail of the circles you fly to better depict wind shear see section 4 8 Take notice that this list is just an excerpt from an entirety of switchable items You will find numerous dependencies conducted by the actual flight mode whilst further reading this manual Please pay attention to because the flight mode concept is one of XC Soars fundamental basics Another very basic scheme deals with how to structure informations to be displayed at once These in formations are grouped in screen pages Further details are given in section 3 6 Infoboxes and s
45. manager to expect that the turn is intended to approach another time Task finish appears when the aircraft has crossed the finish line or en Nav 1 2 gt Task tered the finish cylinder This occurs in both advance modes The task system allows alternate start sectors to be defined Turn Points select start point Edit Point gt Enable Alternate Starts On the start point edit page of the Task Manager turn on the Enable Alternate Starts property Another screen is brought up for defining an alternate start point In case alternate start points have been defined before label Enable Alternate Starts changes to Edit Alternates After selecting Add Alternate Start and touching Relocate the Select Waypoint filtering dialogue is invoked 64 XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS Having set up several alternate start points the next waypoint scheme again will be extended Before detection of a valid start and having armed start manually the menu buttons stepping through all the waypoints will show label Next Start Summarizing all dynamic menu labels in menu Nav 1 2 show commands to be executed for selecting waypoints and conditions either consecutively or in reverse order 5 10 Abort resume the task and Alternates If atmospheric conditions change for the worse
46. nizations be liable for any incidental consequential or punitive damages whatsoever relating to the use of the Product Disclaimer This product and all accompanying files data and materials are distributed as is and with no warranties of any kind whether ex press or implied This product is used entirely at the risk of the user Although great care has been taken to eliminate defects during its development it is not claimed to be fault free No claims are made regarding its correctness reliability or fitness for any particular purpose The XCSoar project developers and contribu tors shall not be liable for errors contained herein or for incidental or consequential damages loss of data or personal injury in con nection with furnishing performance or use of this material 1 Introduction This document is a pilots manual for XCSoar an open source glide computer originally developed for Pocket PC devices The audience is assumed to have a sound knowledge of the funda mental theory of flight for gliders and at least a basic working knowledge of cross country soaring Updates to the XCSoar software may result in some of this manual being out of date You should read the release notes distributed with the software to keep track of changes Updates to the manual and software are available from http www xcsoar org 1 4 Organization of this manual This manual most notably is written in order to get the XCSoar user started quic
47. of the source code even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code You may not copy modify sublicense or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License Any attempt otherwise to copy modify sublicense or distribute the Program is void and will automatically terminate your rights under this Li cense However parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance You are not required to accept this License since you have not signed it However nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License There fore by modifying or distributing the Program or any work based on the Program you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so and all its terms and conditions for copying distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it Each time you redistribute the Program or any work based on the Program the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients exercise of the rights granted herein You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License
48. points are 90 degree segments aligned to the bisec tion of the previous and next waypoints as commonly used in FAI tasks There is also support for British BGA and German DAeC sectors Start point types The conditions to be met for a valid start depend on the type of start Start Cylinder When the glider leaves the cylinder area Start Line When the glider crosses the start line Turnpoint types The conditions to be met for a valid turnpoint pass depend on its type FAI Sector When the glider has entered the observation zone OZ de fined by a segment and radial distance from the waypoint The segment is defined by a 90 degree arc centred about 61 XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS the bisector of inbound and outbound legs with a distance of 20 km Keyhole Sector DAeC 0 5 10 sector When the glider has entered the observation zone defined by a segment and radial distance from the waypoint The segment is defined by a 90 degree arc centred about the bisector of inbound and outbound legs with a distance of 10 km The observation zone also includes a cylinder of 500 m Turnpoint Cylinder When the glider has entered the observation zone defined by a radial distance from the waypoint BGA Fixed Course Sector When the glider has entered the observation zone defined by a segment and radial distance from the waypoint The segment is defined by a 90 degree arc centred about the bisector of inboun
49. route planning climbs are limited to ceiling defined by greater of current aircraft altitude plus 500 m and the thermal ceiling If disabled climbs are unlimited How calculations are performed of the reach of the glider with respect to terrain Off Reach calculations disabled Straight The reach is from straight line paths from the glider Turning The reach is calculated allowing turns around ter rain obstacles 155 XCSoar User Manual Reach display Reach polar 13 CONFIGURATION This determines whether the glide reach is drawn as a line resp a shade on the map area This determines the glide performance used in reach land able arrival abort and alternate calculations Task Uses task MacCready value Safety MC Uses safety MacCready value 13 14 Gauges FLARM Other FLARM radar i Auto close FLARM Thermal assistant Thermal band Final glide bar MCO This enables the display of the FLARM radar gauge The track bearing of the target relative to the track bearing of the aircraft is displayed as an arrow head and a triangle pointing up or down shows the relative altitude of the target relative to you This will close the FLARM radar view when all FLARM traffic has gone Enables the display of the ThermalAssistant gauge Enables the display of the thermal profile climb band over lay on the map If set to ON the final glide bar will show a second arrow indi cating the requ
50. stand for a class of devices For gathering information on hardware prod ucts please consult XCSoar s website http www xcsoar org hardware XCSoar s forum http forum xcsoar org or ask google With terms emphasized you are already equipped with keywords for invoking a search and discover tour Handheld with XCSoar and a built in GPS receiver and basic data stock provided by XCSoar website and the national agency of your country providing airspace data An XCSoar basic setup will give you an almost perfect moving map with a great basic flight information system FIS function ality The glide computer will give you flight related tactical and statistical data if polar configuration is correct Please note that realtime computations as is actual climb or sink rate may suffer drastically from poor GPS reception as in built GPS receivers of ten are cheap add ons in a mobile device s budget In any case please give it a try in the air Some of these cheap GPS receiver add ons come with bad GPS antennas and sometimes are heavily dependent on local information of your cellular network provider This dual mode locating function is called aGPS assisted GPS As mobile network coverage gets worse up in the air your devices location fix follows If your mobile device shows stable reception you achieved a good one XCSoar basic is the utmost club friendly setup out of all With no additional hardware needed you own a valuable system wit
51. targets and the Task Calculator The typical use of targets in flying AAT is as follows e Setthe expected MacCready bugs ballast and wind settings for the flight using the flight settings and wind settings dia logues e Define the task as normal from the task editor e Based on the pilot s judgement of how good the weather is and whether some areas are likely to be more or less difficult than others targets may be set individually for each turn point in the target view The ETE field in the target view compared to the assigned minimum time is shown as Delta T to check if the planned task is efficient and long enough e During flight if situations change such as changed Mac Cready setting or wind the task calculator can be brought up to show the estimated task time again allowing compari son to the assigned minimum time e f the pilot decides to extend or shorten the flight all the remaining targets can be modified from the task calculator The task calculator therefore allows the pilot to make and help to answer what if questions for example 67 XCSoar User Manual Target projection 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS e What will happen if the conditions improve The MacCready setting can be increased and the pilot can see if there is sufficient adjustment to targets in order to be able to extend the planned task What will happen if the conditions deteriorate The Mac Cready setting can be decreased and the pilo
52. the base of it More detailed descriptions are given in following chapters 3 1 Display elements Main screen and screen pages Every screen page out of XCSoar s screen pages ensemble is composed of several parts Main area InfoBoxes Bottom area Overlays Gauges Button labels and menus The bulk of the screen typically is dedicated to the GPS mov ing map display Various symbols relating to glide computer information are overlaid the map area Icons and text may appear along the lower edge of the screen to indicate status of connected devices flight modes etc Following the devel opment process of XCSoar there is an increasing number of items that may be chosen for display in the main area which are gauges Flarm Radar Thermal Assistant and Horizon as is with Version 6 7 2 Dec 2013 A grid of data values is displayed usually either along the top and bottom of the screen portrait display or to the right of the screen landscape display These so called InfoBoxes display data from the GPS and other input devices as well as data calculated by XCSoar Further Infoboxes can display even gauges and certain graphs At the screen s bottom XCSoar is able to draw a cross sec tion of terrain and airspaces in direction of your heading There might be more to come after Dec 2013 Gauges provide instrumentation displays All gauges are optional and some may only have meaningful information displayed when
53. the replay is disabled stopped if the real GPS receiver detects that the aircraft is moving The logger replay works best with high sampling rate log files a 6 second interval or less works fine Error analysis logger For the pure reason of tracking down error prone behaviour of XCSoar there is a Raw Logger In case you are able to reproduce an error you can activate the raw log file creation by Config 3 gt Raw Logger Developers will appreciate very much any detailed error descrip tion including a log file like this It really facilitates the root cause analysis and saves time to fix an error 73 XCSoar User Manual 5 15 Flight analysis 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS cross country flights It is accessed via the menu The analysis dialogue is very useful in planning and conducting Up Right Down T Info 1 Analysis Several pages are of interest Barograph Climb history Shows a graph of the history of the altitude of the glider Statistics are used to estimate the thermal working band average base and ceiling of climbs and to estimate how the ceiling is changing over time The base and ceiling lines are drawn on the barograph The Settings button opens the flight settings dialogue e g to adjust the QNH Analysis Barograph Working band 1307 904 m Ceiling trend 1600 59 m hr Settings Shows a bar chart of the ave
54. time studying the hardware features of your eVario of interest There are some devices selling that bring with them a multiplexer for merging GPS and other data from Flarm with their own measurements presented on an output Additionally a voltage 120 XCSoar User Manual Functionality Application XCSoar Competition Setup 9 INTEGRATION converting power supply might be included on that output port ready for supplying a data plus power package for your XCSoar hardware XCSoar s tactical computations will give you valuable estimates of positions in reach provide heading bearing and sophisticated in formation on times needed to reach waypoints and much more With the actual wind vector being a very important value those computations rely on an eVario will greatly improve XCSoar s wind estimates by turning the value wind estimate to a rather ac tual wind measurement kind value still the wind vector remains an estimate Obviously an eVario also will give you precision actual lift sink measurements With all tactical computations being dependent on your actual es timates of MacCready and polar degradation you might find syn chronising your input to both eVario and XCSoar useful It is just a matter of setting up things to do so Get the best tactical data in flight a glider pilot can get Put in additional data files in your Tactic system as are tasks and waypoint databases amongst others To input
55. to 100 132 XCSoar User Manual 11 QUICKSTART Task to go 02 44 AAT to go 02 27 Distance to go 93 km Target speed 38 km h Task calc The figure below shows the course around the targets at range set to 100 Task to go 04 02 AAT to go 02 27 Distance to go 139 km Target speed 57 km h Task calc At all times the black track arrow will point at the next target The target is the location within the AAT sector at the range specified in the Task Calc dialogue The blue arrow will point at the direction the glider should track when in cruise When the pilot is within or approaching an AAT sector and is ready to advance to the next waypoint press the Arm Turn button The current waypoint will then advance automatically once if the pilot is inside the observation zone After this occurs the advance trigger is disarmed If Auto Zoom is activated the map will automatically zoom in as task waypoints are approached Atthe appropriate times adjust the MacCready by the menu the task calculator or the connected variometer or activate MC Auto If the MacCready mode was set to Final Glide or Both then the system will command the optimal speed to return home and the MacCready value will be set to the minimum climb rate at which it is beneficial to continue to climb 133 XCSoar User Manual 11 QUICKSTART 9 Change th
56. to provide detailed graphical weather forecasts for soaring pur poses For further details the keen pilot is invited to consult http www drjack info on how RASP forecasts work from where they are available and their use and limitations At http www drjack info RASP a map depicts the coverage of available RASP forecasts worldwide provided by many soaring and paragliding enthusiasts Please note that some of these links do provide data in season only as well as just a part of these providers make avail able data in XCSoar format For use within XCSoar an xcsoar rasp dat file has to be installed into the XCSoarData directory As is with February 2014 down load of xcsoar rasp dat files is not yet supported by XCSoar s 102 XCSoar User Manual aj Info 2 3 gt Weather Weather Forecast Fel Time Now Close 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS file manager The rasp forecasts are displayed as colour coded terrain overlays on the map Make sure terrain display is set to on The RASP forecast overlays are invoked via menu Info 2 3 The Field setting determines which data field is displayed on the map The Time setting determines at which forecast time the data field will be displayed Upon entering the weather dialogue the Time setting is advanced to the next nearest forecast time avail able in the RASP file When a field is not available in the
57. understood the glide computer s con cepts you better stay with XCSoar s pre configuration and in no way judge readings as heavenly approved It is up to the pilot to always interpret readings and watch values trending over time However having set up the glide computer following chapter 6 the display of estimated reach altitudes drawn beside landables in reach may take into account terrain or not or display both Another option is to display the required glide ratio next to a land able in reach This calculation is simply derived by the glider s actual distance to landables divided by the height difference be tween actual height and landable s height Again the safety height is added to the landable s height but nothing else taken into ac count no wind no polar no MacCready settings just geometry The concept of required glide ratios is a widely discussed concept said as to be a very robust one Keep in mind a strong relationship of displays of reach and set tings in the glide computer As far as your waypoint file contains information on the nature of the non landable waypoints the map will then display specific icons accordingly The table contains a collection of the currently supported map icons see figure 4 1 44 XCSoar User Manual 4 NAVIGATION AY Ss o 2 S Q 5 2 roy y dP A F x Y o sS Y S d E A S V O Q wo LR S Figure 4 1 non landables 4 6 Active task The active task course is
58. will be completed not more than five minutes after the given task time In addition a measure called achieved MacCready is calculated This is computed by finding the MacCready setting that under classical MacCready flight would produce the same task speed as has been achieved This value is higher than the actual Mac Cready setting when the glider has climbed faster than the Mac Cready setting or when the glider has flown in cloud streets etc The achieved MacCready is used in the task calculator dialogue Task speed estimates for achieved speed are compensated for altitude variations such that the effects of climbs are taken into account in calculating the average task speed Considering two gliders A and B flying the same task Glider A has cruised faster trading off altitude for speed Glider B is behind A but higher and will save time later since it has less climbing to do to complete the task While flying AAT tasks the task speed measures may change when the glider is inside an AAT area or when the AAT range or targets are adjusted by the pilot This is due to the task distance achieved and remaining when such events occur 88 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER 6 12 Optimal cruise track Drift during climb In order to help reduce the cross track error when flying between non final waypoints XCSoar calculates an adjustment to the cruise track called the optimal cruise track This track is adjusted so that it c
59. with the current task Choosing a target from the alternates list aborts the task once the conditions get better the resuming of the task is doable by the already mentioned button The status dialogue gives a summary of important task informa tion It can be useful to give a good overview of the task status while freeing up InfoBoxes for other purposes The status dia logue can be referred to in order to confirm that a valid start was detected as well as the progress against the task The status dia logue can be invoked by menu or gesture left down right down left denoting an S The status tabs Task and Rules are of interest The task tab shows the AAT times distances achieved and re maining and the task speeds The rules tab shows the validity of start finish according to the task rules Task Rules Valid start Yes Estimated task time 016 Start time hs Remaining time o13 Start alt 1661 m Task distance 197 km Start point Kandel Hotel Remaining distance 200km Start speed hs2kmh CS Speed estimated 46 1km h Finish min alt 59m Speed average 59 3 km h Valid finish No 5 12 Assigned Area Tasks AAT targets A target is a point within an AAT area that the pilot intends to fly to These targets can be moved within the AAT areas so the pilot can adjust the effective distance of the task Targets may be set on the ground during task planning and modified during flight When fly
60. work are not derived from the Program and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves then this License and its terms do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License whose permissions for other li censees extend to the entire whole and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it Thus it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you rather the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collec tive works based on the Program In addition mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program or with a work based on the Program on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License You may copy and distribute the Program or a work based on it under Section 2 in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following a Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine readable source code which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange or b Accompany it with a written offer valid fo
61. AT task is now entered Open the Properties dialogue and set the given task time The estimated elapsed time to complete the task with differ ent MacCready settings can be explored from the Task Calc dialogue Adjusting the MacCready value and see what AAT Range setting is suggested by XCSoar button The current waypoint will then advance automatically once as the pilot flies through the start sector After this occurs the advance trigger is disarmed In order to re start the pilot needs to manually revert to the Start Turnpoint and again press the Arm Start button prior to flying through the start sector again After the task is started the Status dialogue can be opened to verify a valid start was detected If the start time is given the start was detected and legal according to the task start rules specified in the configuration Otherwise it will display INVALID During flight the estimated elapsed time to complete the task with different MacCready settings can be explored from the TaskCalc dialogue Once a decision is made to ex tend or reduce the AAT range this can be done by manually manipulate the Target This allows the pilot to effectively in crease or decrease the task distance and estimate the con sequence in AAT time The figure below shows the course around the targets at range set
62. AUTO DOLPHIN V TSK INS y H GPS E qu 4 71 1691 es qu 3 i 5548ft Figure 3 1 Typical XCSoar main screen layout This chapter describes the fundamental user interface concepts used by XCSoar and is intended as an overview The main screen covers much of the information needed during normal flight Typ ically the main screen is composed of the moving map and in foboxes For several reasons not being the scope of an introduc tion you have a choice of using several main screens in flight named screen pages Screen pages are easily accessed by a horizontal swipe gesture just like turning pages of a book or button push depending on the hardware you use With screen pages you are enabled to com pose several main screens to be used advantageously in different situations in flight Simply speaking you are enabled to use ap propriate information in different use cases to be accessed quite simply and fast Whenever actual situations are worthy of grabbing the pilot s at tention an overlay is put in front of the main screen This hap pens especially when urgent reaction by the pilot is required as are the situation of a possible collision or an entering of a restricted airspace expected to happen soon XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE Evidently menu buttons and menu screens are overlays too and there are many more As a result the elements put on each other form a display stack with the main screen representing
63. BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES
64. GURATION InfoBox border Two styles for InfoBox borders are available Box Draws boxes around each InfoBox Tab Draws a tab at the top of the InfoBox across the title 13 21 Look InfoBox Pages or just Pages This page allows the definition of the screen page ensemble A typical setup will contain three pages the expert can pile up to eight possible pages A page is more or less a composition of map and InfoBox set There are five predefined pages for circling cruise final glide a map only page and a page with automatic InfoBox set activation depending on your flight mode Additionally you can choose from up to five more pages that are composed from map and your custom InfoBox sets Page 1 3 Select what you feel is appropriate for you to appear on page 1 2 3 etc Selecting will let the page inactive Page 4 8 Experts can configure up to eight pages in the already de scribed manner 13 22 Look InfoBox Modes or InfoBox Sets This page shows and let you customise the available InfoBox sets Circling Cruise There are three predefined InfoBox sets Circling Cruise Final Glide Additionally you can define up to five more In foBox sets and name them as you want By default they are named AUX 1 AUX 2 and so on Selecting one of the sets starts a dialogue which provides all means to name and compose an InfoBox set up to your needs Use final glide mode Controls whether the final glide InfoBo
65. Off Repeat Off Speed command Off Close A device type in the configuration settings NMEA Out is de fined for use in joining two Altair or PDA systems in a master slave mode In the master the second com device can be set to NMEA Out and all data received in the first com device as well as out going data will be sent to the slave As an example where two Altairs are being connected together in the slave the first com device can then be set to Vega or Altair Pro and this system receives all data as if it came from the Master s GPS and connected instruments Vega FLARM etc The system status dialogue is used primarily as a systems check to see how the glide computer and the connected devices are per forming This is accessed via the menu and then selecting the tabular System All dynamic values e g battery voltage number of satellites in view are updated continuously You can configure multiple external devices connected at the same time few PDAs have two serial ports but Bluetooth can handle any number of concurrent connections When both provide a valid GPS fix the first one i e Device A is chosen by XCSoar and the second GPS fix is ignored As soon as the first device fails XCSoar switches to the second one automatically until the first one recovers The same is true for all values barometric altitude vario airspeed traffic XCSoar prefers the first device
66. RASP file the background is left blank The maximum and minimum values of the field in the map area are drawn at their respective locations on the map The field name is displayed on the lower left of the screen The fields available to display are as follows Terrain Display terrain on map no weather data displayed W Average dry thermal updraft strength near mid BL height Subtract glider descent rate to get average vario reading for cloudless thermals Updraft strengths will be stronger than this forecast if convective clouds are present since cloud condensation adds buoyancy aloft i e this neglects cloud suck This value depends upon both the surface heating and the BL depth BL wind spd The speed and direction of the vector averaged wind in the BL This prediction can be misleading if there is a large change in wind direction through the BL 103 XCSoar User Manual H bl dwcrit 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS Altitude of the top of the mixing layer which for thermal con vection is the average top of a dry thermal Over flat terrain maximum thermalling heights will be lower due to the glider descent rate and other factors In the presence of clouds which release additional buoyancy aloft creating cloud suck the updraft top will be above this forecast but the maximum thermalling height will then be limited by the cloud base Further when the mixing results from shear turbu lence rather
67. SS TFC PAT Rgt circuits Rwy O8R 26L NS ABTMT Rwy 17R 35L fly wide ICAO YBLA image Benalla_sat bmp GROOTE EYLANDT Blah blah blah blah Many polars of common gliders are built into XCSoar If your glider model is not listed you can use a polar file in the WinPilot polar format extension plr The WinPilot and XCSoar websites provide several glide polar files Files for other gliders may be created upon request to the XCSoar team The format of the file is simple Lines beginning with are ignored and so may be used to document how the polar was calculated or if there are restrictions on its use Other than comments the file must contain a single row of numbers separated with commas e Mass dry gross weight in kg this is the weight of the glider plus a standard pilot without ballast e Max water ballast in liters kg e Speed in km h for first measurement point usually minimum sink speed e Sink rate in m s for first measurement point e Speed in km h for second measurement point usually best glide speed e Sink rate in m s for second measurement point e Speed in km h for third measurement point usually max manoeuvring speed 169 XCSoar User Manual 14 7 Profiles a 14 DATA FILES e Sink rate in m s for third measurement point The following is an extension to the existing polare file format and thus optional e The wing area in m to allow the wing load computation could be z
68. Section 10 6 For other embedded platforms a Battery InfoBox is available that displays the available battery life remaining as well as the charge state AC on charging or AC Off operating off internal battery power XCSoar User Manual 10 2 GPS connection GPS status 10 AVIONICS AND AIRFRAME XCSoar requires a 3D GPS fix for its navigation functions GPS status icons and text may appear on the bottom edge of the map display to indicate a b Waiting for GPS fix a Better reception or additional time to search for satellites is required The GPS may have a 2D fix The aircraft symbol disappears while there is no 3D fix GPS not connected b No communication with the GPS is received This indicates GPS altitude 10 3 Switch inputs an error in the comm port settings or the GPS device may be disconnected or switched off When the GPS is not connected for more than one minute XC Soar automatically attempts to restart communication with the de vice and will then resume waiting This method has shown to provide the most reliable way of recovering from communication errors XCSoar can handle multiple GPS sources and it uses them to provide redundancy The sources are configured on the System Configuration screen on the page entitled Devices Device A is the primary GPS data source and Device B is the secondary source During operation if the primary GPS source drops out XCSoar will u
69. Software Foundation 11 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free pro grams whose distribution conditions are different write to the au thor to ask for permission For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation write to the Free Software Founda tion we sometimes make exceptions for this Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all deriva tives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM TO THE EXTENT PERMIT TED BY APPLICABLE LAW EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED INCLUDING BUT NOT LIM ITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING REPAIR OR CORREC TION IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES IN CLUDING ANY GENERAL SPECIAL INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUEN TIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM INCLUDING
70. User Manual 4 8 Trail Display 2 gt 13 7 SE 13 6 SE Trail Full 13 6 SE 4 NAVIGATION Note that in all cases the label format is configurable in the Way point Display configuration menu An optional snail trail is drawn on the map showing the glider s path history The colour and thickness of the trail depends on the altitude or on the variometer value O ag If Vega or an intelligent variometer is connected with Netto output the Netto vario value is used hence the colours and thickness of the trail indicates the air mass vertical movement rather than the glider s vertical movement The snail trail display can be toggled between Off a Short trail about ten minutes a Long trail about one hour or a Full trail which displays the entire flight This can be performed perma nently through the configuration settings or temporarily by the menu Note that for all of these modes the snail trail is short in circling mode in order to reduce screen clutter In order to assist centring thermals in the presence of wind the snail trail can be artificially drifted with the wind as it is displayed this is drift compensation In this way the snail trail is referenced to the prevailing wind rather than referenced to the ground Since thermals drift with the wind also the drifted trails give a better indication of where the glider has been relative to the thermals An example of thi
71. XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS For non AAT tasks an option is available to set the minimum fin ish altitude according to the FAI rule whereby the minimum finish altitude is above 1000 meters below the start altitude 5 8 Advancing and restarting tasks At all times one waypoint in the task is designated as the active waypoint The active waypoint is used for calculation and display of navigation information that is the pilot is directed to fly towards the active waypoint also referred to as the next waypoint in the description of InfoBoxes as in Chapter 12 During flight a continuous display of the bearing to the next way point is shown The altitude required to complete the task is calculated for the route starting from the glider s actual position going through the task s turnpoints to the final waypoint Changing the active waypoint is performed automatically or may be performed manually The start point of racing tasks and AAT task points are special cases that require the task point to be armed before the system will automatically advance to the next task point once that point is reached All other task points will automatically advance to the next point as soon as the last point was reached For non racing tasks no user interaction is required to advance through the task the system will automatically advance as each task point is achieved The user may still manually advance or retreat the
72. ack reported by the GPS Touch screen PC only If Track A SEIS this InfoBox is active in simulation mode pressing the up and down arrows adjusts the track Airspeed IAS l VIAS Indicated Airspeed reported by a supported external intelligent vario G load G Magnitude of G loading reported by a supported external intel ligent vario This value is negative for pitch down manoeuvres Bearing Difference Brng D The difference between the glider s track bearing to the bear ing of the next waypoint or for AAT tasks to the bearing to the target within the AAT sector GPS navigation is based on the track bearing across the ground and this track bear ing may differ from the gliders heading when there is wind present Chevrons point to the direction the glider needs to alter course to correct the bearing difference that is so that the gliders course made good is pointing directly at the next waypoint This bearing takes into account the curvature of the Earth Airspeed TAS V TAS True Airspeed reported by a supported external intelligent vario Attitude indicator Horizon Attitude indicator artificial horizon display calculated from flightpath supplemented with acceleration and variometer data if available 1 In simulator mode an additional dialogue is available to change the value of the InfoBox 136 XCSoar User Manual 12 INFOBOX REFERENCE 12 3 Glide ratio GR instantane
73. active task point by selecting the menu items Nav gt Previous turnpoint and Nav Next turnpoint respectively The menu items Previous turnpoint and Next turnpoint show dy namic labels that indicate the action that will be performed upon selecting the item For task points requiring arming Next Turnpoint becomes Arm turn if the turn is not armed if itis armed then it becomes Next Turnpoint allowing for manual advance Previous Turnpoint changes to Disarm turn if the turn is armed and vice versa Similarly for rac ing tasks these menu items update for arming start points If the Next Turnpoint is the Finish Turnpoint the menu label changes accordingly Status messages are given for task points requiring arming when inside the observation sector as reminders to arm the turn when the pilot is ready to advance to the next waypoint For starting a warning is given that the glider is in the start cylinder or behind the start line as a reminder to arm if necessary 63 XCSoar User Manual 5 9 Alternate starts s 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS For PC and Pocket PC with touchscreen versions only the user may manually cycle through the waypoints by highlighting the way point InfoBox and by pushing the up or down cursor key See Section 5 7 for details on observation ru
74. active turnpoint is the start and there are no multiple start points If there are multiple start points and the active turnpoint is the start then this displays Cycle start to allow selection between the various start points If the active turnpoint is the first turnpoint after the start this displays Waypoint Start 31 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE Labels All This will turn on all labels available on the map There are more options to only show a reduced set of labels like La bels Task thus not cluttering the screen too much Target Greyed out if the task is cleared or in task abort 3 6 InfoBoxes and screen pages 15 33 10 2 420 Horizon TC Gain 98m MC AUTO 1 17 146 km h Climb 49 The information displayed in the InfoBox fields can be selected from a wide variety of options listed in Chapter 12 These fields can also be used to change for example the MacCready setting The specific number and layout of the InfoBox grid depends on the screen orientation and the device s display size For a 320x240 display Pocket PC in portrait mode there are four InfoBoxes above and four InfoBoxes below the map display A typical landscape layout has 9 InfoBoxes and the variometer gauge to the right of the map display For larger displays up to 24 InfoBoxes may be displayed simultaneously In order to gain clarity the less infob
75. an mode It s functions are quite evident although the menu could be replaced by multi touch technology or knobs like on Al tair Besides the essential exit pan mode function the What s here button offers brilliant access to the variety of information of the map 3 5 Default menu buttons When no menu is active so called default mode the horizontal row of buttons in Altair perform the following functions from left to right PC 6 7 8 9 0 Altair F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 Flight Task Target Drop Manager Mark Pressing ESC on Altair displays labels for these default menu but tons For all other versions in the default mode the cursor keys perform the following functions Up key Zoom in Down key Zoom out Left key Drop marker Right key Toggle through normal aux InfoBoxes and full screen Enter Clear status message or suppress FLARM gauge if open and no warning active 30 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE For the Altair version in the default mode the rotary knob performs the following functions Outer knob counter clockwise Zoom in Outer knob clockwise Zoom out Inner knob counter clockwise No function assigned Outer knob clockwise No function assigned Knob button press Clear status message or acknowledge airspace warning In dialogue forms the rotary knob in Altair performs the role of the cursor and enter keys Outer knob counter clockwise
76. and is a real time system This has placed a very high emphasis on developers to perform a great deal of testing before releasing changes to the public Flight testing is certainly the best sort of test but we have also been able to conduct the bulk of testing by using XCSoar in a car and more recently by replaying IGC flight logs In general we don t want the program to crash or hang ever and if it does so during testing then whatever bug caused the problem has to be fixed as top priority The software developers all keep in contact with each other through the SourceForge developer s mailing list xcsoar develOlists sourceforge net We try to coordinate our activities to avoid conflict and duplicated effort and to work together as a team If you would like to get in volved in the software development send the developers an email Who is using XCSoar Good question and hard to answer Since no one pays for the product most people download the program anonymously it is hard for anyone to keep track of how many users are out there 177 XCSoar User Manual 15 6 Credits 15 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT Statistics from the main website indicate there has been an av erage of approximately twenty downloads per day between June 2005 and June 2006 and eighty downloads per day between June 2006 and September 2007 Looking at how many people down load the terrain and topography data packs from the website indi cates th
77. and optionally waypoints airspace etc A good prepared database file covers all the needs for this page Waypoints Primary waypoints file If left blank waypoints are loaded from the map file if available More waypoints Secondary waypoints file This may be used to add way points for a competition Watched waypoints Waypoint file containing special waypoints for which addi tional computations like calculation of arrival height in map display always takes place Useful for waypoints like known reliable thermal sources e g powerplants or mountain passes Airspaces The file name of the primary airspace file If left blank airspaces are loaded from the map file if available More airspaces The file name of the secondary airspace file Waypoint details The airfields file may contain extracts from Enroute Supple ments or other contributed information about individual air fields Airspace files define Special Use Airspace Up to two files may be specified the first for the main SUA file and the second is HR intended for use with NOTAM airspace and is referred to as the Map database GER xom 000000 additional airspace file urs The XCM map database concept is the current way to setup a site to fly XCSoar releases prior to v6 4 required each to be separate files and to be specified separately as the Terrain file and To pography file respectively This option has been dropped in favor to the XCM map
78. and stopping of the logger on takeoff and landing respectively Disable when flying paraglid ers to prevent the low ground speeds from triggering the au tomatic logger NMEA logger Enable the NMEA logger on startup If this option is dis abled the NMEA logger can still be started manually Log book Logs each start and landing 13 24 Setup Logger info This page allows you to set the pilot and aircraft details used for annotating XCSoar s IGC logger Pilot name This is the pilot name used in the internal software logger declaration Aircraft type This is the aircraft type used in the internal software logger declaration Aircraft reg This is the aircraft registration used in the internal software logger declaration Competition ID This is the aircraft competition ID 161 XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFIGURATION Logger ID This is the logger registration 13 25 Setup Units This page allows you to set the units preferences used in all dis plays InfoBoxes dialogues and input fields For most users hope fully one of the presets will match the needs The presets include unit sets for American Australian British and European Separate selections are available for all items Once you changed a given preset it will be referenced as Custom set and will also be stored in your profile Aircraft Wind speed Units used for airspeed and ground speed mph knots km h A separate unit is available fo
79. and uses the second device only for values that are not received from the first one Example Device A is a CAI 302 and Device B is a FLARM That gives you the best of both XCSoar has airspeed vario and traffic data 127 XCSoar User Manual 10 AVIONICS AND AIRFRAME 10 8 Managing external devices Config 2 gt Devices 13 29 4 The device management dialogue can be accessed from the con figuration menu It shows a list of configured external devices and it lists what information they provide The button Reconnect attempts to reconnect to the selected de vice XCSoar reconnects to a failed device periodically but some times it might be desirable to trigger that manually The button Flight download is only available with supported IGC loggers see 2 5 for a list Upon clicking XCSoar retrieves a list of flights and asks you to select one The IGC file will be down loaded to the logs directory inside XCSoarData The button Manage is enabled when a Vega or a CAI 302 is connected lt provides access to special features of these de vices such as clearing the CAI 302 flight memory which is needed sometimes to work around a Cambridge firmware bug 128 11 Quickstart 11 1 Local flight Prior to takeoff In flight This chapter provides instructions for using XCSoar in typical cross country tasks It is separated into simple scenarios to demonstrate how to use key features
80. are as follows e Where climbs are necessary and permitted to reach the destination the climbs are assumed to occur at the start of the route e Climb cruise segments are assumed to occur at constant altitude equivalent to many small climbs distributed along the path e Individual turns between path segments greater than 90 de grees are not permitted e Failures of the solver result in the route reverting to direct flight from the aircraft location to the destination 51 5 Cross Country Tasks XCSoar provides a full task management system in which tasks can be edited prior to flight and when undertaking casual cross country flying modified during flight Waypoints are advanced au tomatically or may be cycled through manually Many of XCSoar s computations relate to either turnpoints or the finish waypoint Un less a true task is defined XCSoar will provide a go home func tion with many of the task related functions referring to the loca tion of takeoff This chapter also describes the use of IGC loggers with XCSoar There are three task modes available Ordered task This is the natural cross country task type in which the task Automatic goto 5 1 Goto tasks consists of a start point zero or more waypoints and a finish point The task points are to be flown in order Goto task Flight to a single destination Abort task Provides options to fly to the nearest landing points Note that in go
81. asily generated by users Significantly the rewrite allowed XCSoar to run on UNIX like sys tems and Android devices and the use of modern compiling tools enhanced the performance of the program on the current genera tion of devices In March 2011 Version 6 0 7b was released the first release to officially support Android Early 2013 With Version 6 4 5 first results of a German and French manual translation got published on the XCSoar home page February 2012 XCSoar is world champion in Argentina Tobias did a interview with Santi on IRC the modern way read on here http www xcsoar org discover 2013 02 05 WGC Argentina html April 2013 Version 6 6 was released Six years after starting the version 6 rework of the XCSoar engine the final outcome get vis ible on user interface level A remarkable pile of usablility conve nience condensed the XCSoar value including the cross section map view May 2013 The Android XCSoar installation counter for the stable release crossed the 30 000 mark 175 XCSoar User Manual 15 2 Get involved 15 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT The success of the project is the result of many kinds of contribu tions You do not have to be a software developer to help In general there are perhaps five major ways of contributing other than working on the software itself Give feedback Setup suggestions Data integrity Promotion Documentation Ideas suggestion
82. ass algorithm 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS e Both ZigZag and Circling When wind estimates change significantly a status message no tification of this is issued XCSoar estimates the wind magnitude and direction when circling It does this using a sophisticated algorithm that incrementally im proves the wind estimate from completed turns Poor quality turns where the bank angle changes significantly are rejected or have minimal impact on the overall wind estimate The best turns are those with constant bank angle Estimates are only obtained if the average GPS fix rate is better than one every two seconds This results in improved fidelity of estimates in the presence of GPS dropouts For aircraft fitted with intelligent variometers connected to XCSoar a so called zig zag wind estimation algorithm is available With this algorithm the wind estimate can be updated continuously dur ing long glides without circling This allows the wind estimate to be updated during cruise while the aircraft performs a zigzag manoeuver No specific manoeuver is required in many cases the estimate will be updated as the aircrafts heading changes naturally as the pilot hunts for lift In general however the technique requires the aircraft heading to change over 40 degrees If the wind changes significantly while in straight flight the zig zag algorithm is used to update the wind estimate even if the aircraft s heading does not change mu
83. at it is used in many countries and in nearly every conti nent XCSoar is used by a wide cross section of pilots including early post solo through to experienced competition pilots There are many armchair pilots who use XCSoar with gliding simulators such as Condor Software developers e Santiago Berca santiberca yahoo com ar e Tobias Bieniek tobias bieniek gmx de e Robin Birch robinb ruffnready co uk e Damiano Bortolato damiano damib net e Rob Dunning rob raspberryridgesheepfarm com e Samuel Gisiger samuel gisiger triadis ch e Jeff Goodenough jeffGenborne f2s com e Lars H lars_hn hotmail com e Alastair Harrison aharrison magic force9 co uk e Olaf Hartmann olaf hartmann0s1998 tu chemnitz de e Mirek Jezek mjezek ipplc cz e Max Kellermann max duempel org e Russell King rmk arm linux org uk e Gabor Liptak liptakgabor freemail hu e Tobias Lohner tobiasClohner net de e Christophe Mutricy xtophe chewa net e Scott Penrose scottp dd com au e Andreas Pfaller pfaller gmail com e Mateusz Pusz mateusz pusz gmail com e Florian Reuter flo reuter web de e Mike Roberts e Matthew Scutter yellowplantain gmail com 178 XCSoar User Manual 15 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT Winfried Simon winfried simon googlemail com Google Inc incl Tom Stepleton stepleton google com Simon Taylor simon taylor uk gmail com Matthew Turnbull matthewt talk21 com Paolo Ventafridda coolwind email it James Ward jamesward22 gmail com John Wharington j
84. ble for remainder of task Assigned Area Task average speed achievable if flying maxi mum possible distance remaining in minimum AAT time Assigned Area Task average speed achievable if flying mini mum possible distance remaining in minimum AAT time Assigned Area Task distance around target points for remain der of task 141 XCSoar User Manual AAT speed around target AAT Vtgt On Line Contest distance OLC Task progress Progress Start open close countdown Start open rt open close countdown at reaching Start reach 12 9 Waypoint Next waypoint Next WP Flight Duration Flt Duration Time local Time loc Time UTC Time UTC Task time to go Fin ETE Task time to go ground speed Fin ETE VMG Next time to go WP ETE Next time to go ground speed WP ETE VMG Task arrival time Fin ETA 12 INFOBOX REFERENCE Assigned Area Task average speed achievable around target points remaining in minimum AAT time Instantaneous evaluation of the flown distance according to the configured Online Contest rule set Clock like display of distance remaining along task showing achieved task points Shows the time left until the start point opens or closes Shows the time left until the start point opens or closes com pared to the calculated time to reach it The name of the currently selected
85. ccording to minimum extra distance travelled to the respective field and onwards to the task 153 XCSoar User Manual Polar degradation Safety MC STF risk factor Auto MC setting with gamma 0 3 Height m MacCready at 1 0 13 CONFIGURATION Home The sorting will try to find landing options in the cur rent direction to the configured home waypoint Similar to task but with the home field as the desired destination A permanent polar degradation 0 means no degradation 50 indicates the glider s sink rate is doubled When safety MC is enabled this MacCready setting is used for reach calculations task abort alternates and for deter mining arrival altitude at airfields The STF risk factor reduces the MacCready setting used to calculate speed to fly as the glider gets low in order to compensate for risk Set to 0 0 for no compensation 1 0 scales MC linearly with height with reference to height of the maximum climb If considered 0 3 is recommended See Section 6 7 for more details 13 11 Glide Computer Glide Computer This page allows glide computer algorithms to be configured Auto MC mode Auto MC mode Both Block speed to fly Nav by baro altitude Flap forces cruise GR Average period This option defines which auto MacCready algorithm is used For more details see Section 6 13 Final glide Final glide adjusts MC for fastest arrival Trending average
86. ch This provides greater accuracy in long final glides Wind estimates are updated when a large difference between the estimated ground speed and the true ground speed are detected even without much zig zag manoeuvering For aircraft fitted with intelligent variometers and digital compasses connected to XCSoar a wind estimation algorithm making use of magnetic heading and airspeed is being developed This provides another method of updating the wind estimate during cruise and does not require zig zag manoeuvres 97 XCSoar User Manual 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS 7 6 Wind settings dialogue 3 Config 1 gt ng 7 7 Thermal profile The wind dialogue allows the initial estimate of the wind speed and direction to be entered usually prior to flight Auto wind Both Prefer external wind On Trail drift On Speed 15 km h Direction 135 O Cancel At any time during flight the pilot can make corrections to the wind estimate by entering the correction in the wind settings dialogue Once the dialogue get closed the internal estimate is ignored until a new internal estimate is obtained from the circling or zigzag algorithm The automatic wind algorithm may also be switched on or off or between modes in this dialogue See Section 7 5 for details on these algorithms The compensation of wind drift of the snail trail can also be switched on or off in thi
87. ch as a bluetooth keyboard or gamepad e Customise any button key event e Do multiple events from one key or glide computer triggered process For more information on editing or writing your own input event file the XCSoar Developer Manual is a good starting point Status files are text of the form abel value arranged in blocks of text where each block corresponds to an individual status mes sage These are delimited by double spaces Each block can contain the following fields key This is the text of the status message 172 XCSoar User Manual 14 DATA FILES sound Location of a WAV audio file to play when the status mes sage appears This is optional delay Duration in milliseconds the status message is to be dis played This is optional hide A boolean yes no that dictates whether the message is to be hidden that is not displayed Example key Simulation r nNothing is real sound My Documents XCSoarData Start_Real wav delay 1500 key Task started delay 1500 hide yes 173 15 History and Development 15 1 Product history XCSoar started as a commercial product developed by Mike Roberts UK where it enjoyed a successful share of the market for sev eral years and going though several releases the last being Ver sion 2 Personal reasons prevented him from being able to con tinue supporting the product and so in late 2004 he announced the licensing of the source code to the GNU public license a
88. cklist given in the next chapter If you are planning to arrange a system with several components engaged in this manual will give you valuable advice on both how to set up things and how to use them If you are a pilot in a hurry the authors suggest to change to the short form manual XCSoar in a Flash going through the XCSoar Checklist step by step The short form manual is available on http www xcsoar org discover manual html XCSoar User Manual 2 4 XCSoar Checklist Bring XCSoar into play 2 INSTALLATION get hardware and install XCSoar get appropriate data files of your flight district tell XCSoar which data files to use tell XCSoar about the glider s polar amp weight possibly connect to instruments finish setup and familiarize mount hardware add items listed underneath to your checklists make home Conduct preflight check including Conduct start check including Fly enjoy Conduct after flight check setup polar and weight setup wind and flight parameters MC bugs QNH possibly setup a task Check wind and flight setup once more Download flight logs from logger upload to skylines and OLC Gather statistical data of flight 15 XCSoar User Manual 2 5 Compatibility Devices for running XCSoar GPS Logger Vario 2 INSTALLATION XCSoar runs on the following platforms PDAs with Pocket PC 2000 2002 2003 Example iPaq 3800 iPaq 3900 PDAs with Windows Mobile Example iPa
89. creen pages The MacCready setting may be adjusted several ways e With Config 1 gt MC e For touchscreen mouse devices select the MacCready In foBox field then use the up and down arrow keys e When connected to a supported intelligent variometer ad justing the MacCready setting on the variometer will change the setting in XCSoar according to the devices synchronisa tion configuration See section 13 29 In addition an automatic MacCready mode is available as de scribed in section 6 13 The glide polar specifications of a wide selection of glider types representing major classes of gliders are built into XCSoar If your glider type is not listed these may be used as an approxima tion for if no better glide polar can be found However for most accurate results it is advisable to use the correct glide polar for your particular aircraft type Besides the aircraft type the correct over all mass of the glider is important for accurate results The preflight check of your tactical glide computer certainly includes a check of the correct settings for water ballast with regard to the 78 XCSoar User Manual Info 1 gt Analysis Info 1 gt Analysis 6 GLIDE COMPUTER configured dry mass Because XCSoar does not offer a setting for the pilots weight you are free to include the latter to the dry mass setting or the water ballast setting
90. ctory is called xcsoar in the user s home directory Android Devices XCSoarData is on the SD card Altair If XCSoarData exists on an USB drive that one is used 2 8 Running XCSoar Altair version otherwise the internal storage is used XCSoar will generate a number of additional files at run time These will be placed in the XCSoarData directory Windows PC Windows and Android mobile devices or the xcsoar directory Unix Linux PC From the first run XCSoar will create and main tain the files Default tsk Default Task default prf configura tion settings xcsoar log plus three directories cache config and logs Additional files may be created modified while XCSoar is running such as task files tsk and flight logs Two modes are available inside the XCSoar application FLY This mode is used when actually flying The simulator is disabled and serial communications are active SIM This starts XCSoar in simulator mode no serial communica tions are attempted XCSoar starts up automatically when Altair is powered on The PWR ESC button top left has multiple functions Powering on Press and hold the PWR ESC button for one second The LED in the button will light up and XCSoar will start after Altair has booted 20 XCSoar User Manual 2 INSTALLATION Powering off Press and hold the PWR ESC button for 3 seconds Altair will switch off Escape Pressing the PWR ESC button quickly acts as a
91. d and outbound legs with a distance of 20 km The observation zone also includes a cylinder of 500 m British rules BGA Enhanced Option Fixed Course Sector When the glider has entered the observation zone defined by a segment and radial distance from the way point The segment is defined by a 180 degree arc centred about the bisector of inbound and outbound legs with a dis tance of 10 km The observation zone also includes a cylin der of 500 m British rules Area Zylinder AAT and Area Sector AAT When the glider has entered the observation zone defined Finish point types by the radial distance from the waypoint and segment for sector areas Task completion depends on the finish type Finish Cylinder When the glider enters the cylinder area Finish Line When the glider crosses the finish line aj 13 17 f Automatic advancement is triggered whenever a condition is met To start an AAT mixed task or Racing task the start has to be armed before Competition rules may be defined in a profile file for distribution to a group of pilots or task setters so all competitors are playing by the same rules Additional task rules for valid starts and finishes may also be spec ified Starts may have a defined maximum altitude above ground and a maximum speed Finishes may have a minimum altitude above ground These parameters are defined in the page Default Task Rules in the configuration settings 62
92. d details 168 146 Glide polar o o leen 169 14 7 Profiles so wosa ae a di 170 14 8 Checklist e ici a e eana g E a e 171 14 9 TASKS iud a a a Re 171 14 10FlightlogS o o 171 14 11 FLARM Identification less 171 XCSoar User Manual 14 12Imput events 14 13Status o o o ooo oo 15 History and Development 15 1 Product history 15 2 Getinvolved 15 3 Open source philosophy 15 4 Development process 15 5 Userbase 15 6 Credits oo A GNU General Public License Contents Preface Warnings and precautions A IT IS THE USER S RESPONSIBILITY TO USE THIS SOFTWARE PRUDENTLY THIS SOFTWARE IS INTENDED TO BE USED ONLY AS A NAVIGATION AID AND MUST NOT BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE REQUIRING PRECISE MEASUREMENT OF DIREC TION DISTANCE LOCATION OR TOPOGRAPHY THIS SOFT WARE SHOULD NOT BE USED AS AN AID TO DETERMINE GROUND PROXIMITY FOR AIRCRAFT NAVIGATION THIS SOFT WARE SHOULD NOT BE USED AS A TRAFFIC COLLISION AVOID ANCE SYSTEM Legal notices Software license agreement This software is released according to the GNU General Public Li cense Version 2 See Appendix A for the full text of the agreement and warranty notice Limited liability In no event shall XCSoar or its principals shareholders officers employees affiliates contractors subsidiaries or parent orga
93. d manually for daylight saving time in the configuration settings dialogue If the expected arrival time at the final waypoint in the task is past sunset a status message warning is issued 75 6 Glide Computer This chapter focuses on how XCSoar s glide computer works and is recommended reading so you understand the specific details of calculations being performed and how to use the software prop erly It assumes a basic knowledge of cross country soaring but is suitable reading for competition pilots as well as pilots engaging in casual cross country touring 6 1 Flight modes In order to reduce the pilot s workload XCSoar is enabled to do different things depending on the actual flight s state XCSoar can do this without in flight interaction of the pilot The differences are reflected by different displays calculations and flight information amongst others The four states used by XCSoar are called flight modes which are e Cruise mode e Circling mode Final glide mode e Abort mode XCSoar automatically detects the difference between circling flight and cruising flight Circling is enabled when the glider turns typi cally three quarters of a turn After about 30 seconds of straight line flight the software will switch from circling to cruise mode Hence the switch is based on a simple condition It is also possible to have circling mode switched based on an external input e g from a pilot operated switch Final
94. de by button menu or by gesture The ges ture for this is moving your fingertip up right down left sup posed to form a P 2 The map can then be panned by dragging the screen or us ing the cursor keys For Altair panning is performed with the inner outer rotary knob 42 XCSoar User Manual Oberham Harmersbach 4 5 Waypoints Landables 13 7 13 7 S 4 NAVIGATION 3 When done pan mode has to be disabled manually by press ing Pan Off from the special sub menu of buttons in pan mode When pan is active the letters PAN appears next to the map scale While panning the location of the focus stays in the middle of the display under the cross hairs Despite the focus under the cross hairs for Altair users the map still offers the What s here feature just by touching any position on the map presuming a touch screen Waypoints are displayed with different symbols depending on the waypoint type the major distinction being landable and non landable waypoints The waypoint symbols are drawn as shown below There are three icon sets for landable waypoints ield Icon set 7 227 The marginal icons are drawn for those waypoints which are prin cipally in the reach but it is not possible to approach them directly E g a mountain prohibits a direct approach o o oO xe c oO Purple Circle Q B W Traffic lights NS O Reachable Q Q2 s l
95. details on it FLARM Traffic Details DDA85C Callsign Im D 4449 Change callsign Friends E Distance 481 m 67 Altitude 353 m 13 a E Vario 3 1 m s Clear Pilot Tobias Bieniek Airport AACHEN Radio frequency 130 525 MHz Close Plane Hornet Team Even if XCSoar can lock only one team mate by reference way point it handles any number of friends with a known FLARM ld Chances are high your buddy is not registered in any database But in any case you get closer to your flying college just pick the the details from the FLARM radar screen choose a colour and identify this FLARM response in the future as your buddy 116 9 9 1 Integration Building an XCSoar system Integration is bringing together all things and actions in an en tity for building a system providing desired functionality Things needed are hardware components software database files con figuration power supply e a and glue components As you might have expected this chapter deals with integration of XCSoar with the components of interest e Hardware XCSoar runs on Pocket PC Android e XCSoar software e Flight information databases terrain waypoint weather po lar flarmnet airfield details e Instruments barometer vario Flarm logger horizon e Backup components second XCSoar unit e Mounting e Configuration XCSoar internally and connections with e User
96. device These statistics and mea surements are approximate and the weather can on some days change rapidly The pilot should at all times keep observing the weather In particular when out landing in fields the pilot should look for indicators on the ground to confirm wind strength and di rection A needle dial style display shows the variometer measurements The gross variometer reading drives the main arrow on the dial and in the centre of the dial the instantaneous measurement is shown as text Additionally speed command arrows chevrons appear above or below the gross variometer measurement Chevrons pointing up indicate slowing down is recommended Chevrons pointing down indicates that speeding up is recommended When the averager value is displayed the value shown is the aver age gross climb rate over the previous 30 seconds when in circling mode and the netto airmass vertical speed over the previous 30 seconds when in cruise mode The average value can also be displayed as an optional additional needle caret The vario gauge is customisable as to what is displayed along with the gross value etc When an intelligent variometer is connected to XCSoar the nee dle displays data from the instrument otherwise it produces vari ometer estimates based on GPS vertical speed which is slow and uncompensated for aircraft total energy The MacCready value bugs and ballast optimum speed to fly and wind data are transferred b
97. ditional data files must be placed in the direc tory xcsoar If xcsoar does not exist it will be created the first time that xcsoar is run On Raspberry Pi and Cubieboard Install the Debian package as described above However unlike on regular Linux XCSoar will not use X11 Instead it runs full screen on the Linux console XCSoar requires access to your input devices dev input event By default only root is granted access To override this create a udev configuration file e g etc udev rules d 99 input rules KERNEL event NAME input 7 k MODE 660 GROUP input Create the group input and make your user a member groupadd input adduser pi input 19 XCSoar User Manual 2 7 Data files 2 INSTALLATION To be able to use XCSoars advanced features additional data files such as terrain topography special use airspace waypoints etc are needed The files that can be used with XCSoar are de scribed in Chapter 14 All data files should be copied into the directory XCSoarData This directory must be in a specific place so that XCSoar knows where to look for data files Windows PC XCSoarData is in your personal folder My Documents Windows Mobile PDA PNA If there is a directory named XCSoarData in the same direc tory as XCSoar exe then this one will be used XCSoarData is on the SD card If there is no SD card then XCSoar looks for itin My Documents Unix Linux The dire
98. drawn on the map as a blue dashed line Assigned area tasks also show the turn point sectors or ar eas as a yellow shaded region Circles are always drawn around start and finish points lines are only drawn if the start finish points are of line type Task observation sectors are drawn as circle seg ments At all times a thick black line is drawn from the glider to the next waypoint in the task This line may be the direct path to the way point or may be a route path clearing terrain and airspace obsta cles described in further detail in Section 4 13 Start finish Sector Cylinder 4 Langenbrandv del Hotel y f xy plettenbergv 4 7 Terrain and Topography The following topographical features are drawn on the map e Major roads shown as red lines e Rivers shown as blue lines Large water bodies lakes shown as blue areas Large cities shown as yellow areas Small population areas shown as yellow diamonds 45 XCSoar User Manual Dade 2l Terrain see On Off Topo Display 2 gt Sp On Off 13 8 SE Map labels Labels Display 2 gt SRAY None Labels Task amp Landables Labels Task Labels All 4 NAVIGATION Cities and small population areas are labeled in italics Terrain is coloured according to elevation and optionally shaded by sun or wind directi
99. e 1042 m Max height gain 800 m Near Freiburg Bearing 214 Distance 1397 m Times Local time UTC time UTC date Flight time Takeoff time Landing time Daylight time 15 46 14 46 2013 02 06 00 27 15 18 07 50 17 35 4 13 Route The status dialogue is a multi tabular dialogue giving overview in formation on the flight system task rules and times It is ac cessed via the gesture S or with the button menu Info 2 gt Status Select the tabular page Flight The flight status dialogue shows the status of the aircraft s locality and can be useful when giving position reports It shows the location of the aircraft the maximum height gain and nearest waypoint it s bearing and distance You may find this function useful when you need to report your location to others Select the tabular page Times It shows the local time flight time takeoff and landing time and the local sunrise sunset times Note that the values in the Status dialogue are static once the particular dialogue page is displayed That is position times etc do not update while the page is displayed To see the updated values it is necessary to select a different tabular then return to the previous dialogue to see the new values XCSoar can plan paths around terrain and airspace obstacles in three dimensions from the aircraft to the destination Such a path is Known as a route Th
100. e box the second title is the label used in the InfoBox title This is the altitude above mean sea level reported by the GPS Touch screen PC only In simulation mode this value is ad justable with the up down arrow keys The right left arrow keys also cause the glider to turn This is the barometric altitude obtained from a device equipped with pressure sensor This is the barometric altitude obtained from a device equipped with a pressure sensor or the GPS altitude if the barometric altitude is not available This is the navigation altitude minus the terrain elevation ob tained from the terrain file The value is coloured red when the glider is below the terrain safety clearance height This is the elevation of the terrain above mean sea level ob tained from the terrain file at the current GPS location XCSoar User Manual 12 INFOBOX REFERENCE Height above take off Height based on an automatic take off reference elevation like HTO a QFE reference Flight level Fliaht Level Pressure Altitude given as Flight Level Only available if baro 9 metric altitude available and correct QNH set Barogram Trace of altitude during flight Barogram 12 2 Aircraft state Speed ground Ground speed measured by the GPS If this InfoBox is active VANG in simulation mode pressing the up and down arrows adjusts the speed left and right turns the glider Track Magnetic tr
101. e bugs ballast settings as required 10 Refer to the 11 Refer to the Analysis Status dialogue as required dialogue as required This shows the start time elapsed time on task estimated arrival time av erage task speed etc After landing As described in Section 11 1 134 12 12 1 Altitude Altitude GPS Alt GPS Altitude AGL 100 10 10 100 Barometric altitude Alt Baro Altitude Auto Alt lt auto gt Height AGL H AGL Terrain elevation Terr Elev InfoBox Reference InfoBox data types are grouped into logical categories All InfoBoxes display their data in user specified units Whenever the content is invalid the displayed value will be and the con tent is greyed out This happens for example when no terrain el evation is found for the Terrain Elevation InfoBox or in the same way for a derived InfoBox like Height AGL Some of the InfoBox contents are modifiable complex values like MC setting or Wind Most of those values are now accessible through an InfoBox dialogue It is a short cut to quickly change the most often accessed items An InfoBox dialogue is opened by long press to the InfoBox Touchscreen devices or Select and Enter PC Altair In the following description of the InfoBox types the first title is as it appears in the InfoBox configuration dialogu
102. e click tap the map the large blank white part with the glider symbol in the center choose the SS menu Config 2 click tap it twice then select the item System Map database GER3 xcm The Configuration screen should be displayed The first page Waypoints allows you to choose the map waypoint and airspace files by clicking tapping on the text boxes Many other features of XCSoar may be configured here These are described in detail in Chapter 13 Once completed XCSoar reloads those files from now on the data files will be loaded automatically at run time Airspaces 21 XCSoar User Manual 2 INSTALLATION Start up and user profiles When XCSoar starts up it will check for existing profiles If mul tiple profiles are detected it will displays a small window asking you which profile to load To proceed choose the desired profile and press Enter If no profile is chosen the settings from the last session are loaded again Profiles can be useful for example in the following cases e Different pilots e Competition versus casual flying e Flying in different locations e Different planes with different polars Profiles also might be understood as preserving a backup of a cer tain configuration Virtually every of XCSoar settings is stored in a profile file with extension prf Once you are happy with all your settings make two copies of your profile file One carrying exten sion pr
103. e g take off turning waypoints Note that status messages do not appear while a dialogue is on screen the messages are buffered and displayed as soon as the dialogue is exited 34 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE 3 8 Dialogue windows XCSoar contains several dialogue windows that can be activated to bring up additional information and are also used for more com plex interactions with the user such as editing tasks and configur ing settings Some dialogues simply display information and require no user input Other dialogues contain data fields that can be modified or buttons that can be pressed A cursor appears over the active button or data field Pressing the up down arrow keys or rotating the outer knob on Altair the cursor will cycle through the next or previous items For list items and scrollable text the up down arrow key moves the cursor up or down the list or text and the left right arrow keys move the cursor up or down by one page in long lists For PDAs and PC versions list items can be selected by touching the item or left clicking with the mouse Once a list item is se lected another touch left click is equivalent to pressing the enter key Pressing the right left arrow keys or rotating the inner knob on Al tair the data field value under the cursor can be modified Press ing the enter key or pressing the rotary knob on Altair activates the button or makes a selection from a list Dialo
104. e height of the destination is the arrival height for final waypoints or may be higher for intermediate way points as dictated by the task system as required to complete 50 XCSoar User Manual 13 13 F 13 10 E 13 13 SE 4 NAVIGATION the task Route planning functions in normal ordered task mode abort mode and goto mode Routes take into account the glider polar performance and are calculated to be optimal in the sense of minimum time By default route calculation is disabled and can be enabled for terrain only or terrain and airspace avoidance Terrain is avoided vertically by the terrain safety height with no additional lateral clearance imposed Valid routes may result in the aircraft arriving at the destination higher than the minimum height such as can occur when the destination is just beyond a steep mountain Airspace is avoided horizontally by a buffer of approximately 250 m with no additional vertical clearance imposed Valid routes may fly below or above airspace If MacCready is positive then climbs are optionally allowed in the computed routes The top of the climb may be limited to 500 m above the heigher of the start and destination ceiling or increased to the ceiling defined by the thermal ceiling Climbs above the higher of the start and destination altitude are penalised by a slower climb rate than the actual MacCready value Some approximations and limitations of the route planning system
105. e icon depicting two craftman s tools refers to an in depth description of items being mentioned and how to configure them The numbers beside the icon refer to a specific chapter section of this manual s reference chapters 12 and 13 in this case referring to section 13 5 ipeueAut Bui py sym spenueuu Buipea wo dos Read at home configure on the ground safely Having perceived this inverted warning as an example you are ready to proceed Referring to the second exemplary case of the icon configuration to the left the icon points towards chapter 1 this chapter sec tion 1 6 Using XCSoar safely underneath which could be un derstood as a how to configure yourself It is up to you whether to jump to an in depth discussion and go back or just proceed If reading this manual electronically clicking the number will let you jump to the requested cross reference Use the go to back or similar function of your particular browser to proceed with the chapter you jumped from The numbers are printed in blue as are the icons introduced sig nalling help available And so are other Universal Ressource Locators underlaying blue text Clicking on text like http www xcsoar org contact Will open your world wide web browser or mailer to get in touch with other ressources or konwledgeable peo ple respectively The remainder of this chapter Introduction is about getting you prepared for XCSoar how to raise your level of und
106. e types of information that can be displayed in the grid of InfoBoxes next to the map display The configuration of the software is described in detail in Chapter 13 The formats of the various data files that program uses as well as where to obtain them from and how to edit them is described in Chapter 14 Finally a short history and discussion of XCSoar s development process is presented in Chapter 15 A variety of terms may be used to describe embedded devices like the Pocket PC platform including organiser Portable Digital As sistant PDA and Personal Navigation Assistant PNA XCSoar is also available on Triadis Engineering s Altair glide computer which is formally an Electronic Flight Instrumentation System and several other platforms Throughout this document these terms are used interchangeably to refer to whatever hardware XCSoar is running on Throughout this manual are several screenshots of XCSoar These are taken from the program running on a variety of hardware plat forms and possibly even different versions Each platform and ver sion may have different screen resolutions layouts and fonts and so there may be slight differences in the appearance of the dis play Most of the screenshots in this manual are taken of XCSoar running in landscape orientation Windows Mobile PDA PNA Devices powered by Microsoft Pocket PC 2000 up to Win dows Mobile 6 are supported by XCSoar Windows Mobile 7 will not be supported a
107. ed to fly Touch screen PC only Also used to adjust the MacCready setting if the InfoBox is active by using the up down cursor keys Press ing the enter cursor key toggles Auto MacCready mode An InfoBox dialogue is available The MacCready speed to fly for optimal flight to the next way point In cruise flight mode this speed to fly is calculated for maintaining altitude In final glide mode this speed to fly is calculated for descent Percentage of time spent in climb mode These statistics are reset upon starting the task 139 XCSoar User Manual Speed dolphin V opt Thermal next leg equivalent T Next Leg Task cruise efficiency Cruise Eff 12 7 Navigation Next Bearing Bearing Next radial Radial Next distance WP Dist Next altitude difference WP AItD Next MCO altitude difference WP MCO AItD Next altitude arrival WP AItA Next altitude required WP AItR Final altitude difference Fin AltD 12 INFOBOX REFERENCE The instantaneous MacCready speed to fly making use of netto vario calculations to determine dolphin cruise speed in the glider s current bearing In cruise flight mode this speed to fly is calculated for maintaining altitude In final glide mode this speed to fly is calculated for descent In climb mode this switches to the speed for minimum sink at the current load factor if an accelero
108. elief and hight of the terrain Topography rivers roads towns Waypoints airports landabls The active task observation zones turnpoints o oa A CO PY The bearing or route to the next waypoint heading 7 Airspaces The line to the next waypoint may be a route as described in Section 4 13 XCSoar User Manual 4 NAVIGATION 8 Markers thermals history snail trail 9 Glide range The map is drawn in a projected coordinate system not latitude and longitude and the scale can be changed zooming in and out as well as panned All navigation functions take the curvature of the Earth into account 4 2 Glider symbol map orientation 13 5 SE 13 5 F The glider symbol shows the position of the glider on the map The orientation of the glider indicates the estimated heading of the glider The map is oriented in one of three ways North up Track up or Target up Configuration settings can be used to specify a different map orientation when in circling mode This is useful to prevent disorientation when looking at the map while circling Target up when circling makes it easy to determine which direction to exit the thermal When Track or Target up is used in circling mode the glider sym bol is centred on the screen even if the symbol position is config ured differently In cruise mode the Track and the Target up orien tation allows the glider symbol to be positioned e g 2096 from the bottom of
109. ens the flight settings dialogue e g to adjust the bugs ballast The glide polar page of the analysis dialogue shows the average total energy sink rate at each speed achieved in flight when con nected to a supported intelligent variometer e g Vega This fa cility allows pilots to perform test flights in stable atmospheric con ditions such as on calm days with no wind and inspect the mea sured glide polar By comparing the measured glide polar with the model glide polar this enables investigation of whether the glider is being flown optimally with respect to flap settings and also to in vestigate the benefits of performance optimisation such as sealing control surfaces etc Data is collected only when in cruise mode and at G loading be tween 0 9 and 1 1 so pilots performing test flights should attempt to fly smoothly with wings level 92 XCSoar User Manual 6 15 Flight notifications 6 GLIDE COMPUTER Notifications appearing as status messages appear when the fol lowing conditions are detected Estimated task time too early for AAT Estimated arrival at finish past sunset Significant wind change Transition to above below final glide 93 7 Atmosphere and Instruments 7 1 Variometer Net vg 4 67 Gross m Auth MC 1 22 13 15 S amp XCSoar maintains an internal model of the atmosphere based on statistics gathered from the flight path and other instruments connected to the Pocket PC
110. ents so that user interactions can be min imised If you find yourself mechanically performing certain interactions frequently ask yourself or other XCSoar users if the software can be made to do these interactions for you 13 2 2 1 2 2 Installation To run XCSoar you need to obtain the following e a device to run XCSoar on e XCSoar e a GPS receiver e a waypoint file e an airspace file optional e a map file optional Before you go out flying the first time with XCSoar A After having installed XCSoar successfully you might use it in stantly XCSoar will launch with a ready to use pre configuration But be aware that up to this point your new toy will give you a mov ing map display only Don t trust the computations You have to tell XCSoar which plane you are flying in advance This is done by specifying your plane s data as are polar weight and some other data However it s always a good idea to study the manual and become familiar with XCSoar at home 2 3 How to get the most from XCSoar In order to achieve your maximum benefit from XCSoar you are kindly asked to do do some more after having installed the soft ware and downloaded some data files Some more includes per sonal and plane data as well as configuration of just a few features Unless you are willing to tweak everything XCSoar provides this could be done in a rather short time Necessary steps are sum marized in an XCSoar Che
111. er in case your hardware XCSoar runs on has only one communication port Either purchase a hardware mut liplexer or use Bluetooth functionality Most smartphones come with a Bluetooth built in multiplex functionality Another way is to achieve a Power Flarm device already equipped with a multiplexer for both Flarm and ADS B data ADS B stands for Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast This radar based system broadcasts position of equipped aircrafts even if they are not pinged by ground primary radar If you plan to use such a device please plan to do a careful system setup too As long as commercial aircrafts travelling in upper flight levels you are not interested in you probably need no information about on your map Also radar transponders are made as long range systems Simply set up several filterings in your system in order not to crowd your moving map Increased situation awareness support However many pilots judge ADS B being information overkill as do many representa tives of ground control organisations Please take your time when reading discussions on ADS B usage in gliders before purchasing hardware Technically speaking ADS B is brilliant as is Flarm Integrate an electronic variometer with your classic System an eVario Since an eVario is expected to be a second piece of hard ware to be connected you might need a data multiplexer for con necting both Flarm and eVario to your XCSoar hosting hardware Take your
112. ermal marker symbol is a green circle with a spiral LS 7X 12 22 07 ow os 2509 1 A 1304 Qm o TC GAIN C 241 w gt 10 The thermal locator marks the location of the last 20 thermals on the map with the thermal symbol during cruise This location is calculated to compensate for the thermal drift at the gliders altitude This means that internally XCSoar remem bers the location of the thermal source on the ground In other words if you leave a thermal at the top and later return at low alti tude the position on the map shows the predicted location of the thermal at that low altitude which is further upwind than the top If the wind changes and the thermal source is still active its po sition on the map reflects the wind change that is the thermal at altitude will be projected downwind at the new wind estimate 3 9t MANUAL The thermal assistant is a graphical aid to maximise the exploita tion of the given thermal updraft If it is configured On the small polar digram is mapped to the lower left corner of the screen A single tap on the small digram enlarges it to a full screen view 99 XCSoar User Manual 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS The polar diagram shows the climb rate over the circular course of the glider The screen shots show a right circle where the glider position is fixed to the left side and the polar distribution of the climb rate is shown relatively to the current
113. ero if unknown e The max manoeuvering speed in km h to enable simple checks for the cruise speed command An example for the LS 3 glider is given below LS 3 WinPilot POLAR file MassDryGross kgl MaxWaterBallast liters Speedi km h Sink1 m s Speed2 Sink2 Speed3 Sink3 373 121 74 1 0 65 102 0 0 67 167 0 1 85 Don t be too optimistic when entering your polar data It is all too easy to set your LD too high and you will rapidly see yourself undershooting on final glide Profile files extension prf can be used to store configuration settings used by XCSoar The format is a simple text file con taining lt label gt lt value gt pairs Certain values are text strings delimited by double quotes for example PilotName Baron Richtoffen All other values are numeric including ones that represent boolean values true 1 false 0 for example StartDistance 1000 All values that have physical dimensions are expressed in Sl units meters meters second seconds etc When a profile file is saved it contains all configuration settings Profile files may be edited with a text editor to produce a smaller set of configuration settings that can be given to other pilots to load When a profile file is loaded only the settings present in that file overwrite the configuration settings in XCSoar all other settings are unaffected The default profile file is generated automatically when configura tion settings a
114. errain A to the height of the maximum climb this will usu ally be close to cloudbase above the terrain htop The y setting thus represents the fraction of the total available climb cloudbase minus terrain at which you would wish to abandon the task and begin to prepare for a landout Thus low y values indicate a higher tolerance for landout risk than higher values of y For the default value y 0 0 there is no compensation the risk MC is the same as the MC setting For y 1 0 the risk MC is scaled linearly with the height fraction h For intermediate values of y the risk MC varies smoothly with the height fraction such that the risk MC is small only when low Low values of y are best when pilots do not want to slow down as they get low but risk out landing high values of y can be used for very cautious pilots but will result in lower average speeds A value of 0 3 is recommended 1 00 0 90 0 80 MC risk rel MCrisk MC 0 00 0 10 0 20 0 30 0 40 0 50 0 60 0 70 0 80 0 90 1 00 Height rel h h top Three safety heights are defined to provide a degree of safety margin in glide computer calculations The safety heights are Arrival height This is the elevation above ground at which the glider is re quired to arrive at least Typically you want include height for a safe landing circuit plus some safety margin for haz ardous vertical horizontal air movements and resulting er rors o
115. erstanding and maintain your skills Chapter 11 Quickstart might be the next waypoint after 2 Installation for the urgent user Feel free to cut short but do not resume too sadly when reading chapter by chap ter following Chapter 3 introduces the user interface concepts and gives an overview of the display Chapter 4 describes the moving map part of the display in greater detail and describes how the software can assist in general navi gation Chapter 5 describes how cross country tasks are specified and flown and presents some of the analysis tools available to pi lots to help improve their performance Chapter 6 goes into further detail on the glide computer functions as it is important for pilots to be aware of how the computer performs its calculations Chapter 7 describes how the computer can interface to variome ters and other air data sensors and how it uses these measure XCSoar User Manual 1 2 Notes Terminology Screenshots 1 3 Platforms 1 INTRODUCTION ments to provide various models of the atmosphere in particular on winds and thermal convection Chapter 8 describes how XC Soar can assist in managing flight in special use airspace and the FLARM collision awareness system Chapter 10 deals with systems integration and systems diagnostics the integration of XCSoar with communications devices and with airframe switches The remainder of the manual contains mainly reference material Chapter 12 lists th
116. es Customisation of fonts in various fields of the sitet s program InfoBox values Edi A p Once the customisation is enabled the Edit buttons allow to change some parameters font face height bold and italic of the chosen font If customisation is disabled default fonts will be used 13 20 Look Screen Layout This page once more details the appearance of the graphical user interface of XCSoar InfoBox geometry FLARM display Tab dialogue style Message display Dialogue size Inverse InfoBoxes Colour InfoBoxes A list of possible InfoBox layouts Do some trials to find the best for your screen size The preceding number refer to the total number of InfoBoxes of this geometry In case you enabled the FLARM display this is to configure the place on the screen where the tiny radar window ap pears As a default an Auto setup is possible which means that the radar window will overlay the InfoBoxes and not the map part of the screen Determines whether tabbed dialogues use text or icons Defines the alignment of the status message box either Center or in the TopLeft corner Determines the display size of dialogues If On the InfoBoxes are white on black otherwise black on white If On certain InfoBoxes will have coloured text For example the active waypoint InfoBox will turn blue when the glider is above final glide 159 XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFI
117. espective section Follow them to get to all related details Nav 1 2 Task Previous Next Waypoint Alternates Turnpoint Turnpoint List see 5 5 8 5 8 5 4 5 10 Nav 2 2 Task Mark Target Abort Drop see 5 10 4 9 5 3 You should not start using XCSoar without knowing about the Al ternates feature Any Task related item in the navigation menu is used for planned cross country flight and certainly the second step Display 1 2 Zoom Zoom Zoom Info Pan In Out Auto Cruise On see 4 3 4 3 4 3 3 6 4 4 Display 2 2 Labels Trail Terrain Topo Airspace All Full On Off On Off On Off see 4 7 4 8 4 7 4 7 4 7 28 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE Most of the display menu items are available on gestures or spe cial key short cuts of your device Once you are familiar with XC Soar you probably will use those menu items less frequently Configuration menu Config 1 3 MacCready MacCready MacCready Flight Wind ate Auto see 6 6 6 6 6 13 6 4 7 6 Config 2 3 System Plane Devices File Replay Manager see 13 6 3 13 29 5 14 Config 3 3 Logger Raw Logger Airspace Vega Start see 5 14 5 14 8 3 The configuration menu is typically part of the
118. etween XCSoar and supported external intelligent variometers In the ideal setup both XCSoar and the variometer have a consistent perspective on the flight at all times and that by adjusting the MacCready setting on one device should be kept in sync with the other by the software and to not require additional input from the pilot Pilots abuse the device synchronisation see 13 29 for various reasons You may have different MacCready settings on PDA and XCSoar User Manual 7 2 Audio Variometer 7 3 Air data inputs 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS inteligent vario to cross check the results You may do compu tations with different ballast settings and cross chsck the results You may choose on one of the devices manually a different wind setting and cross check the results etc A list of supported variometers is maintained in Section 2 5 For Vega A small icon displaying a circling glider is displayed when the variometer is in climb audio mode In addition to the variometer display XCSoar provides an acous tic variometer which transfers the variometer measurements are transferre into sounds The audio variometer is for now only avail able on android devices For proper performance connect your device to a barometric sensor or use the internal one of your an droid device if provided The audio vario is enabled disabled via the gauges configuration in the configuration Where additional aircraft dynamics or air mass data are pro
119. f the second copy carrying extension bak Whereas the prf file will show up on startup and reflect all of your changes made whilst XCSoar is running for the next startup the file bak will keep the settings you judged being worth it to preserve As an example you might create a set of files as is e buddiesinArcus prf e buddiesinArcus bak e johninKa6atwonderland prf e johninKa6atwonderland bak SIM mode XCSoar comes with a simple interface allowing for conducting a simulated flight Depending on the hardware platform there are different methods for altering values of bearing speed an height Simulation is intended for your first familiarization with XCSoar in action If you like the idea simulating a more realistic thing at home you should acquire a true soaring simulator to be con nected to XCSoar On the map screen clicking touching the glider symbol with touch Screen or mouse and dragging causes the glider to move in the direction of the drag the speed being proportional to the length of the drag With buttons the aircraft speed altitude and direction may be changed using the Infoboxes The following may not be available in total on every hardware platform but on any of the platforms XCSoar supports a full set of inputs needed for simulation pur poses is possible 22 XCSoar User Manual Splash screen Exiting the program 2 INSTALLATION By pushing an Infobox you select a value to be altered by but
120. f computed route and speed This value is used in final 83 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER glide calculations as well as the determination and display of reachable landable fields Terrain clearance This is the elevation above ground below which any com puted glide path is considered to provide inadequate clear ance to the terrain The terrain clearance value affects the glide range display and if the final glide at any point dips be low the terrain clearance elevation above ground a warning marker large red cross is drawn on the screen If the ter rain elevation model is invalid or out of range then the glide range display and the terrain warning marker is disabled Break off height This is the elevation above ground below which it is recom mended for pilots to consider the cross country task failed and to concentrate on finding a suitable field to land in Cur rently this break off height does not affect XCSoar in any way but it is referenced in the manual Best glide angle in wind nR unreachable due to e Arrival above safety height Glideslope above terrain safety height Landpoint reachable A terrain safety height X terrain warning marker Arrival below safety height Glideslope below terrain safety height Landpoint unreachable O A Arrival above safety height Glideslope below terrain safety height Landpoint unreachable a Arrival height b Terrain clearance These may be
121. fferent ways either as an infobox overlay or even in the main area The traditional variometer gauge is different This needle style gauge is invoked permanently by choosing an infobox layout including the variome ter on the right side of the other infoboxes There are several ways to interact with XCSoar e Touching certain map elements e Touching InfoBoxes and on screen menu buttons e Gesturing by e g drawing a dash from the left to the right on the screen see Section 3 12 below e Dragging the screen touching the screen and moving be fore releasing e Pressing application buttons on the device e Pressing the cursor keys on the device e Pressing keys or switches on an instrument connected to XCSoar Depending on the particular hardware used with XCSoar not all of these methods of interaction are possible and there may be different numbers or assignments of buttons For the PC version of XCSoar clicking the mouse over an item is equivalent to touching it Since the Altair does not have a touch screen all user interac tion is performed via physical buttons switches or other external interface devices if connected 26 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE 3 3 The main button menu Interface basics The button menu is a set of buttons drawn on the screen and activated by touch or hardware button presses Using buttons and the button menu is the primary way the user interacts with XCSoar
122. filter the waypoint list by bearing 120 and the proper distance of the triangles edge The filter references to the first waypoint of our trianlge Repeat the last step as required for an additional waypoint The last waypoint is the finish waypoint The task is now entered You may declare it and send the task to a connected logger device 130 XCSoar User Manual In flight After landing 11 QUICKSTART The current waypoint will advance automatically as the pilot flies through the observation zones After the task is started the Status dialogue can be opened to verify a valid start was detected Valid Start should be tagged as true The start time can be reviewed the start height is saved and the min finish hight according given rules is shown At all times the black track arrow will point at the next way point The blue arrow will point at the direction the glider should track when in cruise If Zoom Auto is activated the map will automatically zoom in as task waypoints are approached Atthe appropriate times adjust the MacCready by the menu the task calculator or the connected variometer or activate MC Auto If the MacCready mode was set to Final Glide or Both then the system will command the optimal speed to return home and the MacCready value will be set to the minimum climb rate at which it is beneficial to continue to climb
123. from the aircraft Filters out waypoints that are not in a specified direction from the aircraft An additional special direction HDG 0 filters waypoints within 30 degrees to either side of the heading of the glider This allows the pilot to point the glider at a group of waypoints and quickly find them Filters out waypoints that are not of the specified type Land able point Airport or Turnpoint or that appear in the spec ified File 1 or File 2 primary or secondary waypoint file re spectively When filtering by name and type the list of matching waypoints is sorted by name When in addition filtering by distance or direc tion the list of matching waypoints is sorted by distance 56 XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS Select Waypoint Select Lahr Elevation 156 m 125 175 Name Kirchzarten Elevation 415 m 122 475 MHz Flugplatz 7 Freibur Distance Q 9 Elevation 242 m 118 250 75 km Bremgarten x B Direction Elevation 213 m 122 000 e Altdorf Wallbur Elevation 194 m 127 150 Type Airtort Q Muellheim tl a ____ Elevation 292 m 129 975 e Reiselfingen Elevation 746 m 123 000 6 0 Cancel Colmar Meyenheim 424 km y dh The list can be scrolled if there is more than one screen full of matching waypoints To scroll through the list simply drag with the finger or move to the bottom or top of the list with the cursor Select
124. ght want to gain benefit of XCSoar s numerous task and competition related computations In order to get them related to the competi tion s phases you might like the idea of defining two special use cases with pages for the phase before start another one for whilst racing If you are in search for a specific value to be displayed give it a try in chapter 12 Infobox reference There is a big chance you will find it On the ground As a manager on duty you might use a screen page show ing the Flarm Radar solely This might happen on a PC screen running XCSoar being connected to a Flarm receiver Whatever you would like to display take into account the use case and screen pages concept To go through the various screen pages use the left right cur sor keys Altair or gesture left right touch screen or via menu button in menu Display 1 2 showing a dynamic label changing accordingly to the screenpage s content to show up next Display Info Info Info Info 1 2 Circling Cruise FinalGlide 33 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE Modifying InfoBox content This section applies only when a touch screen or mouse is present Some InfoBox values can be changed by the user by selecting i e long pressing the InfoBox with the touch screen or mouse This brings up a small tabular dialogue Edit Allows the pilot to adjust the InfoBox setting e g raise or
125. glider position mo E 5 0 m s 5 0 m s The two screen shots are taken in a few seconds sequence to demonstrate the practical usage of the rotating climb diagram A simple recipe to optimise the climb rate according to the assistant would be to follow these two steps repeatealy 1 At the moment the maximum peak on the polar diagram passes the top of the display that is a quarter of the cir cle before you reach that part again Open the circle a bit to displace the circle centre in the direction of the strongest climb rate 2 At the moment the maximum peak on the polar diagram passes the gliders position the vario should show the max imal climb rate Narrow the circle as much as possible to centre the thermal updraft at it s maximum It must be said that the interpretation of the thermal assistant allways relays on the specific lag of the connected sensor and PDA itself A successful updraft optimisation will thus depend on a bit training to take the lag into account 7 10 Convection forecast If the glider is equipped with an outside temperature and humidity probe a simple convection forecast system estimates the convec tion ceiling and the cloud base The humidity probe is optional and is mainly required for estimating cloud base Prior to takeoff or during flight the pilot can modify the maximum forecast temperature on the ground by adjusting the value in the Forecast Temperature InfoBox 100 XCSoar User Manual
126. ground interaction with XCSoar You are not expected to spend much time in flight with tweaking the configuration except you manually adjust wind or MacCready settings The Vega item gives control over the Vega intelligent variometer This comprises a sub menu Information menu Info 1 3 FLARM METAR What s Check Analysis Radar TAF here list see 8 5 7 12 3 8 5 15 Info 2 3 Status Weather Team FLARM Thermal Code Details Assistant see 4 12 FAS 8 6 7 9 Info 3 3 Credits Airspaces Message Repeat see 15 6 The information menu is always a good address when not only a clue on how to set MacCready is requested but rather more elaborate help on a larger scope tactical decision on your flight is requested 29 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE The Vega variometer sub menu of the configuration menu Vega 1 Airframe Setup Manual Setup Accel Switches Audio Demo Stall Vega 2 ASI Accel Store Cruise Climb Zero Zero Demo Demo The functions in this sub menu require the Vega intelligent vari ometer The menu can only be accessed if Vega is selected as the connected device The pan mode sub menu of the Display menu Pan Pan Zoom Zoom What s Off in out here see 4 4 This sub menu unfortunately overlays the full screen map view of the p
127. gues are typically started from the button menu Many of the dialogue windows have multiple pages of information and are controlled in a consistent fashion Press the lt or gt buttons to select the next or previous page of the dialogue and the Close button to make the dialogue disappear The escape key on a PC or the PWR ESC button on Altair can also be used to close dialogues The user must close the dialogue to return to the map view When a dialogue has been opened the main button menu is disabled until the dialogue is closed In some dialogues items that are not relevant or valid such as AAT details when flying a non AAT task are not displayed A summary of the major dialogues is presented below Flight setup Used to modify the polar of the glider both before and during flight as well as to set the QNH pressure Wind Used to modify or adjust the estimated wind magnitude and direction Waypoint details Describes a waypoint in detail and has navigation functions such as GoTo and Insert in Task 35 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE Waypoint list Used to select a waypoint from the waypoint database Task manager Used to create modify and view cross country tasks Analysis Shows several pages of analysis and statistics about the flight Status The status dialogues give summaries of the situation of the aircraft system task start and times Configuration
128. h no intrusion into club gliders necessary A basic system might be helpful if all of your club mates are rather conventionally oriented or if you are a parachutist with very little instrument space 118 XCSoar User Manual XCSoar Classic Setup Functionality Application 9 INTEGRATION An XCSoar classic system is a basic system plus a Flarm con nected As long as the family of Flarm and Flarm like hardware uses serial communication ports a first piece of glue hardware appears necessary in many cases There are several pieces of hardware available converting signals form Flarm s serial port to either USB or even radio link Bluetooth As you might have expected Flarm itself gives you a collision de tection system Added integration value first of all might be a rock steady GPS reception With precise GPS fixes XCSoar s actual readings improve a lot Still reception is heavily dependent on the pilot s mounting of the GPS antenna Place it in a definite profes sional manner and verify reception Further added value is about Flarm devices giving you an air pressure measurement This enables XCSoar to compute QNH height It is much more precise than height derived from the GPS calculations due to the fact GPS height is the value with the worst precision out of all publicly available GPS measures Uncertainty in height is around 50 meters Additionally XCsoar takes the position data of others around you from Flarm and dra
129. h the radials are drawn If conditions im prove the task can be resumed by selecting the same menu but ton that aborted the task now denoting Resume Task The active waypoint prior to aborting the task is then restored along with all the other task details Alternates Alternates are maintained throughout the flight reflecting good air Nav 1 2 gt Alternates menship by always keeping an eye on possible alternates Six landing options are maintained They are filtered by the config 13 10 4 ured alternates mode criteria Simple Task or Home Choosing 65 XCSoar User Manual Halbmeil X Hausach Winzeln Schram Boesingen Ul 9 Z 9 4 Trollenberg Distance 15 0 km Arrival Alt 238 m Distance 9 74 km Arrival Aft 284 m Distance 15 3 km Arrival Aft 172 m Distance 6 80 km Arrival Alt 6 m 123 650 MHz Distance 13 2 km Arrival Alt 223 m 123 425 MHz 5 11 Task status Info 2 gt Status 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS Task or Home puts some bias on the presentation of alternates to the heading you were taking whilst still task oriented As is with every waypoint list additional information might be called by tapping Details before deciding which final to go Select a waypoint from the list and push Goto Although the items on the alternate list obey different rules they interact in the same way
130. he configuration settings The first of these is intended for use as the primary SUA database the second is intended for use with short term or changing airspace such as the airspace defined in NOTAMs It is the user s responsibility to ensure that the SUA database air space file is up to date Through a connected FLARM device the glide computer can also display information relating to FLARM equipped nearby traffic and obstacle threats A team code function allows teams of pilots to exchange their po sitions via radio in a short code encoded and decoded by the computer Local special use airspace regions are drawn on the map as shaded areas with thick borders The colour and pattern of the areas are specific to different airspace categories and may be configured by the user Depending on the settings the user may choose to display all airspaces only airspaces below a certain altitude only airspace within a particular height separation or only airspace be low the glider The patterns used to display airspace areas include opaque trans parent hollow and several hatched and stippled patterns The non opaque patterns are partially transparent with respect to ter rain and topography but are not transparent with respect to over lapping airspace However where overlapping airspace occurs all borders are visible That is even though airspace patterns are not mutually transparent all airspace borders are drawn on top of the air
131. http forum xcsoar org If your concern appears not already addressed post it or email us xcsoar user lists sourceforge net Any frequent questions will be added to this document and to the Frequently Asked Questions FAQ section of the XCSoar web site You may also find it useful to subscribe to the XCSoar users mailing list so you will be kept up to date with latest developments If all of this does not help you probably discovered a bug Like any complex software program XCSoar may be subject to software bugs so if you find any please report them to the XCSoar developers by using our bug tracker portal at http www xcsoar org trac 11 XCSoar User Manual Updates 1 INTRODUCTION or by sending an email to xcsoar devel lists sourceforge net XCSoar logs many valuable things in a logfile xcsoar 1og in the XCSoarData directory The logfile can be appended to the bug ticket in order to help XCSoar developers determine the cause of possible problems For Altair users the logfile is transferred to the FromAltair directory by AltairSync if a USB drive is plugged in when Altair is first switched on If you like the idea of doing some more get involved http www xcsoar org develop You should periodically visit the XCSoar website to check for pro gram updates The installation procedure described above can typically be repeated in order to upgrade the software All user configuration settings and data files wil
132. icense applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License The Program below refers to any such program or work and a work based on the Program means either the Program or any derivative work un der copyright law that is to say a work containing the Program or a portion of it either verbatim or with modifications and or trans lated into another language Hereinafter translation is included without limitation in the term modification Each licensee is ad dressed as you Activities other than copying distribution and modification are not covered by this License they are outside its scope The act of running the Program is not restricted and the output from the Pro gram is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program independent of having been made by running the Pro gram Whether that is true depends on what the Program does 2 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program s source code as you receive it in any medium provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appro priate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program You may charge a fee for the physical act
133. ide computer assumes the glider s average cross country speed is equal to that achievable under classic MacCready theory 87 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER taking wind into account with the current MacCready setting This method is used for estimating arrival times and task finish time The following task speed measures are defined Task speed achieved This is the task speed to date compensated for altitude dif ferences from the task start altitude Task speed average This is the task speed to date compensated for altitude re quired to complete the task Task speed remaining This is the task speed estimated for the remainder of the task according to MacCready theory Task speed instantaneous This is the instantaneous estimated speed along the task Ea When climbing at the MacCready setting this number will be similar to the estimated task speed When climbing slowly or flying off course this number will be lower than the esti mated task speed In cruise at the optimum speed in zero lift this number will be similar to the estimated task speed This measure available as an InfoBox is useful as a con tinuous indicator of the cross country performance It is not used in any internal calculations For assigned area tasks at the same time a new task time es timation is calculated the target position is optimised For each variable target set to auto can XCSoar tweak the position so that the AAT
134. ig 2 gt System gt Glide Computer Safety Factors gt Auto bugs The ballast is set in litres of water Depending on the specifically set dry mass of the glider this may optionally include a weight margin to provide for different pilot weights When flying with no ballast a heavy pilot may set a ballast value of perhaps 15 so that the polar is appropriately adjusted for the increased cockpit weight 79 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER Mass 592 kg Wing loading 50 1 kg m2 Mass 472 kg Wing loading 40 0 kg m2 80 120 160 200 240 V km h 6 4 Flight setup dialogue Config 1 gt Flight Use the flight settings dialogue to modify the all up weight of the glider both before and during flight as well as to set the QNH pressure Flight Setup Ballast 15 I Wing loading n2kgm 0 Bugs ow QNH fios Max temp 17 C Dump OK The bugs setting determines the amount the polar is degraded due to contamination during a long flight A bugs setting of 0 will cause the software to use the clean polar A bugs setting of 50 will degrade the polar and effectively doubling the sink rate for a given airspeed The ballast setting is used to modify the polar to account for any water ballast carried during the flight Ballast is shown in litres and should be set to correspond to the correct water ballast added before f
135. ing an AAT task the navigation system directs the glider to the target and statistics like distance to waypoint are also rela tive to the target rather than the waypoint of the AAT area itself Automatic task waypoint advancement does not trigger when en tering an AAT area solely The pilot has to arm the turn manually 66 XCSoar User Manual Manually moving targets 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS to advance to the next turn When arming the AAT turn while flying through the OZ also the task optimiser is triggered to capture the realized AAT target and bring the target optimisation for the rest of the task up to date See Section 5 8 for details In order to make the specification of targets more straightforward their location is defined by a range parameter that determines how far from the minimum to maximum possible distance the target is This is expressed as a percentage For example with range set to 100 the target is located to give the maximum overall task distance With range set to 10096 the target is located to give the minimum overall task distance Zero range yields a nominal task distance for sectors the target is half way along the bisector radial for cylinders the target is in the center of the cylinder The task calculator dialogue see Section 5 5 shows the aver age percentage over all turns in the AAT Range field The targets can be individually modified from the target dialogue of the task calculator AAT
136. ing an item will result in different behaviour depending on what function opened the waypoint selector In typical use it brings up the waypoint details dialogue for the selected waypoint 5 5 Task manager The task manager has undergone significant redesign compared with earlier versions of XC Soar The task manager is used to edit view load save to file and Nav 1 2 gt Task declare cross country tasks The primary page is a calculator It shows various calculations related to the active task as described in detail below In addition there are buttons for invoking dialogues Turn Points Manage and Rules as well as a button to Close the task manager Task calculator dialog The task calculator dialogue allows the pilot to see the effect of Calculator various changes to the task on final performance In flight the Task Calculator might also be accessed from the Anal ysis pages With pages Task Climb and TaskSpeed a button Task Calc comes up that directly changes to the Task Calculator Screen 57 XCSoar User Manual Estimated task time Task distance Set MacCready AAT range Speed remaining Achieved MacCreagy Achieved speed Cruise efficiency 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS ask M anager Calculator Estimated task time 0 min Task distance Set MacCready 0 5 m s
137. ired altitude to reach the final waypoint at MC zero In all FLARM environment the colour of the target indicates the threat level 13 15 Gauges Vario This page bundles all details to the vario gauge and is entirely classified as expert setup Speed arrows Show average Show MacCready Show bugs Show ballast Show gross Averager needle Whether to show speed command arrows on the vario gauge When shown in cruise mode arrows point up to command slow down arrows point down to command speed up Whether to show the average climb rate In cruise mode this switches to showing the average net airmass rate Whether to show the MacCready setting Whether to show the bugs percentage Whether to show the ballast percentage Whether to show the gross vario value If true the vario gauge will display a hollow averager needle During cruise this needle displays the average net value During circling this needle displays the average gross value 156 XCSoar User Manual 13 16 Gauges Audio Vario 13 CONFIGURATION This page bundles all details to the audio vario gauge Audio Vario Volume Enable Deadband Min Frequency Zero Frequency Max Frequency Deadband min lift Deadband max lift Enable Disable the audio variometer Set the volume of the variometer sounds Enable Disable the mute for audio output when the current lift is in a certain range around zero
138. is only visible if the selected waypoint is included in the active task sets the waypoint as the home airfield switches to pan mode and pans to that waypoint It is a good idea to set your home waypoint from the waypoint details dialogue This causes XCSoar to start up at the home location regardless of whether a GPS fix is received If no home is set then XCSoar starts in the centre of the terrain map Airfield information This page may contain relevant text from the enroute supplement about the airfield including runways radio frequencies traffic pat terns contacts Waypoint details image This page shows a satellite image of the waypoint 55 XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS How to set up the detailed waypoint information read section 14 5 5 4 Waypoint selector dialogue The waypoint selector is a dialogue that allows waypoints to be easily selected from a potentially large database Invoking the selector brings up a filtering dialogue screen with a Nav 1 2 gt Waypoint List set of optional filters on the left side of the page and a list of waypoints on the right matching all of the filtering conditions set There are several filters available which may be used together individually or not at all Name Distance Direction Type Selects waypoints starting with the string typed Filters out waypoints farther than a specified distance
139. ite Files 147 13 5 Map Display Orientation 148 13 6 Map Display Elements 148 13 7 Map Display Waypoints 149 13 8 Map Display Terrain 150 13 9 Map Display Airspace lesen 152 13 10Glide Computer Safety Factors 153 13 11 Glide Computer Glide Computer 154 13 12Glide Computer Wind 155 13 13Glide Computer Route 155 13 14Gauges FLARM Other 156 13 15Gauges Vario lens 156 13 16Gauges Audio Vario o 157 13 17Task Defaults Task Rules 157 13 18Task Defaults Turnpoint Types 158 13 19Look Language Input 158 13 20Look Screen Layout o o 159 13 21Look InfoBox Pages or just Pages 160 13 22Look InfoBox Modes or InfoBox Sets 160 1323Setup Logger lens 161 1324Setup Loggerinfo 00 161 13 25 Setup Units uo ave yog cw Rcs SOROR qe eue 162 13265Setup Lime v voor Se ss 162 13 27Setup Tracking llle 162 13 28Configure Plane o o 163 13 29Configure Devices o 164 14 Data Files 166 14 1 File management 0 166 14 2 Map Database o o 167 14 3 Waypoints user pod aa e E 167 14 4 Airspace 4 he es rr e bow a 168 145 Airfiel
140. ite contours Simple large Enlarged simple graphics for better visibility on a small display Detailed Rendered aircraft graphics HangGlider Simplified hang glider as line graphics white with black contours ParaGlider Simplified para glider as line graphics white with black contours Determines the way the wind arrow is drawn on the map Off No wind arrow is drawn Arrow head Draws an arrow head only Full arrow Draws an arrow head with a dashed arrow line Whether to show FAI triangle areas on the map 13 7 Map Display Waypoints This page provides options relating to the map display 149 XCSoar User Manual Label format Label format Full name Landable symbols B W Arrival height Label style Waypoint label visibility Landable symbols Detailed landables Landable size Scale runway length 13 8 Map Display Terrain ef This page sets how terrain and topography is drawn on the map window The effect of the changed terrain settings are directly visible at the small preview below 13 CONFIGURATION This setting determines the label format displayed with each waypoint There are four different format options Full name The full name of each waypoint is displayed First word of name Only the first word up to the first space of the waypoint name is displayed First 3 letters The first 3 letters of the waypoint name are displayed First 5 le
141. k Dolphin Speed to Fly Airspeed is reduced in lift and increased in sink Airmass Vertical Motion A configuration option Block speed to fly see Section 13 11 can be used to specify whether dolphin or block speed to fly is used The infobox V Opt shows the optimum speed according to whichever mode is selected When connected to the Vega intel ligent variometer the speed command sounds are based on this optimum speed value 6 7 Speedto fly with risk The speed to fly system can be compensated for risk in which the MacCready setting used for calculating the speed to fly in both Block or Dolphin modes is reduced as the glider gets low Many pilots typically wind down the MC as they get low this fea ture performs this automatically The theory governing how this is implemented in XCSoar is based loosely on the paper by John Cochrane MacCready Theory with Uncertain Lift and Limited Al titude Technical Soaring 23 3 July 1999 88 96 http download xcsoar org papers john cochrane safety glides pdf 82 XCSoar User Manual 6 8 Safety heights 6 GLIDE COMPUTER A configuration parameter y STF risk factor in the configura tion settings under page Glide Computer controls how the risk MC value is calculated The factor determines the fraction of the current MacCready setting as a function of the height fraction The height fraction used in this calculation is the ratio of the height above t
142. k Pagden zeugma Morten Jensen Kostas Hellas kostas hellas gmail com Alexander Caldwell alcald3000 yahoo com Xavi Domingo xavi santmodest net Arnaud Talon Adrien Ott adrien ott gmail com Matthieu Gaulon Filip Novkoski f 1novkoski gmail com Szombathelyi Zoltan szombathelyi zoltan main hu 180 Ur Balazs urbalazs gmail com Paolo Pelloni paolo paolopelloni it Piero Missa pieromissa virgilio it Masahiro Mori mron n08 itscom net Jinichi Nakazawa jin nakazawaQwkk co jp Mike Myungha Kuh Rob Hazes Thomas Amland thomas amland gmail com Quint Segers Wil Crielaars kawa1998 home n1 Krzysztof Kajda Michat Tworek Tiago Silva Mario Souza Julio Cezar Santos Pires juliocspires gmail com Wladimir Kummer de Paula Pop Paul poppalil yahoo com Dobrovolsky llya ilya 420inbox ru Mats Larsson mats a larsson gmail com Mauro Henrique Muniz Tamburini mauro tamburini com br Contributions attributed to the LK8000 project http www 1k8000 ity Other code and algorithms contributions come from Ephemeris Shapelib Least squares Aviation Formulary JasPer Volkslogger support Circling wind analyser Jarmo Lammi Frank Warmerdam http shapelib maptools org Curtis Olson http www flightgear org curt Ed Williams http williams best vwh net avform htm Michael D Adams http www ece uvic ca mdadams jasper Garrecht Ingenieurgesellschaft Andr Somers http www kflog org cumulus Appe
143. kly as well as support his deep understanding of all the features concepts and tactics introduced At all times the authors made their effort for doing this from a pilot s perspective and honestly hope for having succeeded The authors highly encourage you to take your time reading the entire manual chapter by chapter with exception of the reference chapters Infoboxes and Configuration Feel assured the time you will have spent will pay off as a manifold in understanding On your way reading you might feel blue once in a while That is why the authors introduced some blueish things links and icons x A Figure 1 1 Icons configuration reminder gesture warning Warning The icon warning is used whenever things shall be fol lowed strictly Not following will cause unexpected results total disfunction or even danger to life Proceed only if warning under stood Gesture A swipe gesture input is available using devices with a touch screen to invoke a menu or function amongst others In this example DU stands for moving your fingertip down then up in straight lines on the screen Specific Gesture Whenever the manual s authors kept up with XCSoar User Manual 1 INTRODUCTION XCSoar s rapid development process in writing a specific icon is provided depicting the movements Reminder This icon tags a tip trick things you might remind after having read corresponding sections and so on Configuration see Th
144. l be preserved during the re installation upgrade It is also recommended to periodically check for updates to data files particularly Special Use Airspace which may be subject to change by the national civil aviation authority Updating XCSoar on Altair 1 5 Training Using XCSoar on the PC Updating XCSoar on Altair involves downloading the latest pro gram file XCSoarAltair YYY CRCXX exe copying it to a USB mem ory stick then using the AltairSync utility on the Altair device to complete the installation Refer to the Altair Owner s Manual for details Other data and program files can be transferred to Altair in a sim ilar way For the safety of yourself and others pilots using XCSoar are ad vised to train themselves in using XCSoar on the ground and be come familiar with its interface and features prior to flight The PC versions of XCSoar may be used to become familiar with XCSoar s interface and functionality in the comfort of one s home All files and configuration used by this version are identical to the embedded versions so it can be helpful to try out customisations on the PC version before using them in flight 12 XCSoar User Manual 1 INTRODUCTION The PC versions can also be connected to external devices and operate just as the embedded versions do Suggested uses in clude e Connect the PC to a FLARM device to use XCSoar as a ground station display of FLARM equipped traffic e Connect the PC
145. l glide mode with concurrent support for multiple optional targets However in perception the abort mode simply supports your urgent decision where and how to go finally see section 5 10 In this case a safety MacReady value is set Hence the switch to abort mode is based on the pilot s cognition Due to the fact the different flight modes typically are reflected in differring things being displayed the frequent XCSoar user might get used to some kind of watching a display mode This is just the default perceived after having installed XCSoar without having done some advanced configuration As holds true for almost ev erything within XCSoar the display s behavior might be changed adding value for the advanced user But altering things in XCSoar does not influence the conditions for entering a flight mode they do not change In order to take full advantage of the flight modes concept XCSoar will always show you which mode is active A small symbol is drawn on the lower right corner of the map area to indicate which flight mode the computer is in a Y 0 9 Cruise a The glider is not circling and there is either no task active or the task waypoint is not the finish point Circling b The glider is circling though it may not be climbing Final glide c The glider is not circling and the active waypoint is the final one in the task Abort d This manually triggered mode indicates the immediate
146. l separation Key F6 on Altair ACK Day Acknowledge all current and future warning levels from this particular airspace region for the rest of the flight specifi cally until Altair XCSoar is restarted Key F7 on Altair 109 XCSoar User Manual 8 AIRSPACE TRAFFIC AND TEAM FLYING Enable Cancels an acknowledgement of the airspace to reactivate all warnings from this space Key F8 on Altair Close Closes the airspace warning dialogue without acknowledg ing airspace The dialogue will re open automatically if the airspace warning level increases Note that not all acknowledgement buttons may be visible for all warning levels In particular if inside SUA you do not have the option to Acknowledge the Warning ACK Warn since it is at this point no longer warning of an impending airspace incursion but in fact stating that you are currently inside the airspace The general guidelines for using the dialogue are e Don t acknowledge a warning if you intend to or must avoid the airspace e The warning system beep only occurs when the warning level increases e The warning system is designed to allow circling near an airspace without over stressing the pilot with extraneous warn ings When an airspace region is acknowledged the region is drawn on the screen without a pattern When the aircraft is predicted to enter an SUA region or it actu ally enters an SUA region a warning is raised presented as an audio aler
147. le pilot weight XCSoar expect you to include your own weight to the dry mass Wing area Optional specification of the wing area of the glider type V rough air Optional the maximum manoeuvring speed can be entered on this page to prevent the glide computer from commanding unrealistic cruise speeds Handicap The handicap factor used for the On Line Contest scoring Max ballast Optional the amount of water ballast XCSoar refers to as 100 ballast Set to zero if it does not apply Dump time The time in seconds needed for dumping full ballast 13 29 Configure Devices Config 2 3 gt Devices B Borgelt B50 B800 on COM2 E Port COMI Baudrate 19200 The Devices page is used to specify the ports used to commu nicate with the GPS and other serial devices The default set tings are COM1 and 4800 bits per second When connected to the Vega intelligent variometer the settings should be COM1 and 38400 Four devices can be configured device A through D One for example can be connected to a GPS and another to a second device such as a variometer If there is no further device set the unused ports to Disabled XCSoar will then ignore those ports COM ports 0 to 10 may be used including a TCP IP connection Which COM port is appropriate for you depends on what brand of PDA you use and the communications medium serial cable Bluetooth virtual COM port SD card or CF based GPS
148. ledge time Use black outline Airspace fill mode Controls how airspace display and warnings are filtered based on altitude The airspace filter dialogue also allows filter ing of display and warnings independently for each airspace class All on All the airspace information is displayed at the same time Clip Only airspace below a user determined altitude is shown Auto Only airspace at the current altitude plus or minus a user definable margin is shown All below Like auto plus every airspace below the glider is shown For clip mode this is the altitude below which airspace is displayed For auto and all below airspace mode this is the height above below which airspace is included Determines whether warnings are enabled or disabled This is the time before an incursion is estimated at which the system will warn the pilot This is the time period in which an acknowledged airspace warning will not be repeated Draws a black outline around each airspace Specifies the mode for filling the airspace area Fill all Transparently fills the airspace colour over the whole area 152 XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFIGURATION Fill padding Draws a solid outline with a half transparent border around the airspace Default This selects the best performing option for your hardware In fact it favours Fil padding except for PPC 2000 system Airspace transparency If enabled then airspaces are filled tran
149. les If a user has cycled through the waypoint manually this does not mean that the glider has successfully passed the waypoint How ever this facility is useful to force a task restart or to skip a way point when flying a casual cross country task Tasks can be restarted simply by manually cycling back through the waypoints to the start In all modes if the glider re enters the start zone or crosses the start of the previous start the task will be automatically restarted When selecting Previous turnpoint the trigger that detects auto advance for that waypoint is cleared meaning that the task man ager expects the aircraft to fly to that observation zone OZ again before continuing the task The pilot may still select Next turnpoint to advance to the next task waypoint A system beep and message is given on task waypoint advance The messages are given when the system advances the task way point automatically or in manually arm mode when the system is armed and the aircraft is in sector Task start appears when the aircraft has crossed the start line or exited the start sector This can be repeated any time Next turnpoint appears when the aircraft has entered the observation sec tor for turnpoints Turns with variable target advance as soon as ArmTurn is pushed For the manual arm mode if the aircraft has already entered the observation sector and left pushing arm will cause the task
150. light The ballast setting modifies the polar to account for the indicated load of water ballast Use this dialogue both before and during the flight to record the mean sea level atmospheric pressure also known as QNH pres 80 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER sure The software uses the values entered to convert airspace flight levels into altitudes If connected to a supported intelligent variometer with an altimeter the altitude is updated on this dia logue as the QNH pressure is adjusted This makes it easy to set the QNH pressure if the airfield elevation is known The maximum forecast ground temperature is used by the con vection forecast algorithm see Section 7 10 in its determination of estimated convection height and cloud base It is possible to configure XCSoar to display the basic settings dialogue when it starts up Ea On system startup after the GPS has acquired lock and if a baro metric altitude source is connected e g Vega AltairPro FLARM the QNH is automatically adjusted This adjustment sets the QNH such that the barometric altitude equals the terrain altitude The QNH is only updated if the aircraft is on the ground for more than 10 seconds so that if XCSoar is restarted during flight QNH will not be adjusted The update only occurs also if the terrain database is valid at the current aircraft location 6 5 Speed command display When used in conjunction with an intelligent variometer that
151. mal path is shown as a thick red line The score and computed optimal distance is approximate When the aircraft has landed the displayed result gets not up dated anymore A flight logger conforming to the IGC file specification can be used to record flights Several flight loggers are accessible via XCSoar e A software based logger All versions of XCSoar have this functionality The logger conforms to the IGC standard but is not certified 71 XCSoar User Manual Setup 13 29 4 Logger activation g Start Logger With Declaration Luebeck Blankens Biarritz Bayonne 5 CHOSS COUNTRY TASKS e For example the PRO version of Altair has an internal IGC certified logger device XCSoar communicates with the log ger as to any other external device e XCSoar can also send declarations to some external logger devices For this to work the device must be specified in the Devices section of the configuration settings e For some of the numerous logger devices XCSoar can down load IGC files This is convenient especially for logger de vices which are not that easy removable from the glider For a complete matrix of the supported logger features see sec tion 2 5 The configuration is described in detail in section 13 23 Details to the log files can be found in section 14 10 The logger can be turned on and off automatically or manually For para glider XCSoar provides the option to only start the logger
152. map just in time The tracking option needs the capability to connect to mobile networking as offered by your glide computer Currently there are two tracking protocols implemented Sky Lines as a spin off project from XCSoar itself for details on this service have a look at http skylines xcsoar org And also the LiveTrack24 protocol used e g by the tracking portal on http www livetrack24 com Please consult the web pages of the service provider listed under Server for details on this setup SkyLines Switch this On to enable the live stream of your position to SkyLines Tracking Interval The time interval for which one position is send to the track ing service SkyLines implements a very lean protocol so that even a 30 sec interval does not exhaust a plain GPRS connection ca 12kbit sec Key Create a key on the page http skylines xcsoar org tracking info and enter it here to identify your positions at the tracking service LiveTrack24 Switch this On to enable the live stream of your position to Live Track24 Tracking Interval The time interval for which one position is send to the track ing service Vehicle Type Type of vehicle used Server The service s web address to stream your position to There is currently a choice of some predefined Username If you created an account you can enter those credentials here Otherwise the track will be logged as guesf and
153. meter is connected When Block mode speed to fly is selected this InfoBox displays the MacCready speed The thermal rate of climb on next leg which is equivalent to a thermal equal to the MacCready setting on current leg Efficiency of cruise 100 indicates perfect MacCready perfor mance This value estimates your cruise efficiency according to the current flight history with the set MC value Calculation begins after task is started True bearing of the next waypoint For AAT tasks this is the true bearing to the target within the AAT sector True bearing from the next waypoint to your position The distance to the currently selected waypoint For AAT tasks this is the distance to the target within the AAT sector Arrival altitude at the next waypoint relative to the safety arrival height For AAT tasks the target within the AAT sector is used Arrival altitude at the next waypoint with MC 0 setting relative to the safety arrival height For AAT tasks the target within the AAT sector is used Absolute arrival altitude at the next waypoint in final glide For AAT tasks the target within the AAT sector is used Altitude required to reach the next turn point For AAT tasks the target within the AAT sector is used Arrival altitude at the final task turn point relative to the safety arrival height 140 XCSoar User Manual Final altitude required Final distance Distance home Fin AItR Final Dist
154. n clearly shows that the display is oriented as such The scale of the display is linear up to maximum distance of 2000 meters On the background there are two rings the first is a 1000 meters radius and the second is 2000 meters Traffic further away than 2000 meters is drawn at the 2000 meter ring All the FLARM displays shows FLARM traffic in colours accord ing to the threat level or team and dialogue status The traffic is coloured e No color for level 0 no threat e Yellow for level 1 warning e Red for level 2 and 3 alert Green for the team mate e Blue is the selected target For every target above threat level 1 the rough relative hight is shown The supplied figure is the absolute hight difference rounded by 100 A small triangle indicates that the target is higher or lower than you The example radar shows a target approximately 100 meter for metric altitude higher The FLARM radar like display when enabled can be suppressed when visible by pressing the enter button rotary knob on Altair If the FLARM radar is suppressed pressing the enter button again cancels the suppression and the radar is shown again When new traffic appears in the radar or if the FLARM issues a collision warning the suppression is cancelled Once FLARM has reported traffic and the small radar style view of the FLARM traffic gets activated you can tap on the FLARM radar to enlarge the view to fullscreen size The fullscreen FLARM displa
155. n Escape key typically used to close dialog pages or as a cancel func tion The Altair version of XCSoar does not include a simulator mode XCSoar PC version The program can be run by opening the explorer window find ing the directory that has the XCSoar exe executable and double clicking on that program file The program command line options allows the screen orientation of the display to be defined portrait The screen is 480 pixels wide 640 pixels high square The screen is 480 pixels wide 480 pixels high landscape The screen is 640 pixels wide 480 pixels high This is the usual setting If you don t specify this parameter the land scape version will be loaded automatically small Draws the screen at half size This is useful for using XC Soar in conjunction with flight simulators e g Condor To change the screen orientation it is convenient to create a short cut to the program then right click on the shortcut icon and click on Shortcut In the field Target add one of the desired options listed above XCSoar Unix Linux PC version Run xcsoar from a command line or create a shortcut on the desktop The location of the executable file may be found using which xcsoar Only landscape mode is supported for now Loading data files The first time that XCSoar is run it does not automatically load the data files that you placed in the XCSoarData directory To tell XCSoar which files to load doubl
156. n case of task type racing 60 XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS FAI badges records FAI start finish rules If set to On only start times might be set If set to Off all other racing task rules might be altered from the FAI stan dard Once the appropriate task type has been selected and start and finish rules have been defined as described above it is necessary to define the properties of each waypoint in the task 5 7 Turn Points task rules The Turn Points dialogue brings up the list of waypoints in the Turn Points task If no waypoint is already defined this screen will show an empty list With add Turnpoint up and down arrows and Make Finish an ordered list of waypoints is created Waypoints can be start point turnpoint or finish point Highlighting any waypoint on the list and either tapping it again or touching the Edit Point button brings up the waypoint definition Touching Change type will bring up a menu of the various task point types available Def initions of each point type are given below A variety of task rules may be used when specifying tasks includ ing the common FAI triangles and Assigned Area Tasks AAT Many aspects of the rules can also be customised Starting and finishing lines are centred on their associated way point and aligned perpendicular to the next and previous way points respectively Sector turn
157. n reach home when the altitude difference bar is a green arrow pointing upwards Optionally activate MC Auto when ready to return home If the MacCready mode was set to Final Glide or Both then the system will command the optimal speed to return home The Status dialogue shows the elapsed flight time The analysis dialogue can be used to analyse or review the flight The IGC logger replay can be used to replay the flight These actions may be performed after turning the device off and on again In this scenario the pilot intends to fly a triangle FAI task with a single start sector and automatic waypoint advance Turn on the device Open the Flight Setup dialogue and adjust the bugs and ballast as required Set the maximum forecast temperature Close the dialogue Open the Task Edit dialogue and create a blank task by pressing New Select FAI triangle as task type Move the cursor to the add waypoint item and press enter Set the start and sector type and select the desired waypoint from the list and press enter Once finished press close Move the cursor to the add waypoint item again and press enter Select the waypoint from the list and press enter This will add the first waypoint to the task Repeat the procedure for the second waypoint A good idea to find the right second turn is to
158. nce Developer Setup Functionality ES Put in either component not yet mentioned in your XCSoar setup Please be aware that the XCSoar project is targeting the best support of VFR type soaring possible With inputting other func tionality you probably enter a space of ongoing experiments hav ing attracted some attention in the XCSoar community Especially when integrating an AHRS system You are handling non certified components ALL THINGS JUST EVERYTHING you do with XC Soar software is at your own risk With focusing on setups up to the Tactic class of systems the XCSoar community pays lot of at tention on providing stable code software With some integration issues being rather exotic you leave the depth of field of primary focus There might be much too less users for providing a secure testing base for exotic features Although all the times XCSoar s code itself is maintained for stability as long as you are involving released code AHRS stands for Attitude Heading Reference System Although not being in focus of every XCSoar user you should fol low the development process in order to get an up to date survey on additional functionality There is a chance it might pay off Just to give a few examples e With an AHRS type device you are able to use an artificial horizon e RASP data are for lee wave pilots e Additional airspace files focusing on glider pilot s needs 122 XCSoar User Manual 9 INTEGRATION
159. nd current altitude Depending on the setting predict wind drift On the Below indicator shows the required height to gain by thermalling The required height might be quit a bit more with headwind as well as a bit less with tailwind Otherwise predict wind drift set to Off it is just the plain altitude difference Dual altitude required bars The final glide bar has been extended to show the effect of Mac Cready setting on the altitude difference to complete the task The 86 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER display shows with a brighter split arrow the altitude difference calculated at zero MacCready as well as the usual arrow that dis plays the altitude difference calculated at the current MacCready setting The number shown in the box next to the final glide bar still shows the altitude difference at the current MacCready setting Examples of the appearance in various configurations with the ad ditional MC 0 bar display is shown below 152 Above final glide current MC 0 7 Here the display shows that at the current T q Ui IN N UJ UJ a d 965 MacCready setting the aircraft is above final glide filled ar row The split arrow shows the additional excess height Below above final glide e g MC 1 8 Here the display shows that at the current MacCready setting the aircraft is below final glide filled am ber arrow The split green arrow shows that at MC 0 the
160. nd vector The wind data is one of many data sources used to calculate final glide information It is possible to manually adjust the wind used in all calculations Optimal track XCSoar offers two ways of estimating wind during flight Circling This method uses GPS position fixes to estimate the wind based on drift typically while thermalling and is available on all XCSoar installations ZigZag This method uses GPS position fixes and true airspeed mea 13 12 SE surements to estimate the wind typically during cruise It is only available where XCSoar is connected to an intelligent variometer that outputs true airspeed The wind magnitude and direction can also be adjusted manually from the wind settings dialogue see below Statistics are gathered so that winds are recorded at different alti tudes and times When the glider s altitude changes significantly the statistics are consulted to determine the best estimate of the wind based on previous measurements For PC and Pocket PC with touchscreens you can also do this by highlighting the wind InfoBox and using the cursor keys up and down increase and decrease the magnitude left and right rotate the wind direction The configuration settings dialogue allows control of which esti mation method is used for wind updates via the field Auto Wind e Manual e Circling e ZigZag 96 XCSoar User Manual Circling wind algorithm Zig Zag algorithm Comp
161. nditions will be poorer than forecast This parameter estimates the altitude at which the average dry updraft strength drops below 225 fpm and is expected to give better quantitative numbers for the maximum cloudless thermalling height than the BL Top altitude especially when mixing results from vertical wind shear rather than thermals Note the present assumptions tend to underpredict the max thermalling height for dry consitions In the presence of clouds the maximum thermalling height may instead be limited by the cloud base Being for dry thermals this pa rameter omits the effect of cloudsuck Maximum grid area averaged extensive upward or downward motion within the BL as created by horizontal wind conver gence Positive convergence is associated with local small scale convergence lines Negative convergence divergence produces subsiding vertical motion creating low level inver sions which limit thermalling heights This parameter estimates the altitude of the cumulus cloud base 105 XCSoar User Manual 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS The colour schemes used in rendering the RASP contours are illustrated in the table below 106 8 Airspace Traffic and Team Flying 8 1 Airspace display A database of Special Use Airspace SUA can be loaded into XCSoar and used for both display of the airspace regions as well as detecting when the glider enters and leaves the regions Two airspace files can be set in t
162. ndix A GNU General Public License GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2 June 1991 Copyright C 1989 1991 Free Software Foundation Inc 59 Temple Place Suite 330 Boston MA 02111 1307 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this li cense document but changing it is not allowed Preamble The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it By contrast the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software to make sure the software is free for all its users This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation s software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library Gen eral Public License instead You can apply it to your programs too When we speak of free software we are referring to freedom not price Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software and charge for this service if you wish that you receive source code or can get it if you want it that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs and that you know you can do these things To protect your rights we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights These restrictions translate to
163. ne Aircraft is outside and distant from airspace Near Aircraft is predicted to penetrate the airspace and is close to doing so RSG Aircraft is inside airspace At all times XCSoar monitors the aircraft relative to all airspace and maintains warning levels for each The airspace warnings are still filtered according to the airspace filter preferences such that certain categories of airspace may be effectively disabled The sequence of events when entering an airspace results typically in two warnings when near level 1 and when inside level 2 ACK Warn ACK Day Close Whenever the warning level increases above level 0 for any airspace the airspace warning dialogue appears accompanied by a system beep from Altair or the PDA When there are no more airspace regions at warning levels above 0 the dialogue disappears auto matically 108 XCSoar User Manual 8 AIRSPACE TRAFFIC AND TEAM FLYING Airspace warning dialogue The airspace warning dialogue contains a list of up to 4 individual warnings The list items status background is coloured red if the glider is inside and yellow if near If the warning is acknowledged the text is greyed out Each list item occupies two rows and includes the following de tails NAME and Class TOP Position Time and distance The values in the list are continuously updated An example fol lows Bern TMA Class D FL100 near 35 sec horizontal di
164. ne will not be visible but the blue optimal track arrow will point along this projected direction A worked example is provided in the following figures to illustrate how targets move during a flight and to show how XCSoar deter mines the maximum scored path 68 N T D it DES o x 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS XCSoar User Manual ed target found Analysis task page red targets found XCSoar User Manual 5 13 OnLine Contest 13 17 58 5 14 Logger 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS The analysis dialogue contains a page OnLine Contest which can be used to show the optimal path and estimated score The con figuration settings task rules page allows the selection of which set of rules to be used for the OLC optimisation The optimization is done continuously in the background and can be retrieved at any time The analysis page shows a graphical overview of the optimisation result besides distance and score A InfoBox is available which gives the instant OLC distance and score as well bistanos 270km Score 270 1 pts Time 03 10 Speed 84 km h Close When flying OLC either AAT or non AAT tasks may still be used to manage the flight navigation During flight the computer will optimise the current flight with respect to the selected OLC rules In the OLC analysis page the aircraft track is shown as a thin green line the opti
165. nfo to the selected target displayed Top left If available the FLARM Id of the selected target Top right Vario of the target derived from the consecutive altitude messages Bottom left The distance to the target Bottom right The relative hight of the target 8 6 Team flying Info 2 gt Own code Mate code Range Bearing Rel bearing Flarm lock Team Code TP7H 3333TT 0 4 km 317 172 GG From the first to the second FLARM snapshot were passed about 15 seconds The selected blue target was climbing with 3 4 m s and had a not as threat recognised course relation Then in the mean time the DC has turned more to the left became an alerting threat and gets now displayed red The FLARM radar switched the zoom from 1000 meter to 500 meter In snapshot three the continuously climbing target becomes classified to threat level 1 gets yellow coloured and seams to no longer a threat Team code is a system to allow pilots flying within a team to com municate their position to each other in a concise and accurate manner The principle of the system is that each pilot uses their computer to determine a 5 digit code which describes their po sition relative to a common waypoint The pilots call each other reporting these codes and entering the codes into the computer allows their mates to be located accurately by the computer To use the team code all pilots in the team should selec
166. ng o e e 115 9 Integration 117 9 1 Building an XCSoarsystem TIE 9 2 Exemplary XCSoar system setups 118 10 Avionics and Airframe 124 10 1 Battery life een 124 10 2 GPS connection o llle 125 103 Switch inputs o o e 125 10 4 Vega switch dialogue 126 10 5 Slave mode lt oco sao cyca pocie cete aa aa 127 10 6 System status oaa a 127 10 7 Multiple devices llle 127 10 8 Managing external devices 128 11 Quickstart 129 11 1 Local flight o o 129 11 3 FAITask ee 130 11 3 AAT Task Manual ArM 131 12 InfoBox Reference 135 12 1 Altitude xk dy de es b OA e RR RR 135 12 2 Aircraft state 22e 136 123 Glideratio 2 000 202 0000 137 12 4 Variometer 2l 137 12 5 Atmosphere o e e 138 12 06 MacCready 4 2 2 a a Ba we 139 12 7 Navigation ne 140 12 8 Competition and assigned area tasks 141 12 9 Waypoint us s 6404 4 soi a x RR 142 12 10Tleamcode llle 143 XCSoar User Manual Contents 12 11Device status een 143 12 12Alternates o e e 143 12 130Obstacles lens 144 13 Configuration 145 13 1 Scope of configuration 145 13 2 Modifying settings 145 13 3 Configure System llle 146 13 4 Site Files S
167. ng period of inactivity when operating on internal battery power visible for some mobile devices only The Input Events file defines the menu system and how XC Soar responds to button presses and events from external devices The language options selects translations for English texts to other languages Select English for a native interface Automatic to localise XCSoar according to the system set tings or you may select one of the two character language short cuts directly The status message file can be used to define sounds to be played when certain events occur and how long various status messages will appear on screen This determines how long menus will appear on screen if the user does not make any button presses or interacts with the computer 158 XCSoar User Manual Text Input Style Haptic feedback 13 CONFIGURATION Determines which style for text entries is used See Sec tion 3 8 for further information on textual input HighScore Style For entering text you have to change the underlined character to the relevant letter Keyboard Uses the on screen keyboard for entering text Default Uses the default input style for your platform Android devices only Let you switch on or off the brr when the device accepts your finger press as valid input on the touch screen Press the Fonts button to adjust the fonts XCSoar uses Font Configuration XCSoar ta mum This page enabl
168. ngs dialogue contains several pages Once changes have been made click the Close button on the screen or PWR ESC on Altair to close the dialogue and return to the configuration menu Another button press leads back to the normal map mode Once you are happy with your configuration settings save the pro file file and make a backup so that you can later restore the set tings if your PDA s memory is accidentally erased See Chapter 14 for a description of the data formats of files re ferred to in the settings Where no file is to be used the field can be left blank File name fields in forms show files that match a file extension filter This makes it much easier to find and select the correct file The main configuration dialogue Setup System can be run in Basic or Expert user level via a selectable field on the left of the dialogue When in Basic mode many of the less commonly used and advanced configuration settings are hidden In the descrip tions below all of the parameters marked with an asterisk are only visible in expert user level 146 XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFIGURATION 13 4 Site Files Site Files The dialogue specifies most of the important files that must be configured when flying at a new site XCSoar data path The location for all of your XCSoar data on your hard drive SD card or the PDA s static memory Map Database The name of the map file XCM containing digital elevation terrain data topography
169. ode entry setting file names waypoint editing as well as entering other configuration options such as pilot name for the logger Two ways of entering text are provided 36 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE To enter text in high score style use the A A buttons to adjust the character under the cursor underlined character Clicking the lt and gt buttons move the cursor left right To enter text with the touch screen keyboard press the letters of choice one after the other In some dialogues e g waypoint editing only the next letters matching to an entry in the database will be shown For deleting the last letter use the button The Clear button deletes all input Press Ok to take over or Cancel to exit 3 9 Acoustic alert and sound feedback XCSoar generates sounds for different events and can be config ured to have custom sounds for any event See Section 14 13 for details on customisation When XCSoar is connected to the Vega intelligent variometer it sends commands to Vega s speech system to give verbal clues and warnings such as e Final glide through terrain e Approaching passing a task waypoint e Airspace warnings The XCSoar user interface also can connect sound feedback to the completion of any command like e Marker dropped 3 10 Screen visuals Certain aspects of
170. of transferring a copy and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee 3 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it thus forming a work based on the Program and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above provided that you also meet all of these conditions a You must cause the modified files to carry prominent no tices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change b You must cause any work that you distribute or publish that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License If the modified program normally reads commands interac tively when run you must cause it when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copy right notice and a notice that there is no warranty or else Oo saying that you provide a warranty and that users may re distribute the program under these conditions and telling the user how to view a copy of this License Exception if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole If iden tifiable sections of that
171. oint where the violation occurs If a target is defined the calculation is done along the straight path to the tar get If no target is defined the calculation is done along the current heading If reach is enabled then the reachability of landable waypoints is used by the abort task mode alternate landable option lists and display of landable waypoints on the map Note that task calculations are otherwise unaffected by reach cal culations for example altitudes required as shown in the final 3 The maximum number of turns is set to three and no turns may be greater than 90 degrees 49 XCSoar User Manual 13 13 58 4 NAVIGATION glide bar or task data as displayed in infoboxes do not take reach into account Furthermore the reach calculations are used for footprint land able waypoint arrival heights abort mode and the alternates di alogue The glider performance and MacCready setting used in these calculations are configurable Task The MC value is that used in the task Safety MC A configurable typically low MC value is set by the user to set performance near but slightly degraded to best glide performance The amount of safety in the reach calcula tion is then the gap between best glide performance and the glide performance following the safety MC speed to fly 4 12 Status tabs Flighf and Time Left Down Right Down wet fp Location 48 0332 N 007 8433 E Flight Altitud
172. ompensates for the wind drift incurred when circling and as such it needs to estimate the proportion of time spent circling according to classical MacCready theory Drift during cruise Y Wind vector Optimal cruise track to reach target maintaining altitude Glider track during cruise The optimal cruise track is displayed on the map area as a large blue arrow and it recommends the glider steers so that the glider s track is lined up with the blue arrow during cruise For example if the display is oriented Track Up then steer so the blue arrow points directly up The glide computer accounts for wind drift during circling to pro vide an optimal cruise track vector which indicates the track the glider should follow during cruise such that it will arrive at the way point in minimum time This vector is displayed on the map as a blue arrow When the wind is negligible or when the computer is in final glide mode this arrow will point along the black line that indicates the track to the next waypoint The calculation and display of optimal cruise track is a unique feature of XCSoar Commonly when cruising between thermals glide navigation systems direct the glider to steer so that the glider s track points directly at the target Ideally the glider s track is collinear with the line from the previous to next waypoint such that the cross track error is small and hence the glider travels the minimum distance between
173. on Invalid terrain or terrain below sea level is coloured blue Terrain is shaded to improve visibility The default shading is set up so that the virtual lighting position is the wind bearing thus brighter areas are on the upwind side of hills and dark areas in the lee of the hill Support for a sun ephemeris is also implemented If the slope shading is set to Sun the brightness of a slope follows the day time in a very natural way The amount of shading and overall terrain brightness is configurable Both terrain and topography display can be switched on or off from the menu Topography J S lzb LAN ulzberg LM vaGoetzis Cat A I avederis Felder X UebersaXEn K i Blu nz CatB If the terrain data is not available or terrain display is turned off the background colour of the map window is white All terrain below mean sea level is coloured blue If you are flying outside the terrain region the background colour will be white The screen can be de cluttered turning off the display of topog raphy labels and non task waypoint labels by toggling the Labels menu Other options for display decluttering include Shows labels for the waypoints in the active task and any land able fields based on the waypoint attributes in the waypoints file Other waypoints are shown but not labeled Shows labels only for waypoints in the active task Shows labels for all waypoints 46 XCSoar
174. on of dry air temper ature dew point temperature and outside air temperature with altitude The convection forecast is summarised as the estimated thermal convection altitude and estimated cloud base 101 XCSoar User Manual 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS Thermal height 254 Cloud base 10015 The climb history and barograph pages described in Section 5 15 are also useful to determine trends in the soaring conditions 7 12 Weather METAR TAF Info gt METAR TAF P If the hardware hosting XCSoar is able to connect to the internet weather reports and forecasts can be downloaded Present ac tual informations available are depicted by a little flag pinned to the waypoint of the reporting station To set up reports and fore casts invoke the METAR and TAF dialogue With Add a filtering screen for ICAO codes comes up After typing and pushing OK another station is added to the list Accessing the information is either possible via selecting an airport and pushing Details on the same screen or by touching the map invoking the Map ele ments at this location dialogue The dialogue will show airports airspaces and weather data If the flags are missing on the map no actual information is available Invoke the info dialogue and touch Update 7 13 Weather forecast RASP Regional Atmospheric Soaring Prediction RASP is intended
175. one waypoint being the home this means that XCSoar is then programmed for final glide back to home which is useful for casual cross country touring The main ways of setting tasks are the following e Using the task editor dialogue e Selecting waypoints from the map and adding them to the task from the waypoint details dialogue e Loading the task from a file Loading a task from file may be useful in competition or casual cross country flying in groups as one person can distribute the task file to others thereby saving effort on editing the task several fold If no task is present at startup a task is created automatically containing one waypoint takeoff as goto home XCSoar saves the current task when shutting down and loads it at startup thereby allowing the task to be entered early in the day then the device running XC Soar can be turned off until flight time Task waypoints are preserved even if the waypoint file is changed This means if you save a task then change the waypoint file then load the task again new waypoints are generated for any waypoints that are missing in the new waypoint file 5 3 Waypoint Information OL L1 The waypoint info dialogue describes a waypoint in detail and has navigation functions such as GoTo insert append to the task or set the waypoint as the new home This may be accessed in sev eral ways or menu Nav 1 2 Task highlight a waypoint then tap
176. ot available For example the Waypoint list function will appear grey if there are no waypoints loaded Several menu button labels have dynamic text based on context in order to make it clearer as to what happens when the button is pressed The convention is used that a button s label describes what will happen when the button is pressed For example if the button says MC Auto then pressing the button will turn on Auto MacCready and the button label will then change to MC Manual In the menu list described below generic labels are used 27 XCSoar User Manual Menu function groups 3 4 Menu item overview 3 USER INTERFACE This section describes the default layout of the menu system on all platforms The functions performed by each button are explained more fully in following chapters The primary menu buttons are activated by each of the vertical strip of buttons on Altair from top to bottom Nav Display Config Navigation menu Display menu Info Actions for navigation control primarily cross country gliding tasks Actions to control the display Configuration of XCSoar connected devices and in flight settings Activates various informational dialogue windows For the PC version the keys 1 2 3 and 4 activate the correspond ing menu The following menu item list has on the left side of most of the menu buttons links to the r
177. ot script also checks for a script in XCSoarData kobo named init nickel sh and executes it Again if you know what you re doing you can use this script to do things before Nickel is fully started for example send commands to your attached vario to shut it down to cut the volume etc On a PDA Windows Mobile PocketPC Choose one of the targets 18 XCSoar User Manual 2 INSTALLATION PPC2000 Pocket PC 2000 2002 Windows CE 3 0 PPC2003 Pocket PC 2003 Windows CE 4 0 On a PNA Windows CE On a Windows PC On Unix Linux WMb Windows Mobile 5 or newer WM5X Windows Mobile 5 or newer with XScale CPU or better e g hx4700 Download the program file XCSoar exe to a SD card You can launch it with the File Explorer Another method to install XCSoar on a PDA is the CAB file Download it to the SD card Use the File Explorer to install it After the installation the XCSoar FLY and SIM launcher icons will be visible on the Today screen Download the program file XCSoar exe target WM5 to a SD card You can launch it with the File Explorer Download the program file XCSoar exe target PC to your hard disk The file downloaded is xcsoar XXX deb where XXX includes the version number and platform e g xcsoar 6 0 4 1386 deb The is a Debian package and can be installed using sudo dpkg i xcsoar XXX deb Use dpkg query L xcsoar to see where the executable and other files are installed Ad
178. ous Instantaneous glide ratio over ground given by the ground SIA speed divided by the vertical speed GPS speed over the last 20 seconds Negative values indicate climbing cruise If the vertical speed is close to zero the displayed value is GR cruise e GR Cruise The distance from the top of the last thermal divided by the altitude lost since the top of the last thermal Negative values indicate climbing cruise height gain since leaving the last ther mal If the vertical speed is close to zero the displayed value is Final GR Fin GR The required glide ratio over ground to finish the task given by the distance to go divided by the height required to arrive at the safety arrival height This is no adjusted total energy possible Next GR WP GR The required glide ratio over ground to reach the next way point given by the distance to next waypoint divided by the height required to arrive at the safety arrival height Negative values indicate a climb is necessary to reach the waypoint If the height required is close to zero the displayed value is L D vario is HEN L D Vario Instantaneous lift drag ratio given by the indicated airspeed di vided by the total energy vertical speed when connected to an intelligent variometer Negative values indicate climbing cruise If the total energy vario speed is close to zero the displayed value is GR ave
179. ously as an arrow and in numeric form on the left hand side of the map area of the screen The altitude required is adjusted for energy compensating for the fact that the kinetic energy of the glider can be converted to height potential energy The kinetic energy that is convertable to height is calculated from the difference in the true airspeed to the true airspeed for best glide This compensation is most accurate when airspeed data is available to XCSoar otherwise the true airspeed is estimated from the wind speed and ground speed 6 10 Display of altitude required a 13 14 4 On the left side of the map display a box displays the calculated altitude difference required for the glider to complete the task or reach the final waypoint If the glider is above the minimum altitude required a green arrow bar is drawn above the box indicating the amount of excess height If the glider is below the minimum altitude required a red arrow bar is drawn below the box indicating the amount of height deficit If however there are landable waypoints within glide range but the glider is below the minimum altitude required to complete the task the bar is coloured amber Above Below 337 152 The scale of the final glide bar is 500 meters A bar beyond this scale is indicated by a chopped of tip At this point also must be mentioned that the indicated height below the glide path is not just a plain difference of glide path a
180. oxes you choose to be dis played at once the faster your reading will be On the other hand there are much too many InfoBox options a pilot would hardly re ject The number of possible InfoBox options already exceeded one hundred That is why XCSoar offers two ways of managing even more options than Infoboxes count Depending on your flight s state whether you are circling or cruis ing you can let XCSoar change the content of each single In foBox As an example you might change the display of the actual average climb whilst circling to speed to fly when cruising The switch is derived automatically by entering different flight modes see section 6 1 executing a switch to another InfoBox set Further you can use screen pages to change InfoBox content manually by assigning different Infobox sets to different pages see following section To gain access to automatic switching InfoBoxes dependent on the flight mode just let XCSoar run with its pre configured setup from installation To set up your personal version of Infoboxes go through the following procedure InfoBox geometry Choose a basic Infobox geometry or layout This basic lay 13 20 X out is maintained through any changes in flight affecting In foBox content only Choose Infobox set Auto Configure at least one screen page with the choice of In 13 24 4 foboxes Auto As can be seen on the corresponding con figuration screen there are more screen pages
181. played on the Waypoint Details Dialogue for that particular waypoint The text should have a narrow mar gin because the waypoint details dialogue cannot currently handle word wrapping The text may also specify images for airfields or waypoints To show an image directly in XCSoar use image followed by the file name this is currently not supported on PC Windows Be sure to avoid any additional whitespaces around the equal sign or in front of the keyword Which files are supported depends on your operating system and the applications that are installed Android supports JPEG files and other file types others mostly BMP im ages The names of airfields used in the file must correspond exactly to the names in the waypoints file with the exception that converting to uppercase is allowed The XCSoar website provides airfield details files for several coun tries and includes tools to convert from various Enroute Supple ment sources to this file format Users are free to edit these files to add their own notes for airfields that may not otherwise be included in the Enroute Supplement sources An example extract from the Australian airfields file BENALLA RUNWAYS 08 RL1 7 17 RL53 26 R 35 R 168 XCSoar User Manual 14 6 Glide polar 14 DATA FILES COMMUNICATIONS CTAF 122 5 REMARKS Nstd 10 NM rad to 5000 REMARKS CAUTION Animal haz Rwy O8L 26R and 17L 35R for glider ops and tailskidacft only SR
182. pre defined These others are not needed to gain automatic switches 32 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE by flight mode They are for manually turning through the screens defined by pages Define InfoBox sets Put together the Infobox content you want to be displayed 13 22 SE o in three Infobox sets called Circling Cruise and Final Glide respectively Screen pages with different InfoBox sets XCSoar allows the pilot to define various sets of InfoBoxes that are appropriate for normal states of flight Assuming circling cruis ing or final glide as normal XCSoar can switch corresponding Infobox sets automatically Perfectly done As you might imagine there are countless cases you wished you had another ensemble of information displayed at once For all of these more or less special situations you can define up to eight screen pages reflecting the actual use case Just to draw a brief sketch of the possibilities introduced by the concept of screen pages a few use cases are given Familiarisation Especially if you are a beginner you might study computed values in flight in advance of placing them in your normal InfoBox ensemble just to get familiar with the reading To do so create a new Infobox named test to be placed on a additional screen page brought in In any case you can go back to the screen you know by turning a page Competition If you are a pilot scratching the edge you mi
183. pro duces indicated airspeed measurements a speed command chevron is drawn on the right side of the map display If the glider is fly ing slower than the optimal speed the chevrons are red and point downwards If the glider is flying faster than the optimal speed the chevrons are green and point upwards If the speed is approx imately optimal no chevrons are drawn Depending on the configuration speed command chevrons can be displayed on the right side of the map area or on the variome ter gauge 6 6 Speed to fly XCSoar continuously calculates two types of speed to fly MacCready speed This is the best speed to fly during cruise in still air adjusted for wind if in final glide mode Dolphin speed This is the instantaneous best speed to fly in rising or de scending air adjusted for wind if in final glide mode The user can specify a maximum manoeuvring speed in the con figuration settings which limits the speed to fly in MacCready cal culations to realistic values Different pilots have personal preferences as to whether they pre fer to fly in so called block MacCready style in which they fly 81 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER constant speed between thermals according to the MacCready speed or to fly in dolphin style in which they fly at varying speeds according to the continuously changing Dolphin speed value Block Speed to Fly A constant airspeed is maintained regardless of lift sin
184. q hx4700 Dell Axim x51v PNAs with Windows CE 3 0 or newer Example HP314 Mio400 Android mobile phones and tablets with Android 1 6 or newer Example Dell Streak Samsung Galaxy S II HTC Desire HD Motorola Xoom eReader Kobo experimental Dec 2013 Triadis Altair LX MiniMap Windows 2000 or newer Linux Mac OS X outdated XCSoar is compatible with any GPS emitting NMEA data Most modern Android devices have a built in GPS but for several rea sons it is favorable to connect to one or more external devices a specialized GPS receiver gains much better reception pro viding much better data for measures and calculations an airspeed indicator allows quick and exact wind estimates without circling a vario improves the thermal assistant a task can be declared to an IGC logger and after landing the flight log can be downloaded some varios allow synchronising the MacCready setting with XCSoar flarm and even ADS B input provide informations and stati of others around you and of course Flarm gives you colli sion detection 16 XCSoar User Manual 2 INSTALLATION Supported external devices and features Supported Features Stream Data Declaration Download G Sensor NMEA Device Borgelt B50 CAI 302 CAI GPS Nav Condor lt _ lt Remote ctrl lt lt lt lt Airspeed g lt lt Vario i lt Wind lt Digifly Leonardo EW Logger EW microRecorder FLARM SSS
185. queried by touching the region on the map The map item list will appear and give you an overview of the waypoints airspaces etc below your finger tip or mouse pointer SUAs are listed with similar details as provided when an actual warning is raised The query returns all airspace re gions when overlapping airspace is visible at the query location Selecting the SUA on the list and pressing Details or the enter key displays all airspace details For Altair users This kind of airspace detail query can also be accessed through the pan mode Move the cursor cross over the location that you are interested in and click the What s here but ton The map item list will appear and give access to the details under your cursor position The Airspace Filter dialogue allows warnings and display to be enabled or disabled for each class of airspace This may be accessed several ways e From the main menu Config 3 Airspace e Or at the system configuration page for airspacees press the Filter button To use the dialogue move up or down the list and the enter key will cycle between the various warning and display options Airspace selection dialogue Filter Stuttgart ClassD D Okm317 Name Stuttgart ClassD D 0km317 I Stuttgart Class C Okm317 50 km Stuttgart ClassD D 6km158 8 4 Analysis dialogue Info 1 gt Analysis
186. r at least three years to give any third party for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution a complete machine readable copy of the corresponding source code to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange or c Accompany it with the information you received as to the of fer to distribute corresponding source code This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer in accord with Subsection b above The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it For an executable work complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains plus any associated interface definition files plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable However as a special exception the source code distributed need not in clude anything that is normally distributed in either source or bi nary form with the major components compiler kernel and so on of the operating system on which the executable runs unless that component itself accompanies the executable If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering ac cess to copy from a designated place then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution
187. r pilot names against the ICAO IDs that are optionally broadcast by FLARM equipped aircraft These names are displayed on the map nextto FLARM traffic symbols for match ing ICAO IDs The format of this file is a list of entries one for each aircraft of the form icao id name where icao id is the six digit hex value of 171 XCSoar User Manual 14 12 Input events 14 13 Status 14 DATA FILES the ICAO aircraft ID and name is free text limited to 20 charac ters describing the aircraft and or pilot name Short names are preferred in order to reduce clutter on the map display Example DD8F12 WUS DASBO6 Chuck Yeager Currently this file is limited to a maximum of 200 entries Additionally the FlarmNet file data f1n is supported It contains all the FLARM identifications distributed by the FlarmNet commu nity The file can be downloaded from the web site http www flarmnet org The file must reside in the XCSoarData directory The input event file extension xci is a plain text file designed to control the input and events in your glide computer You do not require access to the source code or understanding of programming to write your own input event files but you do require some advanced understanding of XCSoar and of gliding Some reasons why you might like to use xci e Modify the layout of button labels e Support a new set or layout of buttons organiser hardware buttons e Support an external device su
188. r task speeds Distance Units used for horizontal distances e g range to waypoint distance to go sm nm km Lift Units used for vertical speeds variometer knots m s ft min Altitude Units used for altitude and heights foot meter Temperature Units used for temperature C F Task speed Units used for task speed mph knots km h Pressure Units used for pressures hPa mb inHg Lat Lon Units or better formats used for latitude and longitude Sup ported are several degree minutes seconds formats respec tively their decimal fraction and the UTM WGS 84 format 13 26 Setup Time Set the local time offset with respect to UTC UTC offset The field allows the UTC local time offset to be specified Local time The local time is displayed below in order to make it easier to verify the correct offset has been entered Offsets to the half hour may be set Use GPS time This option if enabled sets the clock of the computer to the GPS time once a fix is set This is only necessary if your computer does not have a real time clock with bat tery backup or your computer frequently runs out of battery power or otherwise loses time 13 27 Setup Tracking Live Tracking means using a GPS to determine your position and a mobile network to send this position in real time to a server other people can see your exact position and track presented in 162 XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFIGURATION a
189. rage m GR Avg The distance made in the configured period of time divided by the altitude lost since then Negative values are shown as and indicate climbing cruise height gain Over 200 of GR the value is shown as You can configure the period of aver aging Suggested values are 60 90 or 120 Lower values will be closed to GR inst and higher values will be closed to GR cruise Notice that the distance is not the straight line between your old and current position it s exactly the distance you have made even in a zigzag glide This value is not calculated while circling 12 4 Variometer Last Thermal Average TL Avg Total altitude gain loss in the last thermal divided by the time spent circling Last thermal gain TL Gain Total altitude gain loss in the last thermal 137 XCSoar User Manual Last thermal time TL Time Thermal climb last 30 s TC 30s Thermal average TC Avg Thermal gain TC Gain Vario Vario Netto vario Netto Vario trace Vario Trace Netto vario trace Netto Trace Thermal climb trace TC Trace Thermal average over all T Avg Climb band Climb Band Thermal assistant Thermal 12 5 Atmosphere Wind arrow Wind speed rg as 12 INFOBOX REFERENCE Time spent circling in the last thermal A 30 second rolling average climb
190. rage climb rate achieved during each climb Statistics are used to estimate the overall aver age climb rate and to estimate how this average is changing over time The current MacCready setting is drawn on the bar chart as a thick red dashed line and the climb rate trend is drawn on the chart as a blue line The Task Calc button opens the task calculator e g to adjust the MC value 74 XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS Analysis Climb Avg climb 1 2 m s Climb trend 0 04 m s Task Calc Task This page shows an overview of the entire task The main task line is drawn in thick dashed green AAT areas are shaded For AAT tasks the path from the aircraft around the remaining targets within AAT areas is shown in red The aircraft track is shown as a thin green line The Task Calc button opens the task calculator e g to ad just the AAT task range or MC value Task to go 00 11 AAT to go 01 59 Distance to go 23 km Target speed 12km h Task calc 5 16 Sunlight and time A sun ephemeris computes the time of sunrise and sunset which is displayed in the Aircraft Status dialogue see Section 4 12 Note that local terrain and atmospheric conditions may result in poor visibility before the displayed sunset time For PDA systems the clock is adjusted for daylight saving time according to the settings in the operating system For Altair the clock UTC offset must be adjuste
191. rail scaled Detour cost markers Aircraft symbol Wind arrow FAI triangle areas 13 CONFIGURATION Short A short trail is drawn approx 10 minutes Full A trail for the entire flight is drawn Determines whether the snail trail is drifted with the wind when displayed in circling mode Switched Off the snail trail stays uncompensated for wind drift Sets the type of the snail trail display Vario 1 Within lift areas lines get displayed green and thicker while sinking lines are shown brown and thin Zero lift is presented as a grey line Vario 1 with dots The same colour scheme as the pre vious but with dotted lines while sinking Vario 2 The climb colour for this scheme is orange to red sinking is displayed as light blue to dark blue Zero lift is pre sented as a yellow line Vario 2 with dots The same colour scheme as the pre vious but with dotted lines while sinking Altitude The colour scheme corresponds to the altitude If set to ON the snail trail width is scaled according to the vario signal If enabled this displays in cruise flight some figures projected in front of the nose of the glider icon This is the additional distance in percent if you fly up the position of the figure and after that again straight towards the target compared to the straight distance to target Sets the symbol used for the aircraft Simple Simplified line graphics a black glider shape with wh
192. rate based of the reported GPS altitude or vario if available Altitude gained lost in the current thermal divided by time spent thermalling The altitude gained lost in the current thermal Instantaneous vertical speed as reported by the GPS or the intelligent vario total energy vario value if connected to one Instantaneous vertical speed of air mass equal to vario value less the glider s estimated sink rate Best used if airspeed ac celerometers and vario are connected otherwise calculations are based on GPS measurements and wind estimates Trace of vertical speed as reported by the GPS or the intelli gent vario total energy vario value if connected to one Trace of vertical speed of air mass equal to vario value less the gliders estimated sink rate Trace of average climb rate each turn in circling based of the reported GPS altitude or vario if available Time average climb rate in all thermals Graph of average circling climb rate horizontal axis as a func tion of altitude vertical axis A circular thermal assistant that shows the lift distribution over each part of the circle Wind vector estimated by XCSoar Manual adjustment is possible with the connected InfoBox dialogue Pressing the up down cursor keys to cycle through settings adjust the val ues with left right cursor keys 138 XCSoar User Manual Wind bearing Wind Brng Wind speed Wind V Head wind component Head Wind
193. re changed or when the program exits this has the file name default prf The easiest way to create a new profile is to copy a previous one such as the default profile Copy the file give it a logical name and then when XCSoar starts next time the new profile can be selected and customised through the configuration settings dialogs 170 XCSoar User Manual 14 8 Checklist 14 9 Tasks 14 10 Flight logs 14 DATA FILES The checklist file xcsoar checklist txt uses a similar format to the airfield details file Each page in the checklist is preceded by the name of the list in square brackets Multiple pages can be defined up to 20 An example extract Preflight Controls Harness secure objects Airbrakes and flaps Outside Trim and ballast Instruments Canopy Deriggingl Remove tape from wings and tail Task files extension tsk are stored in a XCSoar own XML for mat whereas SeeYou tasks can also be loaded from file exten sion cup The software flight logger generates IGC files extension igc according to the long naming convention described in the FAI document Technical Specification for IGC Approved GNSS Flight Recorders Log files are stored in the logs subdirectory of the XCSoarData directory These files can be imported into other programs for analysis after flight 14 11 FLARM Identification The FLARM identification file xcsoar f1arm txt defines a table of aircraft registrations o
194. re on the left side of the text body Both the blue hand and pictogram of the movement are used to indicate a specific gesture in this case move down then to the right A list of generally available gestures is shown below dr Most common or basic gestures DU denoting a check mark Show main menu c N o O 3 5 D Zoom out L Turn screen page pro grade Normal Aux Full screen R Turn screen page retrograde Normal Full screen URDL denoting a P Pan mode Might also be invoked by OWA moving two fingers apart on the screen More gestures available DR denoting an L Show the Select Waypoint dialogue sim ilar to menu item Waypoint List lO RD denoting a T opens the Task Manager 38 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE DL show the Alternates List UD enables Auto Zoom L Sophisticated dialogues URD denoting an A Show the Analysis dialogue LDRDL denoting an S Open the Status dialogue Uy 39 4 Navigation This chapter describes the moving map display as an aid to navi gation and also describes some of the task and glide related over lays on the map display 4 1 Map display elements Town village Waypoint non landable River stream Large built up area Railway line Road Landable waypoint unreachable Landable waypoint reachable Lake Mark The moving map shows 1 Glider wind indicator thermal profile final glide indicator Terrain r
195. rovements include a new map file format incorporating JPGi2000 compression online contest support ad ditional supported devices FLARM radar screen and overall im proved stability reliability and accuracy of task calculations Many XCSoar User Manual 15 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT feature requests from users have been incorporated into this re lease In February 2008 Version 5 1 6 was released This contained numerous bugfixes and user interface enhancements notably ex panding the RASP and AAT functionality In March 2009 Version 5 2 2 was released As well as user inter face improvements several major features were introduced IGC files were digitally signed for validation in online contests such as OLC Windows CE based PNA navigation devices were sup ported for the first time FLARM was integrated with the map dis play with support for the flarmnet ID database Developers could now easily compile XCSoar from Linux desktop computers In August 2009 Version 5 2 4 was released with internal fixes and enhancements In December 2010 Version 6 0 was released Following an ex tensive rewrite of much of the program many stability and per formance enhancements were made and startup times were dra matically reduced A great many features were added including a vastly expanded task engine and editor AAT support new FLARM and thermal assistant displays Many new languages were intro duced and new translations could now be e
196. s bug reports encouragement and con structive criticism are all very welcome and helpful Because XCSoar is so configurable we rely to some extent on users to think about how they would like the program to be set up Selection of infobox layouts button menus and button assignments require some design thought and mak ing these available to the developers and other users will help us provide good default settings Airspace and waypoint files need to be kept up to date and it often takes people with local knowledge to do this The more users the software has the better the product will be As more people use the software and give feedback bugs are found more easily and improvements can occur at a greater pace You can help here for example by showing the software to others and by conducting demonstration and training sessions in your club Naturally the manual is always outdated and we need help with maintaining it 15 3 Open source philosophy There are several benefits to having software like XCSoar open source Firstly it is free so pilots can try out the software at no cost and decide if it is suitable for their needs and pilots are free to copy the program onto whatever Pocket PC device PC or EFIS they like without charge You have access to the source code so you are free to change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs Having the source code available on the Internet means that it is subject to
197. s Microsoft decided to skip support for native applications from this version on Android Devices XCSoar runs on Android 1 6 or newer 10 XCSoar User Manual 1 INTRODUCTION eBookreader XCSoar runs on some Kobo eReader devices A native port has been released with version 6 7 1 but is still considered experimental Nov 2013 Altair The Altair glide computer by Triadis Engineering is a glide computer factory installed with XCSoar The Altair PRO ver sion also contains an internal GPS Windows PC It is possible to run XCSoar on an ordinary computer with the Windows operating system This setup can be used for training yourself in using XCSoar A simulation mode is in cluded in XCSoar as well as a IGC replay function that can be used when not connected to a valid GPS source Unix Linux PC XCSoar can be run on Unix using the Wine emulator A 1 4 Technical support Troubleshooting Feedback native Unix port has been released with the 6 0 version of XCSoar but is still considered experimental A small team of dedicated developers produces XCSoar Although we are happy to help with the use of our software we cannot teach you about basics of modern information technology If you have a question about XCSoar in particular not found in this manual please get in touch You will find all of the following links summa rized at http www xcsoar org contact To begin with communication join the XCSoar forum at
198. s XC Soar Version 3 A support website on Yahoo Groups was set up and the open source project started to gain interest and input by developers In March 2005 the program was substantially enhanced and this resulted in Version 4 0 being released By this time coordination of the various development efforts on the source code became difficult and time consuming so it was decided to move the project to SourceForge whereby all the software work could be managed by a concurrent version management system In July 2005 Version 4 2 was released which addressed some compatibility issues that were experienced with certain PDA and GPS hardware configurations In September 2005 Version 4 5 was released This contained major enhancements to the user interface including the introduc tion of the input event system and language translation files In April 2006 Version 4 7 was released to Altair customers This contained stability and performance enhancements as well as many bug fixes and a new method for handling dialogs based on XML files In September 2006 Version 5 0 was released on all platforms Altair PC PDA This version contains many improvements and new features and is based on extensive testing in flight and in simulation In September 2007 Version 5 1 2 was released on all platforms Altair PC PDA This version contains many improvements and new features and is based on extensive testing in flight and in simulation Major imp
199. s dialogue See Section 4 8 for details on how this affects the display of the snail trail Statistics on climb rates in thermals are collected and displayed in a thermal band meter This is shown above the final glide differ ence bar on the left side of the map display It is not shown when the glider is above final glide The thermal band meter shows a graph where the vertical axis is height above the break off height Section 6 8 and is scaled ac cording to the maximum altitude achieved The horizontal axis is the average climb rate achieved at a particular altitude band The horizontal axis is scaled according to the MacCready setting and an arrow indicating this setting and the glider s current altitude is overlaid on the shaded area This scaling and arrow makes it easy to see how the pilot s MacCready setting compares with achieved thermals and to plan the desired working height band When cruising between thermals the vertical position of the ar row indicating the glider s height relative to the thermal band can be used as a reference to suggest how urgent it is to find the next thermal As the arrow approaches the bottom of the band then 98 XCSoar User Manual 7 8 Thermal locator 7 9 Thermal assistant 13 14 SE 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS the glider is nearing the break off height and the pilot should con sider taking even a weak thermal An algorithm estimates the centre of the lift when circling The th
200. s is illustrated below Note that when trail drift compensation is active right picture the glider appears to be circling in a column rather than an elongated spiral left picture Enabling trail drift compensation is performed through the config 47 XCSoar User Manual Wi Config 1 ng 4 9 Markers Nav 2 gt mark Drop 4 10 Thermals 4 11 Glide range line 13 13 SE Straight line If turning reach is disabled then the reach shows the fur 4 NAVIGATION uration settings The compensation is only performed whilst in circling mode the display of the trail in cruise mode is unaffected This can also be performed from the wind settings dialogue The trail drift display is useful also to show more clearly when ther mals are cranked due to wind shear The trail width can optionally be scaled according to the variome ter display Markers are shown as small flags a on the map The markers can be dropped manually by pressing a button or automatically An example use of automatic markers is to drop markers when entering circling mode as a simple way of showing all thermals encountered Markers are not preserved after XCSoar is exited however the location of all marks are appended to the file xcsoar marks txt While climbing in thermals a marker is automatically generated showing the thermal location on screen The positions of the last 20 thermals are stored un
201. se the GPS data from the secondary source If both sources have valid fixes the secondary source is ignored For this reason itis recommended to have the GPS source with the best antenna or most reliable operation as the primary source i e Device A Some older GPS units and some new ones do not output altitude relative to mean sea level rather they output elevation with respect to the WGS84 ellipsoid XCSoar detects when this occurs and ap plies the ellipsoid to geoid offset according to an internal tabulated data at two degree spacing This is not required for FLARM units or Altair Pro which correctly output MSL altitude XCSoar supports monitoring of switches and sensors connected to the host computer for the purpose of providing situational aware 125 XCSoar User Manual 10 AVIONICS AND AIRFRAME ness feedback alerts or as general purpose user interface in put devices Several mechanisms are available for interfacing to switches and sensors Serial device Certain intelligent variometers such as triadis engineering s Vega have multiple airframe switches and pass this informa tion on to the PDA or EFIS as special NMEA sentences 1 Wire device triadis engineering s Altair glide computer and Vega vari ometer provide a 1 Wire peripheral bus to which various dig ital and analog sensors can be attached Bluetooth device Many Pocket PC devices support wireless connection to a Bluetooth Game Pad device that has several b
202. set to zero but this is highly discouraged since all glide computers instruments and data sources such as terrain elevation models are subject to some degree of error and the atmosphere through which the glider flies is also unpredictable XCSoar determines the elevation above sea level of any turn point or landing point either from the waypoint file or if no height is specified in the waypoint file from the terrain file The estimated arrival altitude displayed next to landable way points is by default calculated for best glide angle at zero MacCready ring setting MC 0 adjusted for wind However 84 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER a safety MacCready setting may be configured to modify the MacCready setting used in this calculation as described be low Landable fields are only marked as reachable if the estimated ar rival elevation above ground is above the arrival altitude safety height and the glide path does not intersect the terrain clearance safety elevation At all times if the final glide through terrain marker a red cross is displayed on the screen then the glider must climb in order to safely reach the destination When calculating the arrival heights of landable fields for map display purposes and in abort mode a safety MacCready value can be specified in the configuration settings This safety value is set to zero by default Larger values make the arrival height calculation more conservative
203. space areas Both the display and warning of airspace classes can be individu ally enabled or disabled by the user as described in Section 8 3 The default colouring of Class C D E and F airspace is consistent with ICAO charts XCSoar User Manual 8 AIRSPACE TRAFFIC AND TEAM FLYING Incursion events Three types of events are detected by XCSoar in relation to SUA Predicted incursion This event is detected when the glider is estimated to be on a track that will result in entering the airspace at a set time in the future The time is the airspace warning time configuration setting The use of a long term average track in these calculations means that the system can still predict incursion even when drifting in the wind when circling Entering This event occurs when the glider enters an airspace region Leaving This event occurs when the glider leaves an airspace region In all cases the boundary of the region is defined by maximum and minimum altitudes or flight levels as specified in the airspace file Airspace warnings are still issued even if the incursion region is off screen Where a barometric altitude source is available it is used pref erentially to GPS altitude in detecting airspace incursions This makes the system conform to normal conventions of having airspace violations based on QNH adjusted altitude 8 2 Airspace warnings The concept of airspace warnings in gradual levels is introduced No
204. sparently Colours Filters This page also has a Colours and a Filter buttons which can be used to review or change the colours patterns used by each airspace class and whether each airspace class will be filtered out of warnings and or display Depending on the airspace trans parency setting it is no longer needed to define patterns The availability of transparency relies on the capabilities of the used hardware and may differ This function is used to determine the colours used to draw each class of airspaces First select the airspace class you wish to change Then select the colour and pattern you wish the selected airspace class to be drawn in The filter function is described in Section 8 3 13 10 Glide Computer Safety Factors This page allows the safety heights and behaviour for the alter nates mode to be defined Arrival height The height above terrain that the glider should arrive at for a safe landing Terrain height The height above terrain that the glider must clear during fi nal glide See Section 6 8 for more details on the meanings of the safety heights Alternates mode Determines sorting of alternates in the alternates dialogue Simple The alternates will only be sorted by arrival height The first waypoint in the list is therefore the most reachable waypoint Task The sorting will also take the current task direction into account such that the sort order is a
205. st modern PDAs are designed for short sporadic use and so do not have a very good battery capacity when considering the du ration of cross country soaring flights It is recommended that the PDA be powered externally via an appropriate voltage converter connected to the glider battery This installation should be per formed by appropriately qualified personnel and should contain a fuse and a manual isolation switch The greatest cause of power drain by the PDA is the LCD back light however domestic PDAs are not particularly bright so they may need to have the back light up full However for EFIS sys tems such as Altair it is recommended to use the lowest back light settings that are comfortable When operating PDAs under internal battery XCSoar detects a low battery condition and allows the operating system to shut down and preserve the memory In addition it can be set up to blank the screen after a period of inactivity so that it can reduce the power consumption When the screen is blanked pressing one of the hardware buttons on the PDA activates the screen again When a status message is issued by the system the screen becomes activated Another way to help conserve battery power is to reduce the com putational load by turning off certain features Drawing terrain and long snail trails contribute significantly to the CPU load For Altair Vega systems the external supply voltage is displayed on the system status dialogue see
206. t Oo o tc SN S Marginal Waypoints are optionally labelled according to one of several ab breviation schemes and visibility On top of this landable waypoints can be displayed more detailed If Detailed landables is switched on you get additionally informa tion encoded in the appearance of it s icon 1 Landable fields get a square shaped icon despite what is shown in the table The square is drawn like a diamond standing on one corner Airfields stay with the circle shape so that they become easy to distinguish 43 XCSoar User Manual Landables in Reach 13 7 SE Non Landables a 4 NAVIGATION 2 All icon sets including the Purple Circle icon set get the runway turned into their actual direction The runway di rection has to be available in the waypoint data E g the SeeYou waypoint file format cup does include this infor mation Next to landables an estimated arrival altitude above the arrival safety height of reachable landable points is displayed next to the waypoint This feature is one of the most powerful out of XCSoar s capabilities The arrival altitude is calculated highly configurable by XCSoar s glide computer with parameters taken into account being glider performance polar MacCready setting wind terrain clearance and apparently safety heights values With all of it being configurable there is enough room for failure so please Unless you will have fully
207. t a way point to be used as the reference This is all done on the team code dialogue The reference waypoint is set via the Set WP button Select a waypoint from the lookup dialogue and it will be the team reference During flight the pilot can read out his Own code from the team code dialogue to his team mate in order to report his position When the pilot hears a code report from a team mate he presses the Set Code button to open the text entry dialogue to allow entry of the mate s code After entering the mate s code the relative distance and bearing to the mate is calculated and updated in the dialogue 115 XCSoar User Manual FLARM Id lookup FLARM Info 2 gt Details Klick your buddy 8 AIRSPACE TRAFFIC AND TEAM FLYING XCSoar also supports the encrypted team codes from the Flarm Net initiative The Flarm Lock button allows you to accesses the FlarmNet database as well as XCSoar s database for flarm to find a team mate A simple lookup for a competition ID delivers poten tially the desired FLARM identity Selecting the desired data base entry from the found items allows you to lock your buddy from the far See Section 14 11 where to find the FlarmNet database etc explained in detail Just a similar functionality provides the flarm details diologue It also let you search through the competition ID s in the data base and shows the
208. t and a status message describing the type of airspace warning and some SUA details including class of airspace base and ceiling altitude or flight level Acknowledged warnings will repeat after a certain time specified as the Acknowledge time in the configuration settings Airspace warning acknowledgements apply to individual SUA re gions If for example a glider enters airspace A and the pilot acknowledges the warning and shortly thereafter is predicted to enter airspace B an airspace warning for SUA region B will be raised If you want acknowledged airspace warnings to not be repeated set a very large value for the configuration setting Acknowledge time En Airspace warnings are automatically cleared when both the cur rent glider s position as well as the estimated future track are clear of the airspace Simultaneous airspace warnings can occur if the aircraft or its estimated future track penetrates multiple airspace regions 110 XCSoar User Manual 8 AIRSPACE TRAFFIC AND TEAM FLYING 8 3 Airspace query and details Distance 21 5 km Direction 27 Bevaton 348 m 308 m AGL 656 m MSL Arrival altitude incl safety height a Hahnweide Kirch Elevation 352 m 123 250 MHz aj Airspace filter dialogue No Gliders Warn Display CTR Warn Display Wave Warn Display Task Area Display Class E Display For touchscreen mouse devices when an airspace region is visi ble on the map area it may be
209. t can see how much the task can be shortened and still finish the task later than the assigned minimum time What will happen if leave the AAT area now By press ing Armturn the take over of the current position into the optimization can be forced The repositioning of subsequent turns can be reviewed in the task calculation dialogue XCSoar continually analyses the path of the glider through AAT sectors to find the points in previous AAT sectors through which the achieved scoreable distance will be greatest Internally the program moves the targets for previous AAT sectors which are then the optimal targets In certain conditions targets for the current AAT sector may be moved automatically e When inside an AAT sector the target in that sector is moved to to a line projecting from the previous sector s target through the aircraft at the same distance from the previous sector s target to the target prior to entering the sector The effect of this is to allow pilots to choose to enter an AAT sector in a different direction or offset from the direct line from the previous target to the current target While the aircraft is in the AAT sector and the distance from the previous target to the aircraft is greater than the distance from the previous target to the current target the target is moved further along the projected line from the previous tar get to the aircraft just beyond the aircraft Hence the black track li
210. task Upon tapping the Save but Rules 5 6 Tasktypes ton the pilot will be prompted to enter a file name for the task to be saved The values in the menu depend on the task type selected Clicking any existing value will bring up another menu allowing the pilot to select a different value for this rule Task types are discussed in more detail below Also tapping on the Rules button again after it is highlighted allows toggling between a thumbnail view of the task map and a larger view of the task XC Soar currently defines three different task types Racing AAT and FAI badges records A brief description of the task types is included below but this manual does not intend to rephrase FAI rules or contest task types The reader is encouraged to become thoroughly familiar with each 59 XCSoar User Manual 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS task type by referring to contest rules or FAI rules which are avail able at http www fai org Racing also known as an assigned task The racing task involves flight around each specified turnpoint in the specified order Selecting the racing task type allows the pilot to enter the following parame ters Arm start manually Start open time Start close time Start max speed Start max height Start height ref Finish min height Finish height ref If set to On some extra buttons are presented in order
211. than thermal mixing this parameter is not useful for glider flying Vm O d This parameter estimates the height above ground at which the average dry updraft strength drops below 225 fpm and is expected to give better quantitative numbers for the max imum cloudless thermalling height than the BL Top altitude especially when mixing results from vertical wind shear rather than thermals Note the present assumptions tend to un derpredict the max thermalling height for dry consitions In the presence of clouds the maximum thermalling height may instead be limited by the cloud base Being for dry thermals this parameter omits the effect of cloudsuck 104 XCSoar User Manual bl cloud Sfc temp hwcrit wblmaxmin blcwbase 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS This parameter provides an additional means of evaluating the formation of clouds within the BL and might be used ei ther in conjunction with or instead of the other cloud pre diction parameters lt assumes a very simple relationship between cloud cover percentage and the maximum relative humidity within the BL The cloud base altitude is not pre dicted but is expected to be below the BL Top altitude The temperature at a height of 2m above ground level This can be compared to observed surface temperatures as an indication of model simulation accuracy e g if observed surface temperatures are significantly below those forecast then soaring co
212. the aircraft type airspace and maps waypoints etc These are the files that are most likely to be modified or set by normal users Program data files These files contain data relating to the look and feel of the program button assignments input events This chapter focuses on flight data files see the XCSoar Ad vanced Configuration Guide for details on program data files 14 1 File management File names must correspond to the name extensions specified be low It is good practice to make sure that the file names are recog nisable so that when making configuration changes there is less risk of confusion between different files and different file types Regarding older Pocket PC devices it is a good idea to have data files located in nonvolatile memory the use of SD cards and other removable media in PDAs can cause performance issues for smaller files and files that are only accessed at start up waypoints airspace glide polars configuration files this is acceptable However ter rain and topography files are accessed continuously while XCSoar is running so these should be located in faster storage memory For newer Windows Mobile or Android devices this is not an issue any more The access to modern memory cards usually meets the required performance Many PDAs provide a file store which is nonvolatile the same arguments above apply regarding their use and performance All data files should be copied into the
213. the high lighted waypoint again to display the task point dialogue then push Details or menu Nav 1 2 gt Alternates to show the details of the landables nearest to the aircraft or menu Nav 1 2 gt Waypoint List highlight and select a waypoint to show its details 53 XCSoar User Manual L3 or menu Display 1 2 gt Pan On 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS to put the map into pan mode pan to the desired waypoint touch its name or the waypoint symbol Info 1 3 gt What s here to show the item list under the cross hair or your index finger on the map The waypoint details dialogue contains two major pages accessed via the gt and lt buttons Depending on the availability of fur ther details of the waypoint they will by shown on extra pages Waypoint details This page contains text describing the waypoint s location radio frequency and runway information if this information is in the way point file elevation local daylight time bearing and distance to the waypoint and the altitude required to reach the waypoint as de scribed below In addition there is a button GoTo to directly initiate navigating to this waypoint The button cancels the current task Waypoint Titisee Landefeld GoTo t Close Hale Alt diff MC safety
214. the look of items on the screen can be adjusted Screen Brightness The most noticeable of these is whether to display InfoBoxes and Close gauges in white on black called inverse colours or black on white Auto ON For Altair the control of the screen hardware brightness can be Brightness 50 controlled from the brightness dialogue Display 2 gt Bright Refer to the Altair User s Manual for details of the brightness dia logue 3 11 Help system A help system now provides descriptive text for properties in most dialogues When a property is selected for Altair press and hold the enter button for two seconds then release A window will open with help text describing the property 37 XCSoar User Manual 3 USER INTERFACE 3 12 Interfacing with gestures As of version 6 0 XCSoar supports so called gestures To use this feature hold down the finger on the touch screen or mouse button at the PC draw a certain figure and release the touch screen mouse button Depending on the figure that was drawn a certain function is activated A specific gesture is defined by movements of the finger or the cursor in the four directions Up Down Left and Right This means if you drag your finger down and afterwards to the right over the screen the gesture DR is detected which stands for Down Right It will bring up the waypoint list The manual indicates an available gesture as shown he
215. the screen giving a good view of the map ahead of the glider This position is adjustable in the configuration settings 4 3 Zoom and map scale To change the scale of the map depending on the hardware You use 1 Tap click on a blank part of the map to highlight the map if it is not already selected Then use mouse wheel or the Pocket PC up down key to either zoom in or out 2 A PNA with a button wheel let you also change the zoom 3 Android devices have the rocker that let you change the zoom 4 You can also gesture to change the zoom level Gesture Up see left zooms in Down zooms out 5 Or select the function from the menu Display 1 gt Zoom In and Zoom Out 6 On Altair the rotary knob can be used to zoom in and out The glide range is also referred to as the reach as described in Section 4 11 41 XCSoar User Manual la 25 ma Circling Zoom Auto Zoom A AUTO Bs F25 mad Display 1 4 4 Panning the map V 13 5 SE Zoom Auto Display 1 gt Pan On 4 NAVIGATION The map scale is displayed in the lower left corner of the moving map display The indicated distance is measured from the left to the right boarder of the map display Compaq Aero Users If you enable the Compaq Aero Game Keys On the Q menu the centre two front buttons become the up down keys There is a facility to have
216. thus be anonymous Password The password to your tracking account 13 28 Configure Plane Config 2 3 gt Plane a This dialogue allows the glide polar to be defined For a large variety of glider types XCSoar provides a predefined glide polar they could be modified if needed or you can load your own polar from a file The file format is based on the WinPilot polar file format see section 14 6 To configure the glide computer to the performance of a glider type start with the selection of a type from the List Choose Import when you want to load an external polar file Customise the three V W points defining the parable curve and the reference weight to your needs Be aware that namely those four items are of crucial 163 XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFIGURATION importance for every glide performance relevant computation of XCSoar Export your efforts to a file is always a good idea Polar VW Three pairs of corresponding horizontal and vertical speed of the glider A good choice for the point triplet is one at the top most area of the polar the second at a still very curved area and the third far out where the curvature seems to dis appear Reference mass Reference weight at which the given polar is valid Dry mass The complete weight of the rigged glider including the pilots weight except the loaded water ballast In the absence of a configurab
217. til the end of the flight This thermal his tory is accessible through the map element functions in the same way as markers or waypoints A reachable glide footprint is displayed on the map display as a black and white dashed line indicating where the glider would descend through the terrain clearance height The reach shows clearance tracks extending in all directions optionally including paths around terrain obstructions This feature is useful in as sessing range with respect to topography when searching low for lift and when flying in mountainous areas Reach calculations may be configured to two levels of detail thest distance the glider can fly in final glide in all directions without turning This reach appears as a closed ring around the glider 48 XCSoar User Manual 4 NAVIGATION Turning If turning reach is enabled then the reach shows the great 13 13 SE est area the glider can reach in all directions even allowing turns around obstructions The reach area appears as a closed ring around the glider but may also include holes in dicating mountain peaks that the glider cannot reach without further climb ESO 5 has The display can be configured to additionally blur the unreach able area outside the glide range The final glide path is checked for whether the glider clears terrain along the path by the terrain clearance height If clearance is not attained a red cross appears on the map at the p
218. to let you Arm start as well as Disarm start in menu Nav 1 2 controlling the detection of the start condition This is the time when the start zone opens This is the time when the start zone closes This is the maximum speed allowed in the start observation zone This should be set to 0 if there is no limit This is the maximum height above the start height reference AGL or MSL at which a task can be started This should be set to 0 for no limit This specifies whether the maximum start height is refer enced to ground level of the start point AGL or Mean Sea Level MSL This is the minimum height based on the finish reference AGL or MSL at which a task can be finished This should be set to 0 for no limit This specifies whether the minimum finish height is refer enced to ground level of the finish point AGL or Mean Sea Level MSL Assigned area task AAT and Modified area task MAT also known as Turn Area Task or TAT This is a task through as signed areas restricted to cylinder or sector observation zones A minimum task time applies Rules options for this task type in clude AAT min time other rules This is the required minimum time for the task Refer to con test rules or consult an expert for penalties associated with finishing prior to the minimum time The time in this option is given in minutes All other rules stay the same as i
219. to an intelligent variometer such as Vega to test configuration settings of the variometer Using XCSoar with a flight simulator A good way to learn how to use XCSoar is to connect the Pocket PC device to a PC running a flight simulator that can output NMEA sentences to the serial port Suitable simulators include Condor and X Plane The benefit of this form of training is that XCSoar can be used in FLY mode so it behaves exactly as if you were really flying and you can get a good feel for how the program works while you are flying the simulator 1 6 Using XCSoar safely The use of an interactive system like XCSoar in flight carries with it certain risks due to the potential distraction of the pilot from main taining situational awareness and eyes outside the cockpit The philosophy guiding the design and development of the soft ware is to try to reduce this distraction by minimising the need for user interactions as much as possible and by presenting informa tion in a clear fashion able to be interpreted at a glance Pilots using XCSoar must take responsibility for using the system safely Good practice in the use of XCSoar includes e Becoming familiar with the system thoroughly through train ing on the ground e Performing clearing turns before interacting with XCSoar in flight in order to ensure there is no collision risk with other traffic e Setting up the system to take advantage of automatic func tions and input ev
220. to and abort modes the ordered task is retained and may be resumed later preserving any statistics about achieve ment in the task If no ordered task is defined then on takeoff a goto task is auto matically established with the takeoff point as the destination or the nearest airfield if it was close to the takeoff point Whether or not a task is defined the takeoff point is always gen erated and appears in the waypoint list for later reference or use After having defined an ordered task for the very first time the automatic goto takeoff function is skipped To resume a simple task use goto Goto tasks may be established by selecting a waypoint from the map the waypoint list or any other mechanism e g the alternates dialogue and select Goto In goto task mode selecting Nav 2 gt Task Resume resumes the ordered task if any XCSoar User Manual 5 2 Editing tasks aj en 5 CROSS COUNTRY TASKS You can edit tasks in several ways Some methods are more use ful for editing prior to flight and others allow tasks to be modi fied whilst in flight for casual cross country touring Tasks can be saved to files and reloaded later and can be transferred between any XCSoar platform Pocket PC Altair PC It is also possible to save a default task and have this task loaded automatically upon start up of XCSoar One application of this is to set up a default task with
221. to the official release 2010 Sept 23 OLC FAI Conforms to FAI triangle rule Three turns and common start and finish For tasks longer than 500km no leg less than 2596 or larger than 4595 otherwise no leg less 157 XCSoar User Manual Predict Contest 13 CONFIGURATION than 28 of total Finish height must not be lower than start height less 1000 meters OLC Classic Up to seven points including start and finish finish height must not be lower than start height less 1000 meters OLC League A contest on top of the classic task optimisa tion cutting a 2 5 hours segment over max 3 of the turns Finish height must not be below start height OLC Plus A combination of Classic and FAI rules 30 of the FAI score are added to the Classic score DMSt Deutsche Meisterschaft im Streckensegelflug XContest DHV XC SIS AT FFVV NetCoupe The FFVV NetCoupe ibre competition If enabled then the next task point is included in the score calculation assuming that you will reach it 13 18 Task Defaults Turnpoint Types This page allows to set default turnpoint types used by the task editor All options are well described for the task manager in chap ter 5 13 19 Look Language Input This page allows to customise the way the user controls and inter acts with XCSoar Auto Blank Events Language Status message Menu timeout This determines whether to blank the display after a lo
222. to zero Above final glide x x x a x Steet a x a x x a x x xa x This method sets the MacCready to the average climb rate achieved across all thermals in the current flight As such it takes into ac count the time spent centring the thermal The value is updated after leaving a thermal Since MacCready theory is optimal if the MacCready setting is the average climb rate of the next expected climb this method may give suboptimal performance commanding speed too slow if the conditions are improving and similarly may be non conservative if the conditions are deteriorating commanding speed too high Similarly if the pilot continues to climb in weak thermals this will reduce the average and may therefore encourage the pilot to con tinue to select weak thermals As a result of these limitations the pilot should be aware of how the system operates and adjust his decision making accordingly 6 14 Analysis dialogue Info 1 gt Analysis The analysis dialogue can be used to check the glide polar The polar page shows a graph of the glide polar at the current bugs and ballast setting It also shows the calculated best LD and the speed at which it occurs and the minimum sink and the speed 91 XCSoar User Manual 6 GLIDE COMPUTER at which it occurs The current aircraft all up weight is displayed in the title In this dialogue page the Settings button op
223. tons either hardware or menu buttons The aircraft altitude can be adjusted by selecting the GPS altitude InfoBox Alt GPS and touching the up or down key or buttons on the touchscreen The airspeed can be adjusted by selecting the Infobox ground speed V Gnd touching up or down key or menu buttons The glider s track can be adjusted by selecting the track InfoBox Track and touching up down buttons With either of the Ait GPS or V Gnd selected the glider s direc tion may be changed using the left right keys Other controls buttons and menus work the same as in FLY mode When XCSoar starts up shuts down or loads large files such as airspace waypoints terrain etc a progress screen is presented while the data is being loaded This screen has a progress bar which indicates the data loading activity and a short line of text describing the action that is being performed This screen also displays the software version information For PDA and PC versions XCSoar is shut down from the menu The menu can be opened by double clicking on the map or the InfoBoxes QUIT For PC versions XCSoar can also be shut down by clicking the close icon on the XCSoar window For Altair XCSoar is shut down by holding the PWR button for two seconds or more 23 3 User Interface CLIMB Y GND 48 162 K PEERED FM OPT 0 9 70 7
224. training No system ever runs without using some components providing no primary function of interest but some glue holding things together Most likely your XCSoar system needs one ore more of these glue components as are Cabling as well as data signal and power converter and signal multiplexer Finally there are things a pilot may not think of when doing in tegration work However if you want to get the max from your XCSoar system allow for optimal interaction with other systems via interfaces e Remote tracking server skylines Cellular network recep tion and coverage e GPS satellite network GPS reception e Remote database servers data translator e XCSoar org contact channels as given in chapter introduc tion So far it is time to end with systems theory now dive into reality With countless valuable system setups possible just a few exam ples of XCSoar systems are given This is meant as a starting XCSoar User Manual 9 INTEGRATION point for the keen pilot In no way this manual represents a full fledged integration guide The five examples described will follow the path of integrating more components starting with a basic system consisting of one single piece of hardware only 9 2 Exemplary XCSoar system setups XCSoar Basic Setup Functionality Application Due to the fact this manual is not intended as an advertising pub lication several component s terms used in the following
225. tters The first 5 letters of the waypoint name are displayed None No name is displayed with the waypoint This enables the arrival height info shown additionally for landables None No arrival height is displayed Straight glide Straight glide arrival height no terrain is con sidered Terrain avoidance glide Arrival height considering terrain avoidance Straight amp terrain glide Both arrival heights are displayed Required glide ration Show the glide ratio over ground that is required to reach the waypoint Labels for landables can be shown on a rounded rectangle with white background or with outlined letters Controls which waypoints are displayed with names and ar rival altitudes on the map All All waypoint labels will be displayed Task waypoints and landables All waypoints part of a task and all landables will be displayed Task waypoints All waypoints part of a task will be dis played None No waypoint labels will be displayed Three styles are available Purple circles WinPilot style a high contrast style with icons and icons with a traffic light colour scheme See Section 4 5 for details Enabling details on landables displays instead of fixed icons variable information like runway length and heading A percentage to select the size landables are displayed on the map Enabling this option will display for detailed landables addi tionally a scaled runway length based on real length 150
226. turn point When this In foBox is active using the up down cursor keys selects the next previous waypoint in the task Touch screen PC only Pressing the enter cursor key brings up the waypoint details Time elapsed since take off was detected GPS time expressed in local time zone GPS time expressed in UTC Estimated time required to complete task assuming perfor mance of ideal MacCready cruise climb cycle Estimated time required to complete task assuming current ground speed is maintained Estimated time required to reach next waypoint assuming per formance of ideal MacCready cruise climb cycle Estimated time required to reach next waypoint assuming cur rent ground speed is maintained Estimated arrival local time at task completion assuming per formance of ideal MacCready cruise climb cycle 142 XCSoar User Manual Next arrival time WP ETA Task req total height trend RH Trend Time under max start height Start Height 12 10 Team code Team code Team Code Team bearing Team Brng Team bearing difference Team BrngD Team range Team Dist 12 11 Device status Battery voltage percent Battery CPU load CPU Free RAM Free RAM 12 12 Alternates Alternate 1 Altn 1 Alternate 2 Altn 2 Alternate 1 GR Altni GR 12 INFOBOX REFERENCE Estimated arrival local time at next
227. two zoom settings one when the glider is in circling mode and one in the cruise or final mode This is the Circling zoom option in the configuration settings By default the circling zoom is set to about 2 5 km 5 0 km depending on the display size When the user zooms in or out it affects the current mode s zoom setting only so when leaving the mode the previous mode s zoom setting is used If Circling Zoom is not enabled there is only a single zoom level This leads to different zoom levels being preserved to be managed manually independent of the following Auto Zoom settings Auto Zoom automatically zooms in when approaching a waypoint to keep the waypoint at a reasonable screen distance When Auto Zoom is active AUTO appears next to the map scale To invoke Auto Zoom use the gesture or menu path depicted to the left Switching back to manual zoom is simply done by using the same menu path or just zooming manually no matter whether done via menu or gesture When a waypoint changes automatically via the task selector or by manually switching waypoints Auto Zoom adjusts the zoom level automatically so that the next waypoint is visible on the map During circling if a thermal has been detected then the map is centred about the thermal or part way such that the glider is still visible A pan mode allows the user to explore areas beyond the glider This is particularly useful when task planning 1 Enable pan mo
228. uttons This is more suited to user interface input devices than airframe monitoring A custom input events file determines how switch and sensor inputs are processed A standard set of airframe inputs are defined as e Airbrake e Flap position positive landing flap neutral negative reflex e Landing gear This set is expected to expand to include engine and fuel monitor ing Other logical inputs from Vega include computed quantities re lating to specific airframe alerts and aircraft operating envelope warnings for example airbrake extended and gear retracted Refer to the Vega documentation for more details on switch inputs and how they may be used 10 4 Vega switch dialogue Config 3 gt Vega A dialogue displaying switch states for the Vega variometer is Airframe available from the menu Switches This dialogue is updated in real time allowing the pilot to check the correct functioning of switches during daily inspection tests or before takeoff 126 XCSoar User Manual 10 5 Slave mode 10 6 System status Info 2 gt Status GPS lock 3D fix Satellites in view Unknown Variometer Disconnected FLARM Disconnected Logger 10 7 Multiple devices 10 AVIONICS AND AIRFRAME Airbrake locked Unknown Switch Unknown Flaps Unknown Vario circling Off Gear down Off Acknowledge
229. varous file formats it might be necessary to involve a data converter Additionally you might set up extra screen pages covering competition related measures In case a competition hosting umbrella organisation alters task rules there is a chance something turns out to be done by XC Soar s developers At the latest by facing a newly introduced crude task rule you develop awareness of developer s support urgently needed Exactly then the XCSoar organisation is perceived as being part of your XCSoar system Please input any important information to the XCSoar community promptly All the developers will do their best keeping up with changes as are competition rules for example But please keep in mind XCSoar is an open source project performed by volun teers The earlier you provide information on changes the better your chance is gaining support by the XCSoar community Never theless all said holds true for commercial suppliers as well 121 XCSoar User Manual Functionality Application 9 INTEGRATION The task files put in will ensure you are equipped with precise task data No error prone manual input The additional screen pages will give you InfoBox readings re lated to several phases of the competition Just to give you a clue the InfoBox Start open close countdown appears to be useless in all day flying situations Put it on a screen page other than your standard ensemble No comment XCSoar Refere
230. vided by an intelligent variometer XCSoar can often make use of it or display it in a separate InfoBox Key sensor measurements that XCSoar uses include Gross total energy variometer rate of change of the total energy of the aircraft Used for display and for calculation of netto variometer Netto variometer estimated vertical velocity of the air mass at the aircraft Used to for display and to colour the snail trail so that it may effectively show areas of lift and sink Aircraft acceleration load factor Used for netto variometer calculations where an external netto variometer is not provided Barometric altitude Used for display Indicated airspeed Used for display in compensating final glide calculations for aircraft kinetic energy and in netto variometer calculation where an external netto variometer is not provided Air density Used for calculating true airspeed from indicated airspeed 7 4 Wind display A continuous display of wind strength and direction is provided on the map The wind information is derived from the gliders wind drift during thermal flight climb mode The wind direction and speed are displayed as a wind vector on the moving map display and optionally in numeric form in the data 95 XCSoar User Manual 7 5 Wind estimation 7 ATMOSPHERE AND INSTRUMENTS display fields The length of the vector indicates the wind magni tude and this magnitude is also displayed near the wi
231. waypoint assuming perfor mance of ideal MacCready cruise climb cycle Trend or neg of the variation of the total required height to complete the task The contiguous period the ship has been below the task start max height The current Team code for this aircraft Use this to report to other team members The last team aircraft code entered is displayed underneath The bearing to the team aircraft location at the last team code report The relative bearing to the team aircraft location at the last reported team code The range to the team aircraft location at the last reported team code Displays percentage of device battery remaining where appli cable and status voltage of external power supply CPU load consumed by XCSoar averaged over 5 seconds Free RAM as reported by the operating system Displays name and bearing to the best alternate landing loca tion Displays name and bearing to the second alternate landing lo cation Geometric gradient to the arrival height above the best alter nate This is not adjusted for total energy 143 XCSoar User Manual 12 13 Obstacles Nearest airspace horizontal Near AS H Nearest airspace vertical Near AS V Terrain collision Terr Coll 12 INFOBOX REFERENCE The horizontal distance to the nearest airspace The vertical distance to the nearest airspace A positive value means the airspace is above you and negative means the
232. waypoints However because the glider usually has to stop cruising in order to climb in lift whilst circling the glider drifts downwind and there 89 XCSoar User Manual 6 13 Auto MacCready 6 GLIDE COMPUTER fore the cross track error can increase After several cycles of cruise climb the overall track becomes curved For the case where the final waypoint is active and one is above final glide circling is not necessary so this simple scheme is opti mal XCSoar can adjust the MacCready ring setting automatically to relieve the workload on the pilot Two methods of updating the MacCready ring setting are available Final glide During final glide MacCready is adjusted in order to arrive at the finishing point in minimum time For OLC Sprint tasks the MacCready is adjusted in order to cover the greatest dis tance in the remaining time and reach the finish height Trending average climb When not in final glide MacCready is adjusted to the trend Config 1 gt MacCready Auto Final glide ing average climb rate based on all thermals Additionally both methods may be used so that before reaching final glide the MacCready setting is adjusted to the average climb rate and during final glide it adjusts the setting to give minimum time to arrival The method that is used is defined in the configuration settings di alogue as the field Auto MC Mode The default setting is Both
233. wharington gmail com Documentation Daniel Audier osteocool yahoo fr Monika Brinkert moni sunpig de Kevin Ford ford math uiuc edu Claus W Habel c wh online de Stefan Murry smurry ao inc com Adrien Ott adrien ott gmail com Helmut J Rohs helmut j rohs web de Wolfram Zirngibl rueckwaertsflieger wolframz net Translators Milan Havlik Zdenek Sebesta Tobias Bieniek tobias bieniek gmx de Niklas Fischer nf nordthermik de Peter Hanhart peter hanhart schoensleben ch Max Kellermann max duempel org Helmut J Rohs helmut j rohs web de Philipp Wollschlegel folken kabelsalat ch Thomas Manousis Miguel Valdiri Badillo catastro1 tutopia com Alexander Caldwell alcald3000 yahoo com Diego Guerrero iccarod hotmail com Hector Martin Andres Miramontes amiramon gmail com Romaric Boucher Sylvain Burger sylvain burgerQwanadoo fr 179 XCSoar User Manual 15 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT Dany Demarck Zoran Milicic Sasa Mihajlovic Gabor Liptak liptakgabor freemail hu Kalman Rozsahegyi Enrico Girardi Lucas Marchesini Rick Boerma Joop Gooden joop gooden nir nl Hans van t Spijker Michal Jezierski m jezierski finke pl Mateusz Pusz Luke Szczepaniak luke silentflight ca Mateusz Zakrzewski Tales Maschio Luis Fernando Rigato Vasconcellos fernando rigato gmail com Monika Brinkert moni sunpig de Nikolay Dikiy Brtko Peter p brtko facc co at Roman Stoklasa rstoki gmail com Aleksandar Cirkovic Patric
234. wide scrutiny and therefore bugs are easily and quickly fixed A large group of developers are available to help in trou bleshooting and quickly implement new features upon re quest Open source software under the GNU public license cannot at a later date be made closed source so by using this soft 176 XCSoar User Manual 15 HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT ware you will not be locked in to unspecified software costs in the future The full terms of the licensing agreement for XCSoar is given in Appendix A The development of XCSoar since its open source release has been entirely a volunteer effort This does not preclude individ ual developers or organisations from offering commercial support services The spirit of the project however suggests that in such cases the commercial services are encouraged to produce some flow on benefit back to the wider community of users 15 4 Development process 15 5 User base We try to incorporate new features as quickly as possible This has to be balanced by the needs to not change substantially the interface without appropriate warnings so users that upgrade do not get a shock This means that when we introduced the new button menu system in version 4 5 it was necessary to also dis tribute a file that allowed users to have the buttons assigned to their legacy function XCSoar being used in flight is a special kind of software because it can be regarded as mission critical
235. ws Flarm targets on your moving map Dis playing even climb rates of the others a classic XCSoar system aids in team flying As long as reception is good you do not have to call your mates whether their efforts in thermals are worth it or just for asking where they are actually Last but not least Flarm will bring in an IGC approved logger This you will need to par ticipate in several contests as the logger has to be approved and sealed An XCSoar classic system also is club glider friendly If your club gliders are equipped with a plug intended for managing or down loading from Flarm devices you can connect with almost no in trusion in the glider s instrumentation structure Whatever you are willing to integrate in your XCSoar system said functionalities of a classic system turn out to own a very good value integration effort ratio 119 XCSoar User Manual XCSoar Classic Setup Functionality Application XCSoar Tactic Setup 9 INTEGRATION Bring in an additional ADS B receiver With rapid market penetra tion of Flarm a very welcome collision detection coverage in the glieder scene is already achieved However this is not the case with motor driven vehicles If you want to have motorized targets to be depicted on your moving map consider an ADS B receiver on your integration list Integrating a Flarm and an ADS B receiver is a first example for integrating two sources of data Possibly you need a multiplex
236. x mode should be used on auto pages InfoBox Set Customisation Name Sets the name of the currently customized InfoBox set The button starts the text input dialogue of XCSoar InfoBox The number identifying the current box Content Select the information you want to see at the current box The right side of the dialogue always gives the overview on the composed set When composing at the PC you can use the mouse to select the individual boxes right from the overview 160 XCSoar User Manual 13 CONFIGURATION See Section 12 for a description of the InfoBox types and their meanings To change a set press on one of the InfoBoxes labeled with it s current content The InfoBoxes are numbered the location of the InfoBoxes depends on the screen layout The tables below shows the InfoBox enumeration scheme for the landscape and portait screen layout 117 1T2J3 4 2 8 5161718 319 4110 5 11 6 12 13 23 Setup Logger The internal software logger has adjustable time steps separate for cruise and circling modes Typically the circling time step is set to a smaller value than cruise in order to give good quality flight logs for replay purposes Time step cruise This is the time interval between logged points when not cir cling Time step circling This is the time interval between logged points when circling Auto logger Enables the automatic starting
237. y offers all available information about the FLARM traffic and 113 XCSoar User Manual 8 AIRSPACE TRAFFIC AND TEAM FLYING depending on the setup it closes by itself when all traffic has been gone EXE 43 42 Details Close V W 3 4 Only a few controls are on the dialogue from top down North up Up Down r Zoom Right wet ty Avg Alt If checked the radar screen is oriented North up if not the orientation is Track up Automatic zoom scales the radar screen so that the targets are perfectly visible If not checked the screen must be zoomed manually The Up Down gesture activates the auto matic zoom The button toggles in between average vario and altitude displayed next to the target Down Right Details Through the button a separate dialogue with all details to the selected target is accessed Up Down Manually change the zoom from 500 meter to 10000 meter radar range The zoom gestures also apply here Left Right lt gt Select the previous or next target on the radar gestures work in the same manner DC DC Distance Rel Alt Distance Rel Alt 466m 115m 312m 146m 114 XCSoar User Manual 8 AIRSPACE TRAFFIC AND TEAM FLYING The three screenshots are taken in a sequence and demonstrate atypical near pass of e g two FLARM equipped gliders The extra information is colour coded in the already mentioned way In the four corners of the radar screen is additional i
238. y will be rotated so the current target direction is oriented up Wind up The moving map display will be rotated so the wind is always oriented top down might be useful for wave flying This determines whether separate zoom levels will be main tained for circling and cruise modes If enabled then the map will zoom in automatically when entering circling mode and zoom out automatically when leaving circling mode The direction according to the map will be displaced in order to present a meaningful map section None Disable any adjustment Track Use a recent average of the ground track as basis Target Use the current target waypoint as basis Defines the location of the glider drawn on the screen in per cent from the screen edge The upper limit for auto zoom distance 13 6 Map Display Elements This page provides options relating to screen elements overlayed to the map display Ground track FLARM traffic Trail length Track bearing Auto FLARM traffic On Display the ground track ground track projection on the map The setting Auto displays the ground track only if there is a significant difference to plane heading This enables the display of FLARM traffic on the map Determines whether and how long a snail trail is drawn be hind the glider Off No trail is drawn Long A long trail is drawn approx 60 minutes 148 XCSoar User Manual Trail drift Trail type T

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