Wind Information Features and Screen
Wind is very important to a glider pilot. It can dramatically effect the glide angle over the ground, and if you can reach your target waypoint or not. For example, a 10 knot head wind can reduce the glide angle of a typical club class glider by 20% or more.
Wind Features
SoarPilot is able to calculate the wind from the GPS data 1) when you are thermalling, then can use this data in the calculations it makes.
The wind data is used to:
- Adjust the final glide calculations to the target waypoint
- Adjust the Speed To Fly (STF) values
- Display the Required Ground Speed (RGS) rather than airspeed for speed to fly values
- Adjust which waypoints are in-range from the glider’s current position
- Adjust the Final glide Around (FGA) remaining turnpoints calculation in a task
- Adjust the Final Glider Over Terrain calculations
The wind information is displayed on the:
- the Wind Info screen described below
- Final Glide screen in the HW field
- Moving Map screen as an arrow displayed around the glider symbol showing the direction and number showing the wind speed.
In this case it shows a head/cross wind coming from the right, with a speed of 10 wind units. The wind units (knots, mph, kph or m/s) are selected on the Units Setup screen.
Wind Info Screen
This screen displays the detailed wind information and also has options to control the calculation and display of the wind values in the program. Pressing the Profile button takes you to the Wind Profile Screen.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Mode | CRUISE or THERMAL depending on current flight pattern of the glider |
| Turn Dir | Shows the current / last turn direction of the glider |
| Speed/Dir | Speed and direction of the current wind calculation |
| Avg Spd/Dir | Average wind speed and direction used in the calculations |
| Avg Thermal Lift | Last average lift while thermalling |
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Wind Profile | Controls if the arrows on the Wind Profile screen are in North-Up or Track-Up orientation |
| Wind Calc | Controls if the wind calculations will be done by SoarPilot, or the data will be accepted from a logger that provides this information |
| Calculate Wind Info | Option to calculate the wind information or not. This option should normally be selected |
| Update Final Glide Headwind | Option to use the calculated value in the final glide calculations. This option should normal be selected |
| Headwind as Positive Value | Option to show a headwind as a positive value i.e. +10 knots. If this is not selected, a 10 knot headwind would be displayed as -10 knots. |
You can also adjust manually the wind speed and direction. These adjusted values will be overwritten when the system calculates the wind again unless you turn the calculate wind option off. This is useful on a long final glide, or when you don’t expect the thermal again for a while and have some better wind reports.
The on-screen buttons are replicated by the hardward buttons for ease of use in-flight.
| Manual Control | Effect | Button |
|---|---|---|
| < | Rotate wind direction 10deg to the Left | Calendar |
| > | Rotate wind direction 10deg to the Right | Phone |
| Reset | Reset the wind speed and direction | |
| + | Increase the wind speed | Todo |
| - | Reduce the wind speed | Memo |
Wind Profile
This screen displays the changing wind strength and direction with height. You can access this directly from the Flight menu, or from the Wind Info screen above. The values are built up during the flight as the program calculates the wind at various heights.
The arrows represent the wind direction and strength, the longer the arrow, the stronger the wind. The line on the right of the screen shows the wind strength in a graph form. If the wind strength is off the scale of the graph (a very strong wind) this is shown with an arrow in the right of the graph.
The following buttons can be used to change the range of the Wind Profile being viewed.
| Button | Function |
|---|---|
| ToDo | Move up in the Wind Profile |
| Memo | Move down in the Wind Profile |
| Page-Down | Decrease the interval size |
| Page-Up | Increase the interval size |
Tapping in the graph area on the right of the screen will toggle the display to show the latest sample in each band and how many samples a band contains. This is useful to be able to judge how accurate this information may be.
