On Aug 23, 11:11*pm, Andy wrote:
On Aug 23, 1:14*pm, johngalloway wrote:

All glide angles converge at
the destination *so any glide angle that I can keep constant will
bring me to home at my arrival reserve altitude.

With the very, very, big caveat that there is no intervening terrain.

There is actually significant potential for advancement in gliding
computers. That is the display of a vertical profile view of the final
glide, complete with terrain. *This display is known as the VSD
(Vertical Situation Display) in some non gliding display
applications. *This type of display can clearly depict a multi-angle
final glide path when that is required to clear terrain and also make
the goal at the required finish altitude.

I suspect that this type of display would also be very useful for
understanding the effect on glide path and optimum MC when there is a
significant wind change when rounding the final turnpoint.

Andy (GY)

I use Condor soaring simulator with my iPaq running from the serial
port. It's a great way to test if/then situations and to get familiar
with your navigator. One interesting way of looking at terrain is
also the program XC-Soar. It draws a dotted, terrain aware, wind
aware, polar aware circle around your current position that indicates
the terrain strike point at your current MC. For terrain, this dotted
line spills into other valley's through lower gaps and valleys. Also
SeeYou has a red box on the course line indicating any ridge you will
hit before reaching you destination. You can run somewhat parallel to
this ridge way before you get to it and if SeeYou finds a gap, the red
box disappears and you can proceed direct. akiley