Home Ian Forster-Lewis Soaring homepage

Microsoft Flight Simulator
Numerous add-ons are available for FSX to provide simulated soaring flight.
IGC File Format
The link on the right takes you to a homepage for the file format used to store gliding flight logs. This is a plain text format giving a series of timestamped latitude/longitude/altitude records showing where you have flown, suitable for scoring in soaring competitions		 IGC File Format homepage
Soaring with a GPS
(Relatively) inexpensive GPS's have greatly improved in-air navigation and post-flight analysis. These notes provide some guidance on choosing and using a GPS for soaring.
Clubs

The soaring clubs I used to fly from
NE US Weather (I suggest you review in this order):
  1. BlipMap (Thermal map for tomorrow)
  2. 7-day synoptic chart loop
  3. Weather.com (7 day plus hourly 2 days)
  4. Accuweather (7 day plus hourly 3 days)
  5. Upper air soundings forecast (today and tomorrow)
  6. NOAA (National aviation 7-day forecast)
  7. Intellicast (simple 10-day forecast)
  8. Launch Code (today & tomorrow)
  9. Synoptic charts (1-2 day detail, 7 day forecast)
  10. Video - weekend
  11. Video - week ahead
UK Weather:
  1. WeatherJack
Governor's Cup
The innovative multi-site annual competition in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
  1. Gov Cup homepage
  2. Flight logs and upload
IGCview
the free soaring logger file analysis program written in Java
Krasnoff Soaring Simulator
a competition racing simulator written in JavaScript
Flight Club Soaring Simulator
a 3d racing simulator written in Java