Chapter 9: Features and Flight in X-Plane Glider

X-Plane Glider is the first X-Plane Mobile app to feature gliders—from towing, to soaring, to setting down for a landing.

The simulator comes with four aircraft—two unpowered gliders, one powered glider, and a Cessna 172 (used as a towplane for the unpowered gliders).

When flying the unpowered gliders, users start out on their runway of choice, right behind the towplane. Turning off the brakes gives the tow pilot the go ahead to take off, pulling the glider with it to altitude. Once the craft has been successfully towed to altitude, the real fun begins—gliding!

In addition to accurately simulating the physics of the aircraft, X-Plane Glider simulates ridge lift, the phenomenon of wind blowing up and over the mountains, climbing or descending to follow the contours of the terrain.

Innsbruck, Austria and five other gorgeous flight regions are provided, letting the user soar across all manner of amazing terrain with steep, tall mountains, watching the wind indicator in the lower left to monitor the wind direction and speed, then hunting for the perfect mountain slope at a right angle to that wind, pushing the air up into a free elevator for a ride to altitude!

Like the other X-Plane Mobile apps, Glider supports multiplayer! Users can go sailing with their friends, working on formation flying in gliders. Just use the Random Start button on the Map screen to start in the air—the other user will appear as an icon in the bottom-center of the screen, allowing the pilots to meet up. For even more fun, one user can get in the Cessna 172 and tow the other person aloft! With one user acting as the towplane, and the other as the glider, the pair can have fun finding the perfect place to soar.


 * [[Image:Glider_in_tow.png]]

Aircraft
X-Plane Glider gives users the choice of four aircraft: a Schleicher ASK 21 composite trainer, a high performance Schempp-Hirth Cirrus, a PZL Bielsko SZD-45 Ogar powered glider, or a Cessna 172.


 * [[Image:X-Plane_Glider_aircraft.png]]

Flight Regions
X-Plane Glider includes the following regions:
 * Big Bear, California
 * Juneau, Alaska
 * Catalina, California
 * Innsbruck, Austria
 * Provost, Utah
 * Canyons (fictional)

Taking Off and Flying
When starting out in one of the two unpowered gliders (the ASK 21 or the Cirrus), the simulator puts the craft on the runway behind the Cessna towplane. The towplane's engine is running, and it's ready to go. Releasing the glider's brakes (by tapping the BRAKE button) commands the towplane to take off, dragging the user's craft with it.

When flying the Schempp-Hirth Cirrus, the gear should be raised (using the GEAR button) once the craft is off the ground. This enables the user to squeeze every last bit of performance from the glider.

The towplane, once in flight, will take the glider as high as the user likes, and while being carried up, the glider will have to hold formation behind it as it pulls the glider to altitude. Tapping the HOOK button located in the bottom center of the screen will release the line between the aircraft, allowing the glider to soar freely.

Notice, of course, that until the HOOK button has been pressed, the tow rope connecting the two aircraft is attached to the towplane's tail and the glider's nose. X-Plane models the real physics of this situation, so if the glider pulls left, right, up, or down, it will drag the towplane's tail in that direction. This could result in simply pulling the plane off course, or ultimately in dragging the plane into a stall or spin. If that happens, things will get very complicated very quickly—the towplane (which will likely be crashing) will be dragging the glider with it! The dynamics of the resulting crash are... interesting.

According to the FAA handbook for gliders, a glider pilot should keep the glider in one of two positions when being towed to altitude. It should either be in a “low tow” position, wherein the glider is just below the wake from the towplane, or it should be in a “high tow” position, just above the wake from the towplane. Hold this position carefully to keep from dragging the towplane around!

Taking off in the SZD-45 (the powered glider) is like taking off in any other plane—run the throttle all the way up, pull in a little bit of flaps, then pull back at around 50 knots. Then, once the glider reaches altitude (with the flaps up, of course), drag the throttle slider back down to idle and soar like any other glider!

A glider pilot must watch the wind and the slope of the terrain carefully to hold inside the upward-moving currents of air, using the lift of the air flowing up the mountain slope to hold the craft aloft. With a good 25-knot wind set in the simulator, the user can get a nice, free elevator ride to 10,000 feet when flying along the windward side of a nice, steep mountain. This is called ridge lift.

Unique to the gliders is an instrument called the total energy variometer. If it is beeping, then the aircraft is in a nice updraft from the air following the terrain. Circling in that area will let the glider ride the climbing air to altitude! When the variometer is emitting a steady tone, the craft is in descending air—the glider has been blown to the wrong side of the mountain, and a crash will follow soon if the user does not find a way out of that area!

Now, to land the glider, simply circle down to runway level. The trick is to approach the runway with just enough speed to set the craft down safely. Remember, the speedbrakes can help slow the craft down (as in the upper right corner in the following image), but if it doesn't have enough speed to reach the landing strip, the glider has no way of generating thrust.


 * [[Image:Glider_speedbrakes.png]]

Additionally, note that the ADF (automatic direction finder) in the bottom center of the screen always points toward the nearest airport. For instance, in the following image, the glider would need to turn nearly 180 degrees to be pointing toward the nearest airport.


 * [[Image:Glider_ADF.png]]