The Unofficial XCSoar Manual
UseSpecificSetup
From XCSoar
Use Specific Setup
XC Soar may be used in all types of free flight. All have common elements, but different specific needs. Out landings for sailplanes need to be planned for with precision, but for a paraglider any old paddock will do. This difference means that the same files can have different uses.
The first one to examine is the waypoints file:
Paragliding Use
This file should contain local trigger points for house thermals, mountain peaks, the ends of ridge runs, etc, and these features set as airfields. Within the final glide configuration the safety height should be set as the minimum (or average) distance above a target that you would be happy to hunt for a thermal. Then as you climb out from a local hill the next legs of your open cross country become highlighted as you pass the min height required, these will have been corrected for wind.
As you develop this waypoint file you may decide that a particular trigger is in bear country and you require an additional safety margin to go to that waypoint. This can be easily addressed by increasing the 'apparent' ht of the hill in the waypoint file.
Sailplane use
I would say most sail plane pilots use standard airport and turnpoint files as more of their tasks are defined tasks as opposed to open distance. Standard waypoint files exported from turnpoint data bases appear to be fine for them.
