Tools

This page describes different software packages useful in soaring.  Most of these are FREE for non-commercial use.  We’ve tried to divide into simple categories and also provide site/download links.  Most of these are tools you’ll find referenced in tutorials.  Again, your suggestions are welcome and we’ll credit your name on the site!

  • New
    • jsigc – Click on the link and this utility will allow to upload an IGC flight recording and view the ground track and altitude for the entire flight.  Real easy to use.  Created by Alistair Malcolm Green and Richard Brisbourne, you can download the entire source from github.
  • Club Management – membership, duty scheduling, aircraft scheduling/status
    • FLY – A web based package that takes care of common requirements.
  • Condor 2 Scenery Creation – Landscapes
    • Condor_tiles – A great tool currently supported by Nick Bonniere.  No dedicated documentation, but some tutorials contain detailed instructions on use.
    • Condor Soaring – Start here for landscape creation tools and documentation.  Many other tutorial will reference tools/guides that you’ll find here.
    • Scenery Check – Written by Phillipe Duclos. This utility helps landscape developers to validate their work and to find errors (as missing or misconfigured objects).
  • Condor 2 Scenery Creation – General/Runway/Airport Structures
    • Airport Maker – Written by Jiří Brožek.  This utility is a real life saver after you’ve finished a scenery and now need a runway.  It does a great job on creating a grass strip, expect support asphalt in the future!
    • Blender –  This is the ‘gold standard’ for 3D modelling.  You could create the Starship Enterprise, but it does have a very steep learning curve and might be overkill for simple structures.
    • Condor Check – Written by Phillippe Duclos.  This utility provides to basic users information on the installation of the software Condor2 and performs some checks.
    • Wings 3D – Is a pretty useful program for creating 3D structures.  Good for beginners in modeling, simpler to use than Blender.
  • General Purpose Scenery
    • Latitude/Longitude Conversion – Used to be only hours/minutes,/seconds, but many tools now use decimal hours, or decimal hours/minutes. This handles them all!
    • QGIS – This is ‘the’ opensource program for geo data editing.  Some tutorials reference using it, some just need a few of the utilities including with it.
    • UTM zone mapping – The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system plays a key role in creating a landscape.  This tools helps you find yourself!
  • Imagery/Satellite Data