James Gibson <<gibson.gds>>
writes:

One of the primary developers/programmers of XCSoar is working on
new tactical flight computer (software) named LK8000. He has made very good
progress with LK8000 so far and is currently at Beta v1.16. My limited knowledge
of the project is that it evolved from XCSoar and as such was geared primarily
for sailplane pilots using PDAs. Paolo (the developer) is structuring LK8000 to
be used on car navigators, other PNAs as well as PDAs.

In the past few months he has added a paraglider mode to the set-up
configuration and has received good input from paraglider pilots. I recently
started using the latest version for my hang glider and learned that very few
hang glider pilots are signed into the forum. Paolo will be incorporating hang
glider modes into the software and is requesting input from delta pilots (there
was some discussion on what to call hang glider pilots since in Europe hang
gliders are referred to as delta gliders and Paolo is from Italy. This 'venue'
might be a good time/place to ease out the 'hang' in hang gliding!).

Some of the data references needed for the programming are performance polars
for the various classes of delta gliders. I am contacting all of the
manufacturers of delta gliders (fix wing and flex wing) to see if they will
share any of their polar data (wish me luck).

Another batch of information needed is; what are the general task
specifications/data required in competitions. Paolo is specifically looking for
a few good beta testers to communicate with. The beta testers must be able to
communicate well in English (or Italian) and be able to use Skype. Previous use
of XCSoar is a big plus.

To find out more information and to register for the LK8000 support forum please
visit: http://www.bware.it/xcsoar/.