SSA & WeGlide
A Free Service for SSA Members
What is WeGlide?
WeGlide is an online glider social platform to share and analyze your flights.
How to Sign Up
STEP 1 – Register
You will need your SSA Member Number to claim your Member subscription. If you do not have an SSA Membership, you can sign up here.
Enter your personal information along with your Club Name (or nearby Gliderport). It must be a US gliderport and preferably one you want to be associated with. Once a Club is selected, you’ll be prompted to enter your SSA Membership ID. If you already have a WeGlide account, click on the ‘I’m already signed up’ button, log in and then click on the ‘Activate SSA benefits’ button on the WeGlide home page. Or you can go to your Profile and click on Settings (the gear icon near the top) to enter your SSA Member ID. That’s it! Your SSA benefit will be activated immediately.
STEP 2 – Choose Plan
Each SSA Member is entitled to a free Supporter-level WeGlide subscription as a Member benefit. OR, you can upgrade to a Premium Plan for 50% off. Make sure you are logged in and have entered your SSA ID before upgrading your plan.
WeGlide Account Support: info@weglide.org
Live Tracking
Introduction to WeGlide Live Tracking
WeGide allows glider pilots to upload and share their flights with the world, but also to make their flights visible for others to follow in real time via live tracking. To enable these capabilities the SSA has arranged to make use of multiple sources of glider position information (Flarm, ADS-B and satellite trackers), combined together via the Open Glider Network (OGN). To be seen on live on WeGlide you need to register your glider on OGN and then link your glider to your WeGlide account.
Proceed with this step only if you need to add your glider to OGN. Otherwise proceed to Step 2, below. You will need the ICAO ID that is assigned to the glider you are registering. If you have a Flarm and it is properly configured, it should be broadcasting this ID as well. If you don’t know your glider’s ICAO ID you can find it at the FAA N-Number Lookup Database.
Simply type in your N-number and look in the lower right of the Aircraft Description section for the 6-digit alpha-numeric code next to Mode S Code (Base 16/Hex). Now take your glider information to the OGN Registration Page. If you don’t have an account, enter an email address and password to create one.
Next, click on “Add Device” and fill out the form (example below). You will need your aircraft N-number, Contest Number and 6-digit Flarm/ICAO Hex ID to enter into the “Device ID” field. Select ICAO as the device type and select your aircraft model from the list. Click the checkbox confirming that you are the owner of the device and click “Submit”.
Note: For privacy reasons, OGN flight tracks are retained on the OGN servers for 24 hours and then are automatically deleted. If you want to share your flights with friends or play them back and analyze how you did, you will need to upload an IGC log file for your flight.
To connect your glider to your WeGlide account for live tracking, go to WeGlide.org and log in to your account. Then click on your profile button in the lower left of the WeGlide home screen. When your profile page comes up, click the ‘Live Connect’ button. Type in your N-number in the ‘Registration’ field on the right and select your glider from the list of OGN-registered gliders.
Note: it may take several hours for a newly-registered glider on OGN to show up on WeGlide.
To link your glider to your account indefinitely, you will need to upload an IGC file for the glider you will be flying with the correct registration number in the log file before selecting the time period to link to your glider using the duration slider – up to ‘forever’. Don’t worry, you can always change or disconnect the link to your glider. If you don’t have an IGC file handy, or you are flying a borrowed glider, you can link to the selected glider for up to 14 days.
Linking your Spot or InReach Satellite Tracker to OGN
Satellite Trackers provide more comprehensive coverage, but with much slower update rates than Open Glider Network (OGN) ground stations in the United States. If you have one, you can have your position forwarded to OGN where it will be added to other tracking information for your glider (i.e. Flarm/OGN, ADS-B Out (if installed in your glider) or dedicated OGN tracking transmitters).
To add your satellite tracker, simply fill out the appropriate form for Spot or InReach (links below) to connect your satellite tracker to OGN. Each form includes links to instructions for the respective tracking device type. For Spot you need to obtain an XML feed ID. For InReach you need to obtain your InReach UserName.
Note to InReach Users: Your InReach username appears in the social link that is three menus deep at the Garmin Explore website. It can be found at: https://explore.garmin.com. Click on “My Info”, then click on “Social” and then make sure MapShare is enabled. Your username is the text after the forward-slash.
For OGN account support email: contact@glidernet.org
WeGlide & OGN Registration FAQs
SSA And WeGlide Announce Agreement to Provide SSA Members Free Services
The SSA is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with WeGlide for WeGlide to provide services to SSA members and clubs. Starting in August 2023 all SSA members will receive, as an SSA member benefit, a free WeGlide “Supporter” membership, providing advanced flight viewing and analysis capabilities. In addition, SSA members can upgrade to a “Premium” membership (which adds advanced flight replay and analysis, task planning and creation of local competitions) at a 50% discount to the regular price. SSA Clubs and Business Members will be entitled to a “Premium” subscription free of charge.
WeGlide has agreed to adapt and enhance their offerings for soaring in the United States. Working with the SSA, WeGlide will develop a program of national and regional free-distance competitions, and will support Club and affiliate task-oriented competitions, which will complement and expand on the popular Proving Grounds program. SSA-sanctioned National and Regional contests will also be available on WeGlide live tracking, with task display and race leaderboards based on the SSA- supported US OGN network that integrates Flarm, ADS-B Out and Satellite tracker position reports to create a compelling online viewing experience.
The agreement is for a 6-month evaluation period, after which SSA and WeGlide may agree to extend the program. SSA member input will be an important in deciding whether to extend the program.
How does WeGlide compare to other online services?
- WeGlide is an integrated online platform for soaring. First and foremost WeGlide is a social platform for sharing and talking about glider flights with friends and clubmates (like Facebook or Instagram for soaring). It also offers cross-country competitions based on uploaded flights (like OLC), along with easy-to-organize task-oriented local competitions. It also has live tracking of gliders based on tracking data from the Open Glider Network (OGN) with enhancements including live leaderboards for contest flights (like glideport.aero on steroids).
- The SSA sees live tracking and contest leaderboard features as an important safety innovation but also as beneficial in generating interest, engagement and inspiration in people who are new to soaring.
The Open Glider Network (OGN) is a network of ground-based radio receivers that listen for transmissions from aircraft equipped with Flarm transceivers. The aircraft positions contained in these transmissions are forwarded over the Internet to computer servers that make the glider positions available for viewing via web viewers like WeGlide and GliderTracker in real time. Typical position update rates for OGN traffic is 1-5 second making Live Tracking of gliders connected to OGN a compelling viewing experience compared to earlier generations of position reporting. Over the past several years other position reporting technologies such as ADS-B Out, Spot, InReach and dedicated OGN transmitters have been integrated into the network. OGN originated in Europe and has grown rapidly over the past several years. Now it is expanding in the United States.
In 2023 the SSA sponsored deployment of approximately 120 OGN ground stations at popular soaring sites around the United States, bringing the total number of ground station to more than 150. Each ground station has a range of approximately 40 miles, bringing the total coverage of the network in the US to nearly 750,000 square miles. Flights in 2023 received on the OGN Network are shown here. For more information on how to set up OGN coverage at your soaring site, send and email inquiry to: help.ogn@gmail.com
- Tracking is important for several reasons. It allows Clubs and contest organizers to better organize retrieves or other assistance. It is also a valuable marketing tool to build awareness of soaring and glider racing in the US and globally. Lastly, family and friends on the ground find real-time tracking of flights and races highly compelling and entertaining.
- OGN tracking data is automatically deleted after 24 hours – an additional privacy feature not available with other forms of tracking.
- OGN and WeGlide registration simply adds your name (from WeGlide) and glider registration/contest number (from OGN) to your publicly available ICAO ID and allows your glider to show up on WeGlide in order to be available for inclusion in WeGlide contest tracking and leaderboards. You can turn off the WeGlide link to your glider at any time. You can de-register you glider from OGN at any time.
When I attempt to add my ICAO ID to the OGN Device Database at http://ddb.glidernet.org I get an error: “This device is already registered”.
- If your glider was previously owned by someone else, the prior owner may have registered the ICAO ID. If you can, contact the prior owner and ask them to release the ICAO ID from their account so that you can claim it.
- Your ICAO ID may have been registered by someone else. For help, send an email to: contact@glidernet.org to see if this is the case and request the ICAO ID be released to you.
- Unless your glider’s registration or contest number has changed, there is generally not an urgent need to have your glider’s entry in the OGN device database associated with your account. It is simply a database that links the ICAO ID that Flarm transmits to publicly available information about the glider. As long as your glider is in the OGN device database, you can link to it on WeGlide.
When I attempt to add my glider to my WeGlide account by entering my registration number in the Live Connect window, my glider doesn’t show up in the selection list.
- If you recently entered your glider into the OGN Device Database it may take it a few hours to show up on WeGlide. Wait a few hours and try again.
- You may have not have correctly entered your glider in the OGN Device Database. Log into your account at http://ddb.glidernet.org/ and make sure the correct glider information appears
I’ve entered my glider information and ICAO ID into the OGN device database, but my glider’s information is not showing up on WeGlide or other OGN viewers.
One problem may be that your Flarm configuration file left the ICAO ID blank. If this is the case your Flarm will broadcast a Flarm ID instead of the ICAO ID and the Flarm position data received by OGN ground stations will not be associated with your glider on OGN. You can check for this by looking at one of your IGC files from your Flarm or a Flarm-connected logger in a text reader on your computer (one way to do this is to append .txt in place of .igc at the end of the log file name). Approximately 20-25 lines down from the top of the log file will be lines that look something like this:
LFLA19415207FRW 7.07
LFLA194152 STEALTH OFF
LFLA194152 NOTRACK OFF
LFLA194152ID 1 A8DB1A
These four lines identify the Flarm firmware version, whether Stealth mode is enabled, whether No Tracking is enabled, and the ID that Flarm is broadcasting. Make sure that STEALTH and NOTRACK are both OFF and that the last 6 digits of the ID line (in this example A8DB1A) are your aircraft’s correct ICAO ID as it appears in the FAA database and in the OGN Device Database.
You can create a new Flarm Configuration File for your Flarm at the following online address: https://www.flarm.com/support/tools-software/flarm-configuration-tool/
When I attempt to add my glider to my WeGlide account in the Live Connect window I get an error: “To link your account to the flarm device forever, you have to upload an igc file containing the flarm id first. If your logger does not write the flarm id to the file, you will have to upload an igc file read from your flarm”.
As a security measure, WeGlide requires a log file be uploaded from any device that is going to be indefinitely linked to an account. If you haven’t uploaded an igc file from your Flarm-connected logger, please do so before attempting to link your glider to your account forever. In the interim, you can add your glider for up to 14 days.
When I attempt to add my glider to my WeGlide account in the Live Connect window I get an error: “Pilot with ID XXXX has already linked this device ”.
This means that another WeGlide account has been linked to the glider you are attempting to link to your account. Contact WeGlide Support at: info@weglide.org to have your glider released to you.
You just need an OGN ground station, which is a small, self-contained radio receiver and computer with an antenna tuned to Flarm frequencies. You also need a location, preferably at or within a few miles of your gliderport, to mount an antenna with a clear view of the sky – away from trees and taller buildings. The computer and antenna need to be within wired or WiFi reach of a reasonably reliable internet connection. For assistance getting started email: ogn.help@gmail.com