[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$frHpbXfcSysvW74nV--ZlsY9xefbqEtDn269gtnftUEc":3,"$fP4NPd5Cizt2EEQErD9KgAIVr8CEugaSPyHqQ2fN8Aow":17,"shop-vat-rates":82},{"article":4},{"id":5,"slug":6,"title":7,"summary":8,"visibility":9,"isPublished":10,"categoryId":11,"categorySlug":12,"categoryName":13,"updatedAt":14,"bodyMd":15,"legacy":16,"createdAt":14},"cb198f52-4f7a-4c6e-af90-92e1c13aaf44","lx-glossary","The LX glossary: the words on the screen","Netto, relative, MacCready, QNH, ENL, total energy, dead band, AIRAC — every term an LX instrument puts on its screen, defined in a sentence and linked to the article that explains it properly.","public",true,"42232637-6088-4100-9314-0b4986098818","getting-started","Getting started","2026-09-10T11:36:59.647Z","Gliding instruments speak in abbreviations. A screen can tell you the netto, the required efficiency, the AIRAC date and the ENL trace without ever explaining what any of them mean, and the manual that would explain it is in the hangar. This is the plain-English version: the words you meet on an LX navigation screen, in its setup menus and in the paperwork after a flight.\n\nTerms are grouped by where they come up rather than in one long alphabet, and sorted alphabetically inside each group. Each entry is deliberately short. Where a term has real theory behind it, the entry ends with a link to the LX Academy article that does the explaining properly.\n\n## Flying and performance\n\n### Ballast\nWater carried in the wings, and sometimes in a tail tank, to raise the wing loading on a strong day. It shifts the polar to higher speeds — the same glide angle, flown faster — at the cost of a worse climb in weak lift. See [ballast and when to carry it](\u002Facademy\u002Fballast).\n\n### Bugs\nA percentage degradation you enter to tell the computer that the wings are dirty, wet, or otherwise not the ones the polar was measured on. It flattens the assumed performance, so final glides come out more conservative rather than optimistic. See [polar degradation](\u002Facademy\u002Fpolar-degradation).\n\n### Current and required glide ratio\nCurrent glide, sometimes labelled efficiency, is your ground speed divided by your sink rate right now. Required glide is what you would need to reach the selected point, reserve altitude included. When current is comfortably better than required, the glide is coming in. See [the final glide](\u002Facademy\u002Ffinal-glide).\n\n### Final glide and dynamic final glide\nFinal glide is the last leg flown as a computed glide to the finish or the airfield. When the destination is a task finish line, LX computers calculate it dynamically: they expect you to cross the line at 27 m\u002Fs (97.2 km\u002Fh) and to convert any speed above that into height with a pull-up. Fly straight through fast without pulling up and you will arrive below the computed glide. See [dynamic final glide](\u002Facademy\u002Fdynamic-final-glide).\n\n### Flap schedule\nThe table of flap positions against airspeed for your glider, held in the instrument so it can prompt the right setting as the speed changes. With a flap sensor fitted, the instrument also knows which position you are actually in. See [flaps and the polar](\u002Facademy\u002Fflaps-and-the-polar).\n\n### MacCready\nThe climb rate you expect in the next thermal, set by you. It is the one number that drives both speed to fly and final glide: set it high and the computer tells you to press on, set it to zero and it tells you to fly for maximum distance. See [the polar and MacCready](\u002Facademy\u002Fmaccready).\n\n### Polar\nYour glider's sink rate as a function of airspeed — the performance model underneath every gliding calculation the instrument makes, from netto to final glide. It is measured for a clean glider at a stated mass, which is why ballast and bugs each get their own correction. See [the polar and MacCready](\u002Facademy\u002Fmaccready).\n\n### Reserve altitude\nThe height added on top of the arrival altitude in every final-glide calculation, so that \"on glide\" means \"on glide, plus a cushion\". It influences the result more strongly than pilot, copilot or ballast mass, so set it to a number you are happy with before take-off rather than in the circuit.\n\n### Speed to fly (STF)\nThe optimal cruise speed for the current MacCready setting, mass and air mass: faster through sink, slower through lift. The instrument shows it as a target speed, or as a command to push or pull. See [the polar and MacCready](\u002Facademy\u002Fmaccready).\n\n### Turnpoint, task and AAT\nA turnpoint is a point you must reach, or a sector you must enter. A task is the ordered list of them. An Assigned Area Task replaces the points with large areas, so how deep you fly into each one, and the time you take, become the things you manage. See [flying the task](\u002Facademy\u002Ftask-flying).\n\n### Weight and balance (W&B)\nMasses, lever arms, and the centre of gravity that results — the check that says whether the aircraft as loaded today sits inside its envelope. The computer keeps the arms and warns you when the loading falls outside them. See [weight and balance](\u002Facademy\u002Fweight-and-balance).\n\n### Wing loading\nAll-up mass divided by wing area, usually in kg\u002Fm². It is the number ballast changes and the number a polar is quoted at: higher loading buys speed for the same glide angle and pays for it in the climb. See [ballast and when to carry it](\u002Facademy\u002Fballast).\n\n## Air data and altitude\n\n### AGL\nHeight above ground level: your altitude minus the elevation of the terrain beneath you, taken from the instrument's terrain data. It is a computed number, not a measured one, and it is only as good as that data. See [the altitudes you fly](\u002Facademy\u002Faltitudes).\n\n### AHRS\nAttitude and Heading Reference System — the gyro, accelerometer and magnetometer set that produces an artificial horizon. It is the sensor package behind the PFD page, and on smaller instruments it arrives as an accessory module on the CAN bus. See [how an AHRS works](\u002Facademy\u002Fahrs) and [compass and magnetometer](\u002Facademy\u002Fcompass-magnetometer).\n\n### GNSS\nGlobal Navigation Satellite System: the family name covering GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou together. It supplies position, ground speed, track and a GPS altitude that owes nothing to pressure or to your altimeter setting. See [GNSS](\u002Facademy\u002Fgnss).\n\n### IAS, CAS and TAS\nIndicated airspeed is what the pitot-static system reads, calibrated airspeed is that corrected for installation error, and true airspeed is what you are actually doing through the air — the gap widening with altitude. The wing cares about IAS; the navigation computer cares about TAS. See [indicated, calibrated and true](\u002Facademy\u002Fairspeeds).\n\n### QNH, QNE and QFE\nThree pressure references for the same altimeter. QNH is set so it reads altitude above mean sea level, QFE so it reads zero on your airfield, and QNE is what the altimeter reads with the standard 1013.25 hPa set — the figure flight levels are built on above the transition altitude. See [the altitudes you fly](\u002Facademy\u002Faltitudes).\n\n### VA, VNO and VNE\nManoeuvring speed, maximum normal operating speed and never-exceed speed, all read as indicated airspeed — but check the flight manual: for most gliders VNE is a true-airspeed limit, so the indicated speed you may not exceed falls with altitude. Above VNO you fly only in smooth air, and above VA full control deflections are no longer safe. See [gust loads](\u002Facademy\u002Fgust-loads).\n\n## The variometer\n\n### Averager and integration time\nThe averager shows the mean climb over the last few seconds; the integration time is the length of that window. A short window tells you about this part of the thermal, a long one about the thermal as a whole. See [netto, relative and the averager](\u002Facademy\u002Fvario-lag).\n\n### Dead band\nThe range around zero in which an indication asks nothing of you. On the speed command it is the window where neither push nor pull is commanded; the silence settings below are its audible equivalent.\n\n### Filter\nHow hard the vario damps changes in pressure. A small value is quick and shows every twitch of the air; a large value is smooth and slow to react, levelling out the small vertical movements. There is no correct setting, only the one that suits how you read a needle. See [filters and vario lag](\u002Facademy\u002Fvario-lag).\n\n### Max circling speed\nThe airspeed above which the vario stays silent in speed-command mode, so that a fast cruise does not fill the cockpit with noise you cannot act on.\n\n### Netto\nThe vertical speed of the surrounding air mass: the vertical speed the vario measures, plus the sink rate your glider has at that airspeed, taken from the polar. It answers \"is this air going up\", not \"am I going up\". See [netto, relative and the averager](\u002Facademy\u002Fvario-lag).\n\n### Relative netto\nNetto minus the sink rate you would have while circling — what you would climb if you stopped here and turned. On LX instruments it is netto minus 0.7 m\u002Fs, and it is sometimes called super netto. See [netto, relative and the averager](\u002Facademy\u002Fvario-lag).\n\n### SC (speed command)\nThe vario mode in which the needle stops reporting climb and starts telling you to fly faster or slower for the MacCready you have set. Switching between vario and SC can be manual on a stick button, automatic above a set speed, or automatic on detected circling — and circling is declared after a heading change of at least 5° per second sustained for eight seconds — at a normal thirty-second turn, about a third of a circle.\n\n### TE and TE level\nTotal energy compensation removes the climb and sink you create yourself with pull-ups and push-overs, so the vario reports the air rather than the stick. It comes either from a TE probe in the fin, or, via the TE level setting, from an electronic calculation that needs no probe at all. See [total energy](\u002Facademy\u002Ftotal-energy).\n\n### Thermal assistant\nThe page or overlay that plots the lift found around your last circle as a ring, so you can see which side of the turn was strongest and shift the circle towards it. See [centring a thermal](\u002Facademy\u002Fthermal-centring) and [where lift comes from](\u002Facademy\u002Flift-sources).\n\n### Vario silence and SC silence\nTwo bands in which the instrument deliberately says nothing: vario silence mutes readings close to zero while thermalling, SC silence does the same for small speed commands while cruising. Both exist so the audio only speaks when it has something worth saying. See [the audio vario](\u002Facademy\u002Faudio-vario).\n\n## Traffic, recording and claims\n\n### AIRAC\nThe 28-day cycle on which aeronautical data — airspace, airfields, frequencies — is reissued worldwide. Every database carries an AIRAC date, and if yours predates the current cycle then the airspace on your screen is history rather than law. See [database hygiene](\u002Facademy\u002Fdatabase-hygiene).\n\n### Airspace\nThe three-dimensional volumes drawn around and above you, carried as a database and warned about in flight. What the warning means depends on the altitude reference in use and on the database being current. See [airspace](\u002Facademy\u002Fairspace).\n\n### ENL\nEngine Noise Level, recorded with every fix by recorders that carry the sensor. It makes an engine run plainly visible to anyone reading the file afterwards, which is exactly the point for badge and record claims. See [reading IGC logs](\u002Facademy\u002Figc-logs).\n\n### FLARM\nThe collision-avoidance system gliders use: each aircraft broadcasts its position and predicted path, and each receiver warns about the ones that actually threaten. LX instruments merge it with other traffic sources, ADS-B among them. See [how FLARM works](\u002Facademy\u002Fhow-flarm-works) and [transponders and ADS-B](\u002Facademy\u002Ftransponder-adsb).\n\n### IGC file\nThe flight log in FAI\u002FIGC format, digitally signed by the recorder so a scorer can confirm it has not been edited. It carries the fixes, the pressure altitude, the ENL trace and the declaration. See [reading IGC logs](\u002Facademy\u002Figc-logs).\n\n### MOP\nMeans Of Propulsion: a recorded sensor that does the job of ENL for gliders whose propulsion the acoustic sensor cannot detect reliably — electric and jet. See [reading IGC logs](\u002Facademy\u002Figc-logs).\n\n### OGN\nThe Open Glider Network — a community network of ground receivers that picks up FLARM and similar transmissions and republishes them over the internet. NAVIA can use it as an additional traffic and tracking source, subject to the aircraft being in range of a receiver.\n\n### PEV\nPilot EVent: a mark you place in the flight log by pressing a button. Competitions use it for start procedures, and it is also the honest way to flag a moment you want to find again in the trace.\n\n### PIC\nPilot In Command — the pilot recorded in the flight log as responsible for the flight. Set it before take-off: a claim filed under the previous pilot's name is not a claim.\n\n## The panel and its wiring\n\n### CAN bus\nThe two-wire data bus LX instruments use to reach their accessories: vario indicators, AHRS modules, flap sensors, the LX Joy remote. One cable carries both data and power, and a device joins the bus rather than being wired point to point. See [the CAN bus](\u002Facademy\u002Fcan-bus).\n\n### EMU\nEngine Monitoring Unit — the NAVIA sensor box that reads temperatures, pressures, fuel and RPM from a powerplant and puts them on the system's displays. See [engine monitoring](\u002Facademy\u002Fengine-monitoring).\n\n### NMEA\nThe elderly serial sentence format that flight computers, transponders, traffic receivers and tablets still use to talk to one another: plain text, fixed baud rates, one sentence per line. A surprising share of panel interoperability questions turn out to be NMEA questions. See [the NMEA protocol](\u002Facademy\u002Fnmea-protocol).\n\n### Pitot, static and TE ports\nThe pneumatic connections on the back of the instrument: pitot for total pressure, static for ambient pressure, TE for a total-energy probe if you fly one. Leaks and swapped tubes explain most reports of a vario that reads oddly. See [the pitot-static system](\u002Facademy\u002Fpitot-static) and [pre-flight instrument checks](\u002Facademy\u002Finstrument-checks).\n\n### Power budget\nThe sum of what everything in the panel draws, measured against the battery you actually carry. Displays and anything heated dominate it, and the internal backup battery is a reserve for getting home, not a plan. See [power systems](\u002Facademy\u002Fpower-systems) and [planning a panel](\u002Facademy\u002Fpanel-planning).\n\n## NAVIA, accounts and the cloud\n\n### Core\nThe computing unit of a NAVIA system. It runs the navigation, the calculations and the voice assistant, and has no display of its own — displays attach to it over the PoE network, and sensors such as Sense and Traffic wire to its serial ports.\n\n### Display\nA NAVIA screen, from 4″ to 11.6″, reaching the system on a single CAT 6 cable that carries data and power together. A system can carry several, each showing what that seat needs to see.\n\n### Firmware and database updates\nInstrument software and the data it navigates on are separate things that expire on separate schedules: firmware when a version is published, databases every AIRAC cycle. On NAVIA both arrive over WiFi. On the Era, LX 10K and Colibri X both come in on the microSD card — their WiFi only sends flights out. See [database hygiene](\u002Facademy\u002Fdatabase-hygiene).\n\n### Hub\nThe centre of a NAVIA installation, distributing gigabit Ethernet and power over one cable per device. Growing the system means adding a box and a cable rather than rewiring the panel.\n\n### LX account\nYour login on lxnavigation.com, tying together orders, downloads, registered devices and support requests. Dealers use the same login, with the dealer portal behind it.\n\n### Sense\nThe NAVIA air-data and attitude unit: pressures, airspeed, altitude and attitude for the whole system. Gliding or airplane is a hardware choice made at order time; within a family the Pro and Pro+ steps add angle of attack (Airplane Pro), high-speed sensing (Pro HS) or the inertial wind engine (Gliding Pro+).\n\n## Where to go next\n\n- Which instruments and accessories combine into one system: [which LX devices work together](\u002Fkb\u002Farticle\u002Fwhich-lx-devices-work-together)\n- Choosing between the product lines: [Era, LX 10K or NAVIA](\u002Fkb\u002Farticle\u002Fchoosing-era-lx10k-navia)\n- The theory behind the numbers on the screen: [the LX Academy](\u002Facademy)\n- Everything else we have written down: [the knowledge base](\u002Fkb)\n",null,{"categories":18,"articles":45,"search":81},[19,22,28,34,39],{"id":11,"slug":12,"name":13,"description":16,"sortOrder":20,"articleCount":21},20,7,{"id":23,"slug":24,"name":25,"description":16,"sortOrder":26,"articleCount":27},"9d0897b6-42d0-4643-8ceb-e8a02ce4a854","navia","NAVIA",25,10,{"id":29,"slug":30,"name":31,"description":16,"sortOrder":32,"articleCount":33},"92b87517-c814-4237-b180-19df9cb80b16","connectivity","Connectivity",30,3,{"id":35,"slug":36,"name":37,"description":16,"sortOrder":32,"articleCount":38},"db776f9a-4f67-42bf-94bc-171c93f10cea","service-repairs","Service & repairs",1,{"id":40,"slug":41,"name":42,"description":16,"sortOrder":43,"articleCount":44},"48e22b59-26c1-477f-b136-3d3728b6dc22","device-guides","Device guides",40,12,[46,52,58,64,69,74,75],{"id":47,"slug":48,"title":49,"summary":50,"visibility":9,"isPublished":10,"categoryId":11,"categorySlug":12,"categoryName":13,"updatedAt":51},"1e57fa5f-3cfc-4147-bfed-8ad353f8a255","choosing-era-lx10k-navia","Choosing your panel: Era, LX 10K, NAVIA or iris","Which LX line fits which aircraft and which budget — what each one is for, what it costs you in panel work, and the questions that actually decide it.","2026-09-10T11:36:59.625Z",{"id":53,"slug":54,"title":55,"summary":56,"visibility":9,"isPublished":10,"categoryId":11,"categorySlug":12,"categoryName":13,"updatedAt":57},"d64da384-d6f2-418d-bf2f-0afaae78ee79","getting-started-with-the-lx-portal","Getting started with the LX Portal","One account for flights, files, instruments, orders and repairs — how to set it up and what lives inside.","2026-08-06T11:31:06.658Z",{"id":59,"slug":60,"title":61,"summary":62,"visibility":9,"isPublished":10,"categoryId":11,"categorySlug":12,"categoryName":13,"updatedAt":63},"55d6895f-9341-4974-a4d4-6077dcc65eeb","firmware-databases-season-check","Firmware, databases and the pre-season check","What to update and how often, WiFi versus SD card, what to verify after every update, and a ten-point workshop check before the first good day of the year.","2026-09-10T11:36:59.632Z",{"id":65,"slug":66,"title":67,"summary":68,"visibility":9,"isPublished":10,"categoryId":11,"categorySlug":12,"categoryName":13,"updatedAt":57},"fab8157c-af12-46ba-9154-b16b37e8e7a5","track-your-order","Tracking your order","Where to find your order status and shipment tracking numbers — no account needed.",{"id":70,"slug":71,"title":72,"summary":73,"visibility":9,"isPublished":10,"categoryId":11,"categorySlug":12,"categoryName":13,"updatedAt":57},"1410aed4-e39e-4a65-a622-f05802d93ed2","firmware-updates-and-the-download-center","Firmware updates and the Download center","Where to find firmware, manuals and databases for your instrument, and how to hear about new releases.",{"id":5,"slug":6,"title":7,"summary":8,"visibility":9,"isPublished":10,"categoryId":11,"categorySlug":12,"categoryName":13,"updatedAt":14},{"id":76,"slug":77,"title":78,"summary":79,"visibility":9,"isPublished":10,"categoryId":11,"categorySlug":12,"categoryName":13,"updatedAt":80},"6e6b63d3-8cc7-4a6a-9a92-28e5495c9624","which-lx-devices-work-together","Which LX devices work together","Compatibility in tables: which navigation head, traffic receiver, display, recorder, radio, transponder and tablet combine with which, on the CAN bus and on the NAVIA network — and what does not interoperate.","2026-09-10T11:36:59.655Z",false,{"AT":20,"BE":83,"BG":20,"CY":84,"CZ":83,"DE":84,"DK":26,"EE":85,"ES":83,"FI":86,"FR":20,"GR":86,"HR":26,"HU":87,"IE":88,"IT":85,"LT":83,"LU":89,"LV":83,"MT":90,"NL":83,"PL":88,"PT":88,"RO":84,"SE":26,"SI":85,"SK":20},21,19,22,24,27,23,17,18]