Hike & Fly planner-- what glide ratio and other data to enter?
I've been having a lot of fun using hikeandfly.cloud as a pilot-in-training exploring future sled ride possibilities to calculate distances from various launches to LZs, emergency LZs along the way, etc for when I'm ready for them.
What are examples of conservative and expected glide ratios to enter in for the Glide Number value? Most of the other values (trim speed, wind speed and direction, additional height, safety margin, etc) are pretty simple. I'm wondering if a glide number of 8 is to be expected, with a number of 6 to be conservative if hitting a lot of sink, etc might be best. Doing a lot of reading, the actual glide ratios seem to not vary much between modern A and B wings that are appropriately loaded. In case it helps, I'll be on an Advance Alpha DLS 24 with an all-up weight around 180 pounds, but my question is more general as far as planning and not specific to what happens to be my current wing and weight. The info at https://www.reddit.com/r/freeflight/comments/oduloi/wing_glide_ratios/ but I'm looking at what most pilots are using for practical calculations.