Convek
Guide

How to build a gliding or paragliding weather app.

A useful XC app needs several data layers. Convek is the soaring forecast layer. It works best when paired with airspace, tracking, terrain, and flight-analysis data.

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Forecast layer

Soaring forecast

Convek

Thermal strength, cloudbase, usable soaring height, convergence, soundings, day ratings, grid slices, and corridor samples.

Airspace and sites

openAIP

Airspace, airports, navaids, obstacles, and flying-site records. This is the aeronautical database layer, not the weather layer.

Live traffic

OGN

Live glider, paraglider, hang glider, UAV, and aircraft tracking where equipment and receivers are present.

Generic weather fallback

Open-Meteo

Global generic weather forecasts, rain, temperature, pressure, and broad fallback fields outside dedicated soaring regions.

Flight scoring

IGC tooling

Use an IGC parser and scoring library for uploaded tracks, task validation, and post-flight analysis.

Route planning

Your product

Combine forecast data, airspace, sites, terrain, pilot preferences, and track history into the workflow your users need.

The practical architecture

Use Convek to answer forecast questions pilots actually ask: how strong are the thermals, how high is usable lift, where is cloudbase, is there convergence, and what happens along the route? Use openAIP for airspace and site records. Use OGN for live traffic. Use Open-Meteo for generic weather fallback and regions that are not covered by Convek yet.

The app should keep the safety boundary clear. Convek is model-derived soaring forecast data. It is not official aviation weather, not a NOTAM source, and not a go/no-go flight decision.

Start with site and route calls

A first version can show a home-site summary and a route strip. That is enough to validate whether the data helps pilots.

Request

curl "https://api.convek.dev/v1/corridor" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer cvk_live_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "region": "de",
    "resolution": "4km",
    "launch_lat": 48.08,
    "launch_lon": 9.19,
    "bearing_deg": 120,
    "max_distance_km": 80,
    "sample_spacing_km": 10,
    "time": "13:00"
  }'

Response

{
  "valid_date": "2026-05-25",
  "rasp_model": "de/4km",
  "route": {
    "launch_lat": 48.08,
    "launch_lon": 9.19,
    "bearing_deg": 120,
    "max_distance_km": 80,
    "sample_spacing_km": 10,
    "time_aware": false
  },
  "samples": [
    {
      "along_track_km": 0,
      "valid_time": "13:00",
      "wstar_ms": 2.1,
      "hglider_agl_m": 1780,
      "cloudbase_agl_ft": 5900,
      "surface_wind_speed_ms": 4.2
    }
  ]
}

Minimum useful feature set

Morning site summary

Call the forecast endpoint for each favourite site and show thermal start, best window, cloudbase, wind, and day rating.

XC route check

Call the corridor endpoint for planned lines and flag weak sections, low cloudbase, headwind, or convergence.

Airspace context

Overlay openAIP airspace and sites so the weather sits inside the real flying environment.

Live awareness

Use OGN for nearby traffic or post-flight replay where coverage exists.

Fallback weather

Use Open-Meteo for generic rain, pressure, temperature, and regions not yet live in Convek.

Build against the API.

Live Convek coverage is UK, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and Czechia at 4 km. The same JSON contract applies across regions.

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