FAI/IGC Flight Recorder Data (.igc)
IGC is the flight log of gliding and paragliding — the text file a flight recorder writes so a flight can be officially verified. It is a track with legal weight.
At a glance
| Extension | .igc |
| Encoding | text |
| By | International Gliding Commission (IGC) of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) |
History
The format is specified by the International Gliding Commission of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the body that also approves the flight recorders themselves. That is the point of it: the file exists to prove a flight happened as claimed, so the specification and the hardware approval scheme were designed together.
Where it is used
IGC files come out of approved flight recorders and out of the flight computers and apps used in gliding and paragliding. They are what gets submitted for badge claims, record claims and competition scoring, and what online contest platforms ingest.
Structure
An IGC file is plain text, one record per line, read top to bottom. Alongside the satellite-derived position it records the altitude trace — from GPS, from a barometric sensor, or both — and additional flight information such as whether an engine was started. The file can carry a digital signature produced with public-key cryptography, so a reader can verify it was written by a particular approved flight recorder and not edited afterwards.
How widespread
Small world, absolute standard. Within gliding and paragliding nothing competes with it, precisely because the sporting authority defines it.
RouteConverter support
| Reads | FAI/IGC Flight Recorder Data |
| Writes | FAI/IGC Flight Recorder Data |
RouteConverter handles IGC through the bundled GPSBabel rather than with its own parser, so gpsbabel must be present — the installer ships it. One important caveat: an IGC file written by any converter, this one included, will not pass the security validation used for badge, record and competition claims, because its contents cannot be proven to originate from an approved flight recorder. Convert IGC files to read and analyse them, never to produce a file for an official claim.