Hang Glider in FTB Skies 2: Aero

The Hang Glider does exactly what it says: you deploy it, leap from a cliff, and glide through the world with smooth, natural flight controls. Wind and movement shape the flight, so you have to stay on course as you glide. The mod also lets you reinforce your glider for faster and sturdier flights, and its mechanics are highly configurable.^[1]

This pack ships Hang Glider 21.1.0 for NeoForge 1.21.1. It has been in the pack since 1.0.3 or earlier.^[2]

Where it sits in the quest book

The quest "Hang Glider" quest lives in the "Aeronautics" chapter, in the "Main Questline" group. That is chapter 5 of 31 in the book, and the chapter has 58 quests. The quest comes right after a quest called "Ground Travel", and its task is to obtain the Hang Glider.^[3]

The rest of the Aeronautics chapter is about building flying ships with Simulated Contraptions, covering hulls, lift, thrust, steering and armament. The Hang Glider quest is the odd one out: it is for when the ship is parked and the island is over there. Most of the other quests in the chapter are only in the quest book itself.^[3]

The quest says you hold the Hang Glider and jump off something tall to glide instead of drop. It also mentions a Reinforced Hang Glider that lasts longer between repairs. There is no lift, no engine and no landing gear, so you need to plan where you come down.^[3]

Same as in the FTB Skies 2 1.22.0 guide

Hang Glider adds a glider you deploy, then leap from a cliff and glide with smooth, natural flight controls. Wind and movement shape the flight, so you need to keep steering to stay on course.^[1]

The Hang Glider

Start with the Hang Glider. It is the base item of the mod, and the upgrade in the next step builds on it. Deploy it, jump from somewhere high, and you're gliding.^[1][4]

Upgrade to the Reinforced Hang Glider

Once you have a glider, upgrade it. The Reinforced Hang Glider is crafted from the plain Hang Glider, and the mod's own description says reinforcing gives you faster and sturdier flights. Don't spend your first glider on anything else.^[1][4]

Reinforced Hang GliderMod recipe

Copy Components Shaped Recipe (hangglider)

Copy Components Shaped Recipe (hangglider)

Phantom Membrane

Hang Glider

Phantom Membrane

Recipe id: hangglider:reinforced_hang_glider

This is the in-pack recipe for the Reinforced Hang Glider, a mod recipe in this pack's recipe list.

Good to know

• The mod must be installed on both the client and the server, so on a multiplayer world everyone needs to be running the same pack.^[1]
• The mod describes its mechanics as highly configurable, but the sources here do not show any specific values for this pack.^[1]

Hang Glider has no machines, multiblocks, power or fluid handling to set up. It adds the Hang Glider and the Reinforced Hang Glider, and everything interesting happens while you are in the air. The mod is a port of the Open Glider mod, and its settings live in the server config, so this section walks through those.^[1][5]

How gliding moves you

You deploy the glider, leap from a height and glide. While gliding you fall and move forward by a set amount every tick. Pressing Shift switches to fast gliding, which pushes you forward faster but makes you drop faster too. The pack leaves all of these movement values at the mod defaults.^[1][6]

• Hang Glider, normal gliding: you fall 0.55 blocks per tick (hang_glider.normal_fall_movement) and move forward 0.025 (hang_glider.normal_forward_movement).^[6]
• Hang Glider, fast gliding with Shift: you fall 0.675 blocks per tick (hang_glider.fast_fall_movement) and move forward 0.05 (hang_glider.fast_forward_movement).^[6]
• Reinforced Hang Glider, normal gliding: the same 0.55 fall (reinforced_hang_glider.normal_fall_movement), but 0.04 forward (reinforced_hang_glider.normal_forward_movement).^[6]
• Reinforced Hang Glider, fast gliding: the same 0.675 fall (reinforced_hang_glider.fast_fall_movement), but 0.08 forward (reinforced_hang_glider.fast_forward_movement).^[6]

Air resistance slows you down over time while you fly, and it can be switched off for every glider with wind.allow_air_resistance. A value of 1 means no resistance, and 0.5 means half as fast each tick. The Hang Glider uses 0.985 (hang_glider.air_resistance) and the Reinforced one uses 0.99 (reinforced_hang_glider.air_resistance), so the reinforced version loses less speed.^[6]

Upgrading to the Reinforced Hang Glider

The reinforced version is the faster and sturdier option. It is made from Hang Gliders using a recipe that comes from the mod, shown below.^[1][7]

Reinforced Hang GliderMod recipe

Copy Components Shaped Recipe (hangglider)

Copy Components Shaped Recipe (hangglider)

Phantom Membrane

Hang Glider

Phantom Membrane

Recipe id: hangglider:reinforced_hang_glider

Durability

Gliding wears the glider down. This is controlled by hang_glider.consume_durability, which is on, and by hang_glider.durability_use_interval, which is 200 ticks. With 20 ticks in a second, that is 1 damage about every 10 seconds of flight. The config's own example says a durability of 618 gives about 15 minutes of flight with an undamaged glider. The Reinforced Hang Glider has its own matching options, also left at 200 ticks (reinforced_hang_glider.durability_use_interval).^[6]

Wind

Wind pushes you around while you glide, so you have to correct your course. wind.allow_wind is on in the pack. The overall strength is set per glider: 1.4 for the Hang Glider (hang_glider.overall_wind_power) and 0.75 for the Reinforced one (reinforced_hang_glider.overall_wind_power). The Reinforced glider therefore gets pushed around less. A shared multiplier, wind.overall_power, sits at 1 for all gliders.^[1][6]

The finer wind settings in the same file are all at the mod defaults:^[6]

• wind.frequency is 0.15. Larger values mean gusts happen more often, and 0 removes wind.^[6]
• wind.gust_size is 19. Larger gusts push you off your intended direction by greater angles.^[6]
• wind.height_multiplier is 1.5. By default, the higher you are, the stronger the wind, but only by a moderate amount.^[6]
• wind.speed_multiplier is 0.4. Gliding fast reduces the wind effect by a moderate amount.^[6]
• wind.durability_multiplier is 0.7. The more worn the glider, the more the wind affects it. At a value of 1, a nearly broken glider is affected about twice as much as a new one.^[6]
• wind.raining_multiplier is 3, so wind is 3 times stronger while it rains.^[6]

Hang Glider has a short progression: two tiers, the Hang Glider and the Reinforced Hang Glider. The pack's quest book gives you the first one and the recipe system gives you the upgrade.^[3][7]

Where it sits in the quest book

The glider quest is "Hang Glider" quest, in the Aeronautics chapter of the Main Questline (chapter 5 of 31 in the book). It asks you to get the Hang Glider and comes right after "Ground Travel" quest, which asks for a Wheel Mount and a Tire.^[3]

Going back up the chain, Ground Travel comes after "Going Places" quest, and that one comes after the chapter opener "Taking to the Skies" quest. So you reach the glider once you are in the part of the chapter about getting your ship somewhere, which makes sense: the quest describes the glider as the tool for when the ship is parked and the island is over there.^[3]

Tier 1: Hang Glider

Hold the Hang Glider and jump off something tall, and you glide instead of dropping. The quest is blunt about what it is not: no lift, no engine, no landing gear. Its advice is to aim for the water.^[3]

Unverified The crafting recipe for the basic Hang Glider is not included in the sources for this guide, so check it in JEI in the pack. This site does hold FTB Skies 2: Aero's own recipes, read from the pack itself: look the item up in the item browser.

Tier 2: Reinforced Hang Glider

The quest says the Reinforced Hang Glider lasts longer between repairs. The pack uses this in-pack recipe for it:^[3][7]

Reinforced Hang GliderMod recipe

Copy Components Shaped Recipe (hangglider)

Copy Components Shaped Recipe (hangglider)

Phantom Membrane

Hang Glider

Phantom Membrane

Recipe id: hangglider:reinforced_hang_glider

The Hang Glider has one quest, and it sits in the "Aeronautics" chapter. That chapter is in the Main Questline group and is chapter 5 of 31 in the quest book. It is all about building ships that fly, so the glider is the odd one out: a small, personal way to travel that needs no ship at all.^[3]

The Hang Glider quest

The quest "Hang Glider" quest asks you to get the Hang Glider. The quest text sets the scene for when you'd use it: the ship is parked and the island you want is over there. Hold the glider, jump off something tall, and you glide instead of dropping.^[3]

The quest also mentions a Reinforced Hang Glider, which lasts longer between repairs. It sums the glider up as having no lift, no engine and no landing gear, and its advice for landing is to aim for the water.^[3]

Where it sits in the chapter

The chapter opens with "Taking to the Skies" quest, which introduces the ship basics: mass, lift, thrust, and the quest paths for hull, lift, engines, stability, controls, travel and weapons.^[3]

The Hang Glider belongs to the travel part of that chapter. The path runs like this:^[3]

1. "Going Places" quest comes after the chapter intro. It covers docking, ropes, navigation, automated routes, claiming your ship and taking it into other dimensions.^[3]
2. "Ground Travel" quest comes after Going Places. It asks for a Wheel Mount and a Tire from the Offroad mod, which turn a ship into a truck.^[3]
3. "Hang Glider" quest comes after Ground Travel, and it is the Hang Glider quest itself.^[3]

Nothing in the sources lists a quest that unlocks after the Hang Glider, so it looks like the end of that branch.^[3]

Same as in the FTB Skies 2 1.22.0 guide

Hang Glider has a client config and a server config, and in this pack every option in both files is left at the mod's default value. Nothing has been changed, so you can use the mod's default behaviour as a guide. Here are the options you're most likely to want to tweak.^[8][9]

Glider movement

The normal glider and the reinforced glider each have their own movement settings in the server config. Movement values are blocks per tick, and the fast values apply while you hold Shift.^[9]

• Normal glider: hang_glider.normal_fall_movement is 0.55 and hang_glider.normal_forward_movement is 0.025. While gliding fast, hang_glider.fast_fall_movement is 0.675 and hang_glider.fast_forward_movement is 0.05.^[9]
• Reinforced glider, falling: reinforced_hang_glider.normal_fall_movement is 0.55 and reinforced_hang_glider.fast_fall_movement is 0.675, the same as the normal glider.^[9]
• Reinforced glider, moving forward: reinforced_hang_glider.normal_forward_movement is 0.04 and reinforced_hang_glider.fast_forward_movement is 0.08, so it moves forward faster than the normal glider.^[9]
• Air resistance: hang_glider.air_resistance is 0.985 for the normal glider and reinforced_hang_glider.air_resistance is 0.99 for the reinforced one. A value of 1 means no resistance.^[9]

Durability

Gliding uses up durability on both gliders, because hang_glider.consume_durability and reinforced_hang_glider.consume_durability are both true. The interval options, hang_glider.durability_use_interval and reinforced_hang_glider.durability_use_interval, are both 200 ticks. At 20 ticks per second, that is about 1 damage every 10 seconds of flight. Lower the interval for faster wear, or turn off consumption if you'd rather never worry about it.^[9]

Wind

Wind is on, since wind.allow_wind is true, and so is wind.allow_air_resistance. The overall strength starts at wind.overall_power (1) for all gliders. Each glider then has its own overall wind power: hang_glider.overall_wind_power is 1.4 for the normal glider and reinforced_hang_glider.overall_wind_power is 0.75 for the reinforced one.^[9]

• wind.frequency: 0.15, how often gusts happen.^[9]
• wind.gust_size: 19, how far gusts push you off your intended direction.^[9]
• wind.height_multiplier: 1.5, so the wind gets stronger the higher you are.^[9]
• wind.speed_multiplier: 0.4, so going fast reduces the wind effect.^[9]
• wind.durability_multiplier: 0.7, so a more damaged glider is affected more by wind.^[9]
• wind.raining_multiplier: 3, so wind is stronger while it's raining.^[9]

Client options

The client config only covers camera behaviour. auto_third_person_gliding is false, so the game won't switch you to third person on its own. gliding_camera_tilt is true, so the camera tilts as you turn. The tilt is controlled by gliding_tilt_amount (0.5) and gliding_tilt_speed (0.4). If the tilt makes you dizzy, lower those or turn the tilt off.^[8]

Hang Glider is a small mod in this pack, and its history is short. FTB Skies 2: Aero 1.10.0 ships Hang Glider 21.1.0, and the mod has been in the pack since Aero 1.0.3 or earlier.^[2]

Mod changelog

• v21.1.0-1.21.1 (2024-09-18): port to Minecraft 1.21.1. This is the only entry in the mod's changelog, and it is the version the pack uses.^[2][10]

The pack runs the NeoForge build of the mod, so you don't need to do anything extra to get this version.^[2]

Unverified No pack changelog entries for Hang Glider were available, so any changes the pack made to this mod in specific releases are unconfirmed.