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Engine failure is a recurring emergency in General Aviation and fixed-wingUAVs, often requiring the pilot or remote operator to carry out carefullyplanned glides to safely reach a candidate landing strip. We tackle the problemof minimizing the altitude loss of a thrustless aircraft flying towards adesignated target position. Extending previous work on optimal glides withoutobstacles, we consider here trajectory planning of optimal gliding in the thepresence of ground obstacles, while accounting for wind effects. Undersimplifying model assumptions, in particular neglecting the effect of turns, wecharacterize the optimal solution as comprising straight glide segments betweeniteratively-determined extreme points on the obstacles. Consequently, theoptimal trajectory is included in an iteratively-defined reduced visibilitygraph, and can be obtained by a standard graph search algorithm, such as A$^*$.We further quantify the effect of turns to verify a safe near-optimal glidetrajectory. We apply our algorithm on a Cessna 172 model, in realisticscenarios, demonstrating both the altitude-loss optimal trajectory calculation,and determination of airstrip reachability.

Altitude-Loss Optimal Glides in Engine Failure Emergencies -- Accounting for Ground Obstacles and Wind