IFR FlightPlan Pro. FlightPlanPro - A sample trip to Wels, Austria

Transcription

1 FlightPlanPro - A sample trip to Wels, Austria Fast, painless, automatic words not normally associated with planning a long distance IFR flight in Europe. With the introduction of FlightPlanPro, a full featured IFR route planning tool, moving from thinking about a destination to a fully planned flight is now just a few minutes work. After spending more time planning than flying on several occasions (returning from Salzburg and Venice), I was prompted to search for a better planning approach. After trying some partial solutions and waiting for the rumoured Daedalus tool, or someone else to create a solution, I finally grabbed the bull by the horns and sat down to build my own application FlightPlanPro. In grappling with A* network path optimisation, detail airways structures, parsing the English in the RAD into sensible code and a host of other challenges, I realised I was going create most of a full fledged flight planning solution. Once I had the basic route generation logic, I expanded the functionality to accommodate all those things I wished existed in the available flight planning solutions. I wanted - 1. A chart with airways, airports and towns clearly marked so I could see which airport was closest to my destination. (Ideally, an on screen ruler would be provided to measure distance) 2. To pick an altitude, starting point, end point then push a button and have a route I could file. 3. With this valid route, I felt it was then quite reasonable to be able to : a. File the route, ideally with a push of a button. b. Get NOTAMs for the route, sort them into important and dross, plot the important ones on a map with the route, have an easy table to quickly review them and then a nice compact printout for the flight. c. A Plog and printed Flight Plan form was a given! d. And finally, why not print a chart including navaids, intersections, and airways with my route overlaid in easy to use A4 chunks. I still had gaps in my vision for a one stop planning tool. Gaps like what are the winds aloft, where are the cloud tops, am I likely to be in freezing cloud, etc. In addition, it would be nice to overlay all of this weather information on my actual route. Finally, I should be able to include TAFs and Metars for departure, arrival and alternate airports. At this point I hooked up with Diego Berge, who created NWX weather, a hosted Global Forecast Model. Together we agreed a set of APIs to retrieve key weather information and integrate this to further automate the planning process.

2 The culmination of 6 months work and a lot of very helpful beta testing from PPLIR members is the software package, FlightPlanPro, which fulfils most of my vision of a one-stop planning tool. FlightPlanPro is available for Windows XP, Macintosh, and Linux 32 bit systems. FlightPlanPro features FlightPlanPro covers the area from Greenland to Luxor and supports planning in FIRs and UIRs. The information includes: Airway Structure including MEA, MAA and conditional route designation Waypoints/navaids that support the enroute airway structure (including frequencies) All aerodromes known to CFMU Location data on 10,000 towns within Europe The Route Availability Document, accessible as a reference but also used to define allowable Directs and airway restrictions The UK Standard Route Document An elevation model showing terrain elevation in 3 mile grids (note the elevation is for general planning, NOT TERRAIN SEPARATION) FlightPlanPro also allows you to define your own airports (and files them as ZZZZ with an appropriate remark), additional waypoints, your favourite DCT shortcuts and preferred routes into and out of key airports. For flight planning you can define multiple aircraft with flight plan information and performance data. The performance data can be defined for any number of different situations (i.e. Standard Cruise, Long range, High Speed, etc.), in various units of measure and as True or Indicated Air Speed. Through the use of the NWX GFS server, FlightPlanPro also provides winds aloft information for rough planning as well as a detail assessment of winds on each step of the flight for computing the PLOG. Within the chart view you can overlay- Winds aloft, MSLP, 0ºC IsoTherm Cloud tops Cloud density and freezing cloud density at planned level Relative Humidity at planned level Accumulated precipitation Finally, using a UK AIS login, FlightPlanPro will request a narrow route briefing for the planned route, filter it according to your preferences and display the result overlaid onto the route. The detail information can be reviewed by mousing over the areas on the chart, in a compact table, a detail view of all information or a compact printout. FlightPlanPro in action Recently I needed to visit a site near Wels in Austria. I wanted to fly myself but had not previously visited anywhere nearby. Planning this would be an excellent demonstration of FlightPlanPro s capability. Searching for Wels using the location lookup utility shows me the Lat/Lon and sunrise/set while quickly zooming the airways chart to an area near Linz. I see, using the ruler (click dragging on the chart), that LOLW -1.7 miles, LOWL 6.5 miles, LOLO miles are the three closest airports. Looking up the details of the fields (using the Location option in the Utilities section) shows LOWL

3 (9793 ft. runway) is the main airport and will be good if the weather is IFR and LOLW at 4532 ft. should be sufficient if the weather is OK for a VFR approach. I have oxygen so have set a target altitude of FL100 (what I hope to fly) and a allowable range of FL050-FL150 to allow for altitude changes to comply with RAD restrictions I enter EGTF (my home base), GWC as the exit point (it is a compulsory point), LOLW as destination and LOWL as alternate. 10 seconds after pressing AutoRoute, I have a route that tells me it is 657 miles (10% more than great circle) and, with forecast winds, is going to need 64 gallons of fuel and take 03:47. DCT GWC DCT SFD R803 DVR L9 KONAN L607 NEKIR/N0175F120 RUDUS L984 ASKIK Z74 KOSEK L603 RENLO/N0179F140 L603 TEGBA EGG Q118 MOPIP DCT This route uses altitude changes to avoid the Frankfurt RAD restrictions. Had I been non-oxygen equipped, I would limit the maximum altitude to FL100 and the resulting route would be 20 miles longer and use the RAD recommended low level route around Frankfurt. DCT GWC DCT SFD R803 DVR L9 KONAN L607 ULMEN DCT NASBO DCT OLIVI Q762 FRANK Z12 RINEX W718 DKB G5 AKANU L603 ROTIN L856 SBG DCT A press of the NOTAM button, brings a display of relevant NOTAMS, a quick mouse over the chart shows several NDBs in Germany withdrawn from service and that I will need to use an alternate frequency for Langen at lower levels. I look through the NOTAM table at all of the filtered NOTAMs and see a number of obstructions, the multiple UK VFR rule clarifications and some ATS route changes - nothing of consequence. By double clicking on one of the entries in the

4 NOTAM table I can see the detail in a separate window. The filtering rules can be defined in the NOTAM panel of the preference window. Finally, I check the weather. The 0ºC isotherm is FL060 at EGTF, with tops around FL45. For the most of the route it looks likely to be nice weather. However, over the channel, the tops go to +FL120. If I look at Cloud Level, I see this is likely to be solid clouds so I am

5 probably not going to be want to do this without De-ice. A further look shows cloud density of only 30% down lower at FL050 and up higher at FL170. I confirm this with the OWS Flight Hazards website which indicates light mixed icing over the channel from A check of the METARs suggests, this is not the time to make this flight in real life with 300 meters in VV001 Fog. However, I continue the plan as the TAF indicates weather should improve this afternoon.

6 Finally, I confirm my fuel load, check the reserve is sufficient (it will be amber if less than 45 minutes and red if less than 0), the passenger count is correct, Hit Copy ICAO, open the flight plan import page on Homebriefing and paste the FPL message in. I have now filed my validated flight plan and can print the paperwork for the trip. From the print menu I select Print Preview so that I can quickly review the reports, before I print. The Plog is a double column A4, so folded in half it fits an A5 flight board. The fuel burn for the 2 minutes to the alternate is 11 litres because I have set an allowance in the preferences for 10 minutes of fuel consumption to complete an approach and miss before routing to my alternate. The Flight Plan preview shows my fully completed ICAO plan. I check the Chart Preview and decide for this flight I would like to have my route printed with airways detail, no weather or NOTAM, overlaid at a scale of 1:1M. Finally, the Operational Report gives the three most recent METARs for departure, destination, alternate (or the closest reporting station), the TAFs, A fuel reserve calculation in JAR-OPS style and the NOTAMS printed in a compact two column format for reference in the aircraft.

7 Conclusion FlightPlanPro has now evolved to the point where I find it an exceptionally useful tool for undertaking the bulk of my flight planning. It doesn t, and never will, replace commercial or government publications for use in navigation. But it does provide much more than its core function of generating a valid and sensible IFR route within Europe. The next couple of items for development are: 1. Move to a new source of airways data (expected in July) 2. Include SIDs and STARs for countries other than the UK (this will speed route generation and solve some problems where FPP can not guess some of the entry and exit points particularly an issue in Italy) 3. Support arbitrary terrain safe DCTs in compliance with the RAD restrictions 4. Optimisation of planned altitude for modelled winds/ 5. Weight and Balance added to the Operational Report I am very interested in feedback on what people like, don t like and wish FlightPlanPro could accomplish. This can be provided directly via (mike@mmflynn.com) on the PPLIR forums (I announce upgrades on the forum) or via the feedback and comment link on Versions of FlightPlanPro for Windows (XP is supported but it should run on Vista), Max OSX and 32bit Linux can be downloaded from the website. While FlightPlanPro remains in beta, it will have an expiry date. A new version is made available for download about 1 month prior to expiry. A more complete version of this article with a number of screen shots is also available from the website.

8 Standard Flight Plan Form

9 PLOG from FlightPlanPro

10 Operational Report showing, METARs, Fuel Calculation and NOTAMs

11 IFR FlightPlan Pro A ChartStrip showing one page of the route (with terrain shading, no NOTAMs, and no Weather overlay)