Navigation
Using the Flight Planning Tool
What does it do?
Once registered you may define routes through Canadian and USA airspace. Given the wind and temperature conditions, the program will calculate the time en route, headings, groundspeeds and other factors. It will also identify areas of Canadian Class F airspace on or close to the route. Users may define the characteristics of their own aircraft and include their own waypoints. The output from the program contains all of the route information and a flight plan in the correct format for submission to Flight Services.
The Fixes link in the top right-hand corner of the screen may be used to get an up-to-date list of open bugs and improvement requests.
Note that the Flight Planning program is not guaranteed to work with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. That browser is very non-standard and support is therefore not offered for it. The program has been fully tested using the Firefox browser which can be downloaded free of charge from the Mozilla site and which runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS-X. The Flight Planning program has also been tested with the Safari, Konqueror and Opera browsers.
How do I access it?
By pointing a browser at this site.
Why is it needed?
The flight planning tool at Aeroplanner is a much more sophisticated tool. In 2007, however, Aeroplanner decided not to continue its support for Canadian airports. This planning tool is intended to grow to become as sophisticated as Aeroplanner's over the next few years.
How do I Register?
If you have not already registered, then you will need to register. Once you have registered, you may create private waypoints and aircraft. The Subscribe button is in the top right-hand corner of the screen and the requested fields are very straight-forward. The program asks you for your home airport so that it can default to that airport when you create a flight plan and asks for your licence number so that it can be included on a flight plan.
How do I enter Information about my Aircraft?
When you first register, you are assigned a generic Cessna 172 with callsign C-GAAA. Once you have entered information about the aircraft you normally fly, you may delete GAAA.
Selecting an aircraft from the left-hand menu will cause its information to be displayed. You may then make any necessary modifications (including to its callsign) and press the submit button at the bottom of the screen. Pressing Add New Aircraft simply causes any fields already completed to be cleared so that you enter information about a new aircraft.
Most of the fields required for an aircraft are self-explanatory: just watch the units. Climb rate, for example, is specified in feet per minute at the particular pressure altitude, not as the time required to reach that pressure altitude. At least one and at most six rows may be given for cruise and climb performance. When calculating the time to climb and the time en route the program uses as much information as it has available. If you only specify the climb performance at sea level then that performance will be used all of the way in a climb from sea level to 12000 feet. If you specify climb performance at sea level, 2000', 4000', 6000', 8000' and 10000' then the calculated time to climb from sea level to 12000 feet will be much more accurate.
How do I enter my own Waypoints?
The program has a complete list of all aerodromes and navigation aids in North America but you may wish to add personal waypoints. To do this click on the Edit Waypoints tab. A list of your existing waypoints will appear on the left-hand side of the screen and, if you select one its information will appear for you to modify. To create a new waypoint, click on Add New Waypoint and a blank set of input boxes will appear.
You can give the waypoint any short identifier but note that, if you use an identifier that is already in the main database, that identifier will appear in flight plans rather than the one in the database. That is, you may call a personal waypoint CYOW but then that identifier will always refer to your personal waypoint rather than Ottawa International airport. The waypoint name can be any suitable description to remind you what it is.
Latitudes and longitudes can be entered in one of several formats:
- 45 32 32 N
- 45 32.5333333 N
- 45.54222222 N
all refer to the same latitude.
How do I create a Quick Plan?
A quick plan is used when you are experimenting: roughly how long would it take to fly from A to B? It does not take into account the time your aircraft needs for climbing, nor does it calculate the actual cruise speed given atmospheric temperatures and pressures.
Its use is possibly best illustrated by an example. The winds at the moment at 6500 feet are forecast to be from 320° True at 15 knots and I would like to see how long it would take me to fly from Ottawa Rockcliffe (CYRO) to the Ottawa VOR (YOW) and thence directly to Pembroke at 6500 feet. I cruise at 100 knots. However, I can't remember the identifier for Pembroke airport.
To create a quick plan, click on the Quick Plan tab. Enter CYRO YOW into the route box. Since you don't know the identifier for Pembroke airport, enter its name in the
Enter the true airspeed (100) and wind speed (15) and direction (320) and press Create Plan. A plan will appear indicating the basic flight information. Notice that the flight will take a little over 50 minutes but that this excludes the climb time. If you use your browser's Print button then only the flight log itself will be printed.
Note that the system does not store your Quick Plans. Once you navigate away from the Quick Plan page, the plan will be lost. If you want to preserve a route for later modification or use, use the Full Plan option.
How do I create a Full Plan?
Full plans are stored by the planning software for a month or until you delete them. They can therefore be entered some days before a flight to get a general idea of the times involved and then have the winds undated just before the departure time.
As an illustration of creating a full plan, assume that we want to fly from Ottawa Rockcliffe on an IFR flight to Pembroke. Our route will be Direct YOW V370 AGNEX R7 YTA Direct and we will file Ottawa International (CYOW) as our alternate airport.
The flight planning database contains all airports and navigation aids but not waypoints. It is therefore necessary to create a user waypoint called AGNEX (at 45 36.1 N, 77 06.2W) as described above. Once that is complete, click on the Full Plan tab. Here you will find your previous routes listed. Since we want to create a new route we will not select one of these, instead we will enter a route name (e.g., RockPem) and press Submit.
On the screen which appears, select the aircraft and type of flight (IFR) on the left-hand side and type in the identifier of the departure, destination and alternate aerodromes. If you don't know the identifier for, say, Pembroke, just type Pembroke into the destination box. As you leave the box, this will turn red: "Pembroke" is an ambiguous name as there are several airports called Pembroke in North America. Enter Pembroke CA to indicate Pembroke in Canada and the name will immeidately be replaced by the identifier: CYTA.
Alter the departure date and time as appropriate (remember that all dates and times are in UTC (Zulu) and then enter the first line of the route: Direct with the appropriate altitude and winds. Press Insert to insert another leg and enter the YOW waypoint and the next leg information: V370. The altitude and winds will have been copied forward and probably need no adjustment. Insert another leg with the waypoint AGNEX and the route R7. Insert one more leg to the waypoint YTA and then Direct.
The route is now complete. Make any necessary adjustments and then press the Submit button. After a short delay a box will appear telling you that a flight log has been prepared and can be retrieved by selecting the Flight Logs tab. Your route has also been stored. Click on Flight Logs and you will see a list of the flight logs that have been prepared for you in the last 30 days. These are each stored as pdf files and, by clicking on the name of the log you are interested in, it will be downloaded to your computer.