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Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 12 Jan 2017, 05:36
by Bazonka
What is your sequence for planning fuel? First load the plane, then look for grossweight and after this fill the fuel? Or is there a good way for calculating all things before starting the sim?

Thanks

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 12 Jan 2017, 06:51
by alan CXA651
Hi.
First decide which airports you are going from and to , i use skyvector for my online flights , do not save any flight plans in skyvector , only use it to find route , once you have your route with vors/dmes ectra , get the FSX/P3D flight planner , and put the same route in that VOR/DMES will vary a bit , as fsx is old , skyvector up to date , i use asn for weather , i then transfer my route from my fsx flight planner to asn , i then set my aircraft , on stand at departure in cold/dark, power the aircraft up , and get my asn enroute weather on 122.05 , this gives air/sig mets and winds aloft , then my departure weather on 122.00 , and present destination weather on 122.02 , which will change before you get there , this arrival weather gives you a rough idea of expected weather , then plan the required FUEL to allow for , eng warm up/taxi/enroute/arrival , and on shut down , you must have about 45 min diversion fuel left in tanks , THEN and only then can you load pax/cargo upto and slightly above your MTOW , as long as you are at or slightly below MTOW once lined up on runway having burnt some fuel.
Regards alan. 8)

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 12 Jan 2017, 07:50
by bobsk8
I make the plan in Skyvector and then use Plan G to take the sky vector plan, and input it to plan G. From Plan G you can load it into the sim. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB4qaWMG5cU&t=744s

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 12 Jan 2017, 09:54
by j-me
Sounds about the way I plan, too. However, I recently preferred to navigate by GPS GTN 650 as I flew the Connie online on IVAO. Therefore I used PFPX' route editor to create my route (only the route tool, as I haven't seen an aircraft profile for the Connie yet). Big advantage that it uses current navigraph data, which is close to the airac data of the GTN 650. Export it in .pln format, load it into ASN/AS16, which gets you your weather briefing and an average route wind direction and speed. Enter this number, together with your flightplan, into your preferred moving map program (Plan-G works well, Little NavMap is also a good alternative) and you get a rough estimated flying time.

For fuel calculation, as a rule of thumb I use 500-700 pph per engine in cruise (depending on altitude, power settings, mixture, low/high blower), which makes *at least* 2.800 pph in total. For a 1 hr flight I would calculate with 3.000 lbs + 2.250 lbs reserve (45 mins.) + required alternate fuel, e. g. 1500 lbs. = ca. 6.750 lbs / 6 = 1.125 gals. You can do it more accurately if you use the numbers outlined in the manual pp. 136-140, but I am running pretty good on my simple math ;)

On longer flights a close monitoring of enroute winds and weather is absolutely vital. SkyVector is a great help in this instance.

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 12 Jan 2017, 11:28
by gad11
I keep it simple. Usually just click on medium fuel load and punch my destination into the GTN650 and take off.

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 12 Jan 2017, 11:58
by Bazonka
j-me wrote:For fuel calculation, as a rule of thumb I use 500-700 pph per engine in cruise (depending on altitude, power settings, mixture, low/high blower), which makes *at least* 2.800 pph in total. For a 1 hr flight I would calculate with 3.000 lbs + 2.250 lbs reserve (45 mins.) + required alternate fuel, e. g. 1500 lbs. = ca. 6.750 lbs / 6 = 1.125 gals. You can do it more accurately if you use the numbers outlined in the manual pp. 136-140, but I am running pretty good on my simple math ;)
Thank you for that! This is a good rule I think, I will use it too! Nice to see how others do it.

Another thing regarding fuel planning, if anyone has info.. How did they do it back in time? I can imagine that they where also doing the math, but was it more rule of thump than today? Fuel was not that expensive as far as I know, did they take more fuel just to be sure?

Thanks

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 13 Jan 2017, 23:39
by spesimen
j-me wrote: Therefore I used PFPX' route editor to create my route (only the route tool, as I haven't seen an aircraft profile for the Connie yet).
hi,i posted one here. http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtop ... ead#unread

is a little strange with the accuracy... although the numbers are used from the manual, the burn is overestimated a bit...i have been too busy with work to refine it yet, so it still needs more testing, but it may prove useful to pfpx users as a quick way to get a baseline calculation.

to the OP on this thread, i just plan it in pfpx like i would any other flight.
generally i tend to make routes that mainly use old school navigation like vor/ndb but i don't have really hard rules about it

cheers
-andy crosby

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 14 Jan 2017, 20:30
by Stratocruiser2
For navigation planning, I prefer to try to replicate the era of the Connie as much as possible, so I have given my GTN750 a long needed rest and dug out my good old (paper) Jeppesen charts! I plan the route using those, making a note the frequency and ID of any navaids in the order I am likely to use them, then keep the relevant charts open beside me while I am flying. My only concession to modernity is that I sometimes will use the default autopilot to track a VOR on particularly long legs, although in general I try to stick with the Sperry or just hand fly a radial or NDB course. Altogether much more fun than programming a GPS or FMC and then sitting back twiddling your thumbs!

Bill

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 14 Jan 2017, 21:06
by Gypsy Baron
I just use the default FSX flight planner to create a VFR VOR to VOR plan.

I then go in and either add, remove or change VORs depending upon waypoint
leg distances and terrain, etc.

Once I have a plan I like I jot down the VORs in order with Frequencies and track to
that VOR from the previous one.

I then save the plan, then when I enter the cockpit I use the FSUIPC 'Load plan' feature.
I then open the FSX Weather map and adjust the wind, clouds, temps, etc
along the route as I desire. I don't use 3rd party weather engines as a rule although I
have REX and AS2012.

Once the weather is set, I'm ready to start loading and boarding.

This method helps me to get rid of all the blank or partially blank pages
that arrive daily in my mail with my bills! :) I have a stack of 3 or 4"
by 11 1/2" 'strips' for putting my flight plans on .

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 15 Jan 2017, 15:46
by j-me
spesimen wrote:
j-me wrote: Therefore I used PFPX' route editor to create my route (only the route tool, as I haven't seen an aircraft profile for the Connie yet).
hi,i posted one here. http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtop ... ead#unread
Hi Andy,

thank you so much! This is what I was looking for :) Using it for the first time right now and the numbers look plausible to me.

Re: Your routine for flight planning?

Posted: 15 Jan 2017, 15:54
by Lufthansa 380
Pretty much like everyone else: First Skyvector (either low or high charts), write down the route with all the freq. and info on a piece of paper, open up my navigraph charts, find the departure and arrival route, fire up my weather engine (FSGRW), check the weather and then load up the sim and start setting everything up. Flying the Connie is pretty much like flying a GA aircraft, pretty straight forward and no FMS to break your head on.