I got permission from Ed Williams, the wind calculations are his work.
Use my logs and please give me tips and feedback on how to improve them or make them more realistic, while still keeping pilot workload down. My intent when I created the spreadsheet was to get a "navigator" that isn't as exact as the A2A "Shift-5-navigatior" and relies on input from me. Also I wanted to learn about dead reckoning, celestial navigation and pilotage. I am more or less self taught when it comes to both air navigation and Excel so my solutions might not be very classy or even correct. But please help me to improve them.
My (Macro enabled) Excel sheets:
P-51 version:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ng2zc07ctrhxj ... 51%29.xlsm
B-17 version:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7r17y8zms2xmf ... 17%29.xlsm
I use the sheets on my laptop that is next to my desktop on which I fly FSX. I use them together with Plan-G where I plot my progress and use the QDM tool to measure distances and courses between waypoints and fixes. My B-17 is equipped with a driftmeter as well as a s*xtant.
Notes: On pages 1-3.
Green shaded areas are inputs to the calculations.
Red shaded areas are results of calculations. This is input for you as you fly.
Blue shaded cells are preflight inputs regarding aircraft specific details.
Yellow shaded cells don't affect anything.
Enter wind speeds in knots! The formulas will convert them to mph! There are little k's to remind you of that.
Clear each page using the "CLEAR" button at the bottom of each page.
Instructions:
1. Create a flightplan in Plan-G, mark it and copy-paste into the red box on page 4: "PLAN-G FLIGHTPLAN", there's a maximum of 16 waypoints, the limitation was the original Form 21A documents. I even had to add positions for waypoints the same way a navigator had done on a real form: By adding waypoint lines in the "Weather (General Forecast)" section.
2. Remove the superscript "o" from the TCs so Excel can read the TCs as numbers.
3. Above the red Square you must now make some final adjustments to the flightplan. Select which waypoint is your target, you can have different altitudes/speeds/tngine settings to and from target. More on that later. Enter MagVar for each waypoint in the green column. Define weather zones by adding waypoints to zones 1-5. You do this by checking the boxes in the right-most part of the flightplan.
4. Go to page 1. Enter your flight details in the yellow shaded cells, if you want to. Add timings for at least take-off. Enter wind speeds (in knots!) and directions for your zones at the altitude you plan to cross the relevant zone. You will see drift compensation headings and ground speeds change as you do this.
5. Select your configuration in regards to bombload, tanks etc. Check the relevant boxes and edit blue shaded cells as needed. Climb distance time and fuel are derived from charts.
6. Enter your engine settings. I use a B-17F manual for reference.
7. Begin your flight and fill in the log on page 3 as you fly along. The log will calculate GS, WD, WCA etc for you. You can add a lot of position fixes in between waypoints here. I cannot get Plan-G to use statute miles and mph so I have added a nm-to-sm converter at the bottom of the log.
8. On page 2 you can do fuel calculations.
Sometimes I'm bang on when using my sheets, more often I end up a little left, right, short or overshoot my next waypoint. Sometimes I get lost. I usually make it back to base after finding my target.
Please feel free to ask questions, I'm aware that my instructions could be a little clearer.
Edit: The sheets are password protected to prevent inadvertent Changes to calculations. Password: form21
