Learning flight planning is an important part to learning how to operate an aircraft. After all, the safety and success of every flight depends on the preparing of the flight plan whether it is just a local flight or a 500 mile cross-country trip. Before a you can hope to spend hours airborne, learning how to prepare for a flight is essential.
In my mind there are two types of flight planning: Local Flight Planning and Cross-Country Flight Planning. The first, local flight planning, compliments cross-country flight planning because in order to do the second, you must know the basics of local flight planning.
So What Is Flight Planning?
Essentially, flight planning is simply the process of creating a “plan-of-action” that describes the flight you are about to take whether it is a local flight for the purpose of practicing maneuvers (or sight-seeing) or a cross-country flight in which you are actually going somewhere.
Now to me, there are essentially four important aspects involved in flight planning:
- Weather Awareness
- Fuel Calculation
- Weight and Balance
- Air Traffic Control Compliance
Let’s look at each one for a moment to get a better understanding of what is involved.
Aviation Weather Awareness
From the very first day of flight training, I would make my students check the weather and tell me if they thought it was a visual flight rules (VFR) day or an instrument flight rules (IFR) day.
We would call 1-800-WX-BRIEF and get a standard weather briefing. After we talked to the briefer, we would check the Internet. Specifically we would go to either DUATS (which stands for Direct User Access Terminal System) or the Aviation Weather Center, Aviation Digital Data Service (ADDS) to check the weather a little more in-depth.
Both of these tools are free and extremely effective and easy to use. There are a few requirements that have to be meet though in order to use DUATS, but once you’ve registered and input all your information about your airplane, it only takes minutes to get a thorough weather briefing and flight plan.
But from a student perspective, I would do everything manually at first until they were comfortable with the process, then move on to the automated stuff. If you know how to flight plan without all the automated software, you will always be able to prepare adequately for a flight.
For examples of what I would make them fill out for flight planning and weather, you can download and print these forms and carry them with you whenever you are going flying:
Airplane Fuel Calculations
After my student had the weather and we had made the “go/no-go” decision, my students would then do fuel calculations and weight and balance calculations.
Fuel calculations would help us determine the amount of fuel we would need in order for the aircraft to fly safely from our departure point to our destination. (I would make them do this even if it was a local flight practicing maneuvers.) It is based on the expected fuel consumption of the aircraft, for that particular day, which is essential information so you can plan how much fuel you can and should carry or, if you are on a cross-country flight where and when you should make a fuel stop. Check your airplanes Pilot Operating Handbook (POH) for more information on fuel consumption and be conservative. The numbers in the POH are based on a new airplane when a test pilot flew them.
Unfortunately…many times…in fact, way too many times…pilots have exhausted their fuel during a flight and have had to land off-airport which is both embarrassing and hard to explain to the FAA. For this reason, safety regulations require airplanes to carry extra fuel depending on whether the flight is being operated under VFR (day/night) or IFR (day/night). You can review these rules under:
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VFR Fuel Requirements §91.151:
No person may begin a flight in an airplane under VFR conditions unless (considering wind and forecast weather conditions) there is enough fuel to fly to the first point of intended landing and, assuming normal cruising speed —
(1) During the day, to fly after that for at least 30 minutes; or
(2) At night, to fly after that for at least 45 minutes.
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IFR Fuel Requirements §91.167:
No person may operate a civil aircraft in IFR conditions, (and an alternate airport is required) unless it carries enough fuel (considering weather reports and forecasts and weather conditions) to—
(1) Complete the flight to the first airport of intended landing;
(2) Fly from that airport to the alternate airport; and
(3) Fly after that for 45 minutes at normal cruising speed.
Make sure you have visually verified the amount of fuel you have on board before you depart! If you know how much fuel you have on board and what your fuel burn is, then you will have piece-of-mind when flying knowing that you have enough fuel for that particular day and some contingency fuel on-board if you should need it.
CFI Quicknote: ALWAYS do a quick walk-around when you get to the airplane and ALWAYS check the fuel before you depart! One day I walked out to an airplane, asked my student if he had completed the walk-around and he had said, “Yes!” Well, I still did my walk-around and noticed that the pitot cover was still on the pitot tube. I asked again if the walk-around was complete and he said, “Yes!” OK! As we were rolling down the runway, my student noticed that the airspeed wasn’t “alive” so we aborted the takeoff and taxied back to the ramp. Huge learning experience for the student. We had a good chuckle about it and off we went!
Aircraft Weight and Balance
If you have every flown a Cessna 152 on a hot day, you know what I mean when I say you better check the weight. If you put two adults in a fully tanked up airplane, you may have a little trouble getting off the ground. Furthermore, your stall speed is going to be really low which is a risk you don’t want to take. It is easy to make any airplane over-weight, especially if you are at a high density altitude airport. So for your safety know what the maximum gross weight of your airplane is on that particular day BEFORE you takeoff.
As you move up to bigger, more powerful airplanes, you will discover that aircraft loading and weight are still critical and essential to a successful flight. As you know, I fly the CRJ series airplanes and we still have to calculate our weight and balance for every flight and sometimes we even have to remove passengers and/or fuel if it exceeds are maximum gross weight based on the current atmospheric conditions.
Here are a few of the issues associated with improper cargo location (weight) and center-of-gravity issues:
- Too much weight aft: your pitch control will not be stable, you will have poor stall recovery, and you will have a high cruise speed.
- Too much weight forward: your pitch control will be more stable and you will have a lower cruise speed.
- If your center-of-gravity (C.G.) is too far aft, the airplane will be unstable and may be unable to recover from a stall/spin.
- If your C.G. is too far forward, it is possible to hit the nose wheel first when landing because you may be unable to flare.
So do your weight and balance and C.G. calculations before you depart…every time!
Air Traffic Control Compliance
After 9/11, the FAA became very heavy-handed on Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFR). A TFR, if you have never heard the term before is:
A restriction requested by an agency (either local or federal) and put into effect by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the vicinity of an incident or activity restricting the operation of non-essential aircraft in the airspace around that incident or activity.
TFR’s had always been around but now TFR’s were being used to protect the airspace around other areas that before were not considered a risk. It is just a sign of the times but something that as a pilot you have to take very, VERY seriously! Every day pilot’s are flying into TFR’s unknowingly, causing problems for both them and air traffic control and the result of flying into a TFR is possibly having your pilot certificate revoked or suspended. So know where the TFR’s are and stay clear. And CFI’s beware, if you are on a lesson and you fly into a TFR, YOU are the one that is responsible and will be punished. So be careful and know where the TFR’s are in your area and along your route of flight.
A great tool to check for TFR’s is the FAA provided TFR list or the TFRCheck.com website before you go! Or check the FAA TFR map.
Other things you may want to consider before flying, especially if you are going cross-country, are Prohibited Areas, Restricted Areas, Alert Areas, Military Training Routes (MTR) and Military Operating Areas (MOA) along your route of flight. Each have their dangers and reasons to be avoided.
A Word About Online Flight Planning
Now so far most of the items that I have talked about have been manual, i.e., you have to search out the information yourself, but over the last couple years there have been a lot of companies that will provide you with all the information you will need to prepare for your flight.
Flight planning is one of the most basic lessons taught in flying school and your flight instructor should thoroughly teach you the most essential aspects of flight planning early in your flight training. However, there are web-based flight planning services you can turn to for help.
A good source of flight planning information and tutorials is the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Flight Planning website. In addition to the various information you can get online, AOPA also offers an online flight planner which you can access and use in real time. You have to be a member in order to access this tool though. If you need a tutorial, you can access it from the site, which explains what information you need to get and what to do with it.
FlightPrep.com is another website that offers flight planning and a brief tutorial on how to use their down loadable flight planner. It will walk you through your first session in flight planning and let you know what information you need and how to use it. Other sites you can access for info and tutorials are Jeppesen.com, AeroPlanner.com, and SeattleAvionics.com.
And just so you know, these are all subscription sites. So ask yourself if you really want to spend money on these services. There are pros and cons to using a subscription service but I recommend that you learn how to do it yourself first, then move on to a subscription service. DUATS is still my favorite flight planning source. It’s free and gives you all the information you need but without all the flash.
Conclusion
So today we talked a bit about “Flight Planning” and why it is important. We looked at weather, fuel calculations, weight and balance, and air traffic control compliance. All of them are important components of a successful flight and you should become proficient in all of them in order to stay safe and successful at flying. If you practice flight planning every time you fly, you are sure to have a more successful and safe flight than the pilot next to you!
Here are few of my favorite flight planning tools. Click on the links to see more…
And don’t forget your kneeboard as well, here is the kneeeboard that I recommend:
Hendricks 9-G Plus High Performance Kneeboard – Originally designed for high performance Fighter and Attack aircraft!
To Your Flying Success…
Jeffrey
If I had to pick between flying in a snow storm and shooting an approach to minimums in icing conditions or flying around thunderstorms, I would most the time pick flying in a snow storm.
that I strongly recommend. Pick it up today if you REALLY want to know more about the reasons that weather does what it does!