"Flight planning is the process of producing a flight plan to describe a proposed aircraft flight. It involves two safety-critical aspects: fuel calculation, to ensure that the aircraft can safely reach the destination, and compliance with air traffic control requirements, to minimize the risk of midair collision."
The process of planning a flight, including route selection, weather forecasting, and fuel management. Understanding how to plan a flight is essential for pilots.
Aircraft Performance: Understanding the capabilities of the aircraft, such as range, speed, and fuel capacity.
Weather: Knowing how weather affects the flight and what information to gather from weather reports and forecasts.
Airspace: Understanding the different types of airspace, regulations, and procedures associated with different types of airspace.
Flight Instruments: Understanding the use of instruments such as altimeters, airspeed indicators, and navigation equipment.
Navigation: Understanding how to use navigational aids such as VOR, GPS, and Radar.
Chart Interpretation: Understanding the symbols and information contained in aviation charts, including sectional charts and terminal area charts.
Air Traffic Control: Understanding how air traffic control works, how to communicate with air traffic controllers, and how to follow instructions.
Fuel Planning: Understanding how to plan fuel requirements for a flight, including factors such as weather, flight duration, and cruising altitude.
Weight and Balance: Understanding how to calculate aircraft weight and balance for a flight, including weight distribution and cargo loading.
Airport Operations: Understanding airport regulations and procedures, including taxiing, takeoff, and landing.
Flight Planning Tools: Understanding how to use tools such as flight planning software and electronic flight bags.
Human Factors: Understanding how human factors such as fatigue, stress, and communication affect flight planning and decision-making.
Emergency Procedures: Understanding how to plan for and respond to emergency situations, including engine failures and weather emergencies.
International Operations: Understanding the regulations and procedures associated with flying in foreign countries.
Aircraft Maintenance: Understanding the importance of aircraft maintenance and how to check for maintenance issues before a flight.
Visual Flight Rules (VFR): Planning a flight using visual aids only, without relying on instruments.
Instrument Flight Rules (IFR): Planning a flight using instruments to navigate and communicate with air traffic control.
Special Visual Flight Rules (SVFR): Planning a flight using visual aids in controlled airspace with special permission from air traffic control.
Oceanic Flight Planning: Planning a flight over large bodies of water, such as oceans or seas, with special considerations for fuel, weather, and communication.
Mountain Flying: Planning a flight through mountainous terrains, taking into account wind patterns, turbulence, and terrain obstacles.
Route Planning: Planning the most efficient and direct route from the departure to destination airport, accounting for airspace restrictions and obstacles.
Single Pilot: Planning a flight with only one pilot, taking into account increased workload and necessary decision-making.
Multi-Engine Planning: Planning a flight with an aircraft with more than one engine, taking into account engine failure and emergency procedures.
Military Flight Planning: Planning a flight for military purposes, taking into account specific mission requirements, airspace restrictions, and security protocols.
Helicopter Flight Planning: Planning a flight with a helicopter, taking into account unique flight characteristics such as hovering, low altitude flight, and landing in tight spaces.
"Flight planning requires accurate weather forecasts so that fuel consumption calculations can account for the fuel consumption effects of head or tail winds and air temperature."
"Safety regulations require aircraft to carry fuel beyond the minimum needed to fly from origin to destination, allowing for unforeseen circumstances or for diversion to another airport if the planned destination becomes unavailable."
"Within these airways, aircraft must maintain flight levels, specified altitudes usually separated vertically by 1,000 or 2,000 ft (300 or 610 m), depending on the route being flown and the direction of travel."
"When aircraft with only two engines are flying long distances across oceans, deserts, or other areas with no airports, they have to satisfy additional ETOPS safety rules to ensure they can reach an emergency airport if one engine fails."
"Producing an accurate optimized flight plan requires millions of calculations, so commercial flight planning systems make extensive use of computers."
"When computer flight planning replaced manual flight planning for eastbound flights across the North Atlantic, the average fuel consumption was reduced by about 450 kg (1,000 lb) per flight, and the average flight times were reduced by about 5 minutes per flight."
"Some commercial airlines have their own internal flight planning system, while others employ the services of external planners."
"A licensed flight dispatcher or flight operations officer is required by law to carry out flight planning and flight watch tasks in many commercial operating environments."
"Air Traffic Services (ATS) use the completed flight plan for separation of aircraft in air traffic management services, including tracking and finding lost aircraft, during search and rescue (SAR) missions."