Flight Planner – Version 2!
Compiling a flight log is a prerequisite to making a cross-country flight. It is used to record the calculations and measurements made in the briefing room, and provides a plan to follow on your knee-board during the actual flight.
The flight log allows you to calculate the heading correction required to achieve a certain track given the forecast wind velocity, and also to estimate your ground speed and thus the time and fuel required for the flight. These calculations are usually done by hand using an E-6B or similar flight computer. This is fine until you realise you’ve made a mistake and need to go back and correct everything. Or maybe you want to set up your flight log the night before, and want to just plug in the wind forecast on the day without having to waste valuable time using the whiz-wheel.
It is much more efficient to use a PC for these simple, but repetitive, calculations. This MS Excel spreadsheet does just that.
Flight Plan
The spreadsheet contains a lookup table of waypoints that can be easily updated with the latitude and longitude of your own airports and private landing sites. Then simply enter the waypoint codes of your departure and destination on the flight plan, and your required track and distance are calculated automatically. Given the forecast wind velocity, the spreadsheet then calculates the heading you require, your ground speed, and your estimated time enroute.
If you would like more information on the wind calculations done by the flight log, have a look here at the solution to the triangle of velocities. The track and distance are calculated based on the Rhumb line (or loxodrome) between your two coordinates.
The flight log also contains some useful mnemonics for various procedures, and also the available manifold pressure requirements for limited-power operations in the Robinson R22 helicopter. These can all be easily changed or edited to your own needs.
Please feel free to leave any comments or suggestions on how the Flight Planner could be improved.
How You Can Help
If you make use of this FREE tool, please consider making a donation to help fund further development!
Legal Stuff
All files and tools on this page are provided “as is” with no express or implied warranty for accuracy or accessibility. Use at your own risk. All calculations should be checked before being relied upon for flight planning purposes.
[...] to throw the whiz-wheel out the window? Have a look at this Flight Planner that includes the solution to the Triangle of Velocities. With a convenient knee-board sized output [...]
Hi Steve,
Question on your Flight Planner.
I don’t seem to be able to input data into the fields below the first line of flight plan data.
The numbers appear in the top window but don’t appear in the selected box??
I admit to being computer challenged but hope you can set me straight.
Also how do you change the variation, if it’s East?
Cheers
Jim
Hi Jim,
The numbers don’t appear on each line of the flight plan until you’ve entered something in the “From” box. This is to reduce visual clutter when not every line of the flight plan is used. Type something into cell A4 and the second line will be activated, and so on.
Easiest way to enter an East variation is to just enter a negative number. So for example +3 degrees East is the same as -3 degrees West. If you wish to change it permanently to an East variation, then just change the formula in column J to subtract the number in column I rather than adding it.
Hope that helps! I did try and email you to offer help but you didn’t enter a valid email address.
Steve.
Cheers Steve,
It works perfectly now!
Thanks again
Jim
Great
Happy to help. Hope you find it useful.
Steve.
[...] made some improvements to my flight planning spreadsheet, and I’m please to announce that version two has now been [...]
Hi.
This is a great tool you’ve got there. Would it be a possibility to enter manually True Track and distance and to have it calculate TH (plus Var/Dev to create MC) from the wind speed?
John
Hi John,
Thanks for your comments.
Sure, it’s possible to manually enter track and distance. Just type your values into the appropriate cells, overwriting the existing formula.
You’ll need to unlock the speadsheet in order to edit it. The sheet is “protected” so that certain cells cannot be changed by accident. In Office 2003 this is “Tools/Protection/Unprotect Sheet” and in Office 2007 is “Review Tab/Unprotect Sheet”.
Let me know if you have any problems.