This section provides detailed information on some of the input values to the flight planner.
Enter the three or four-character identifier for the airport or navigational fix at which you wish to start and end the flight. You may also enter a specified point which is not an airport by entering the name of a navigational aid, a defined intersection, a latitude/longitude pair, a point using fix-radial-distance notation. If the identifier code you enter is used for both an airport and a navaid, a "K" will be prepended to the identifier by the planner.
If you don't know the name of the identifier you wish to use, click on the underlined Departure or Destination hyperlink and a pop-up page will be displayed which allows you to search for airports and navigational aids. The pop-up also has help on entering latitude/longitude and fix-radial-distance information.
If you specify airports (as opposed to navaids or intersections) for departure and destination points, the planner will compute climb and descent profiles between the field elevations and cruise altitude. If you specify a navaid, intersection, latitude/longitude, or fix-radial-distance, for departure or destination the planner will not perform climb or descent calculation, and will begin or end your flight at cruise altitude.
Airport, navaid, and intersection names are specified as three to five letters and digits. A waypoint may be specified as:
For example, 37:19:59 121:49:07 could be specified with varying degrees of precision as as 37/122, 3720/12149, or 3719590/12149070.
Warning: when entering latitude or longitude information, be sure to use one of the forms above -- entering a different number of digits could lead to extreme off-course errors -- example: 12345 would be interpreted as 123 degrees 45 minutes rather than 12 degrees 34.5 minutes
Note: the flight planner accepts all of the waypoint forms listed above. However, the FAA Flight Plan filing function limits the departure, destination, and alternate fields to:
Enter the cruise altitude in hundreds of feet, e.g.
| Enter this | For this altitude |
|---|---|
| 50 | 5,000 feet |
| 125 | 12,500 feet |
| 250 | 25,000 (FL250) |
The flight planner will plan a flight from the departure airport altitude, climb to the requested cruise altitude, and descend to the destination airport altitude. If the aircraft's climb and/or descent performance is such that the cruise altitude cannot be obtained for the specified flight (i.e., the flight is short), the flight will consist solely of climb and descent segments.
The departure time is used by the flight planner to select appropriate winds aloft. In general, winds aloft data is available for about 24 hours in advance. If your flight plan extends into a period for which winds aloft data is not available, a message will be displayed to that effect when the plan is being printed. If you do not wish to have winds aloft computations performed, check the box labelled "check for no-wind flight plan."
You may specify the departure time either as a number of minutes from now or as a 4-digit time in the time zone of your choice (UTC, Eastern standard/daylight, Central standard/daylight, Mountain standard/daylight, Pacfic standard/daylight, Alaskan standard/daylight, Hawaii standard).
The flight planner will automatically determine your route for you in several different ways, as selected by the Flight Planner Routing option:
In detail:
Low-Altitude Airway Auto-Routing selects the shortest path from your origin to the destination using low-altitude (Victor) airways. No attempt is made to circumnavigate airway segments which travel over high terrain, nor airway segments on which bad weather is present. It may not be possible to be provide automatic airway routing for certain airports which are very remote from any navigational facilities.
Low Airway Auto-Routing w/SID/STAR prompts you to enter a SID and/or STAR and then performs the same routing as Low-Altitude Airway Auto-Routing.
Jet Route Auto-Routing selects the shortest path from your origin to the destination using high-altitude airways (Jet Routes). Since air traffic control requirements and the climb profiles of different aircraft may be quite different, it is necessary for the user to specify a route from the origin to the first fix in the jet route system and from the final fix in the jet route system to the destination airport.
When you select Jet Route Auto-Routing, the flight planner will display an additional screen when you click the Submit request button before the planner computes your flight plan. This additional screen will assist you in selecting appropriate entry and exit from the jet route structure displaying available SIDs and STARS, as well as VORs up to 100 nautical miles from the airports. SIDs, STARs, and VORs marked with an asterisk (*) may be used as jet route transitions:
Standard Instrument Departures (SIDs) from SAT: ALAMO2.ELA ALAMO2.GOBBY ALAMO2.HENLY* ALAMO2.HUB* ALAMO2.LFK* ALAMO2.SAT* ALAMO2.SCY ALAMO2.SEEDS* BOWIE1.LEJON* BOWIE1.SAT* BOWIE1.SHUCK* BOWIE1.THX VORs near SAT: SAT* CSI* AUS* JCT* STV Standard Terminal Arrival Routes (STARs) to PDX: BONVL.BONVL2 *DLS.BONVL2 *IMB.BONVL2 *PDT.BONVL2 HELNS.HELNS2 *SEA.HELNS2 *YKM.HELNS2 *LMT.MOXEE2 MOXEE.MOXEE2 *OED.MOXEE2 VORs near PDX: UBG* PDX BTG* RDM* EUG* CVO* DLS* OLM* ONP* "*" indicates a transition which may be used to enter or leave the Jet Route system. (Do not enter the "*" as part of the procedure name)
SIDs, STARs, and VORs which are not marked with an asterisk cannot be used, as they are not part of the Jet Route system.
When entering a departure or arrival transition, you may specify
VOR-Direct Auto-Routing is similar to Low-Altitude Airway Auto-Routing except that direct paths between VORs which are within reception range of one another are used in addition to Victor airways. Note that most of the route segments in a VOR-Direct plan are likely to be Victor airways, since there are Victor airways between most VORs which are within reception range of one another.
Direct Routing for GPS/LORAN and Direct Routing for RNAV compute a great-circle route between the origin and destination and then locate a number of waypoints along that route. The waypoints are defined by nearby VOR/DME facilities, and a radial and distance from the VOR/DME to the waypoint is provided. The flight plan generated by GPS/LORAN and RNAV direct routing is identical, except that for the RNAV option, the distance from the VOR/DME to the waypoint is adjusted for slant-range error.
User Selected Routing allows the most control over flight routing. A user-selected route is specified as a series of fixes (VORs, airports, and/or waypoints). Each pair of fixes along the route may be connected by one of the following routing options:
Two airways or more may be listed without specifying the fixes at which the transitions are to take place between airways. (For example, VINCO V107 V137 V23 V186 V459 SLI is a valid route.) In this case, the planner will automatically choose the best fixes at which to make the inter-airway transitions.
Airport and navaid names are specified as three to five letters and digits. A waypoint may be specified as:
Latitude and longitude information is specified in the form "lat/lon" where either lat or lon may be:
For example, 37:19:59 121:49:07 could be specified with varying degrees of precision as as 37/122, 3720/12149, or 3719590/12149070.
Warning: when entering latitude or longitude information, be sure to use one of the forms above -- entering a different number of digits could lead to extreme off-course errors -- example: 12345 would be interpreted as 123 degrees 45 minutes rather than 12 degrees 34.5 minutes
Whenever a fix name could be either an airport or a VOR name, the VOR is assumed. If you wish to specify the airport, precede the identifier with the letter "K" -- i.e., SJC is the VOR, KSJC is the airport.
There is considerable latitude when using user-selected routings. For example, if one was planning a trip from RHV (Reid-Hillview Airport, San Jose CA) to OSH (Oshkosh WI) and wished to preview a northerly route rather than the direct route, one could enter
*g boi *a ggw *a inl *a
as a user-selected route, which would route via great-circle RNAV from
RHV to Boise ID, then via Victor airways to Glasgow MT, airways to
International Falls MN, and airways to Oshkosh.
The flight planner is designed to allow you to experiment with several routes before actually printing a final flight plan. Whenever the planner computes a route, you are shown the route of flight in an abbreviated form, followed by distance information.
If the distance for the shown route is substantially longer than the great-circle distance and you entered a user-specified route, that route should be carefully examined for an incorrect intersection name. For example, a flight plan from RHV (Reid- Hillview Airport in San Jose CA) to TRK (Truckee CA) in which the user-specified routing "*A TRUST" was specified would produce this output:
Routing options selected: Automatic low altitude airway.
Flight plan route:
RHV SUNOL V195 ECA V244 LAA V10 DDC V74 LIT V54 HLI V159
VUZ V18 TRUST KTRK
Total distance for this route is 3410.4 nm.
Great circle distance is 143.1 nm -- this route is 2284% longer.
Clearly, this routing is much too long -- TRUST intersection was specified instead of TRUCK intersection.
If you wish to include SIDs (Standard Instrument Departures) and/or STARs (Standard Terminal Arrival Routes) in your flight plan, you may do so using the User Selected Routing choice. If you enter "%" at the "Enter route" prompt, the flight planner will automatically determine the names of SIDs, STARs, and nearby VORs for the selected departure and destination airports:
Departure Point: SFO
Airport KSFO: San Francisco CA
Destination: ORD
Airport KORD: Chicago IL (Chicago O'Hare Intl)
...
Enter route: %
Standard Instrument Departures (SIDs) from SJC:
ALTAM6.ALTAM ALTAM6.LIN* ALTAM6.SAC*
DANV1.DYBLO* DANV1.LIN* DANV1.RBL* DANV1.SAC*
LOUPE8.DYBLO* LOUPE8.LIN* LOUPE8.RBL* LOUPE8.SAC*
MOONY1.AVE* MOONY1.MOONY MOONY1.PXN
SJC7.AVE* SJC7.MOONY SJC7.PXN
SUNOL3.ECA* SUNOL3.SAC* SUNOL3.SUNOL
VORs near SJC: SJC ECA* MOD SFO OSI OAK* PYE* SAC* LIN* SNS*
Standard Terminal Arrival Routes (STARs) to ORD:
BAYLI.BDF1* BDF.BDF1* IRK.BDF1*
DBQ.JVL2* JVL.JVL2 MCW.JVL2*
BSV.OXI2 DJB.OXI2* FWA.OXI2* OKK.OXI2 OXI.OXI2 VWV.OXI2
FNT.PMM2* PMM.PMM2* SVM.PMM2* TVC.PMM2*
VORs near ORD: ORD CGT GSH* GIJ* JOT* DPA PMM* OBK* BVT*
BDF* BAE*
"*" indicates a transition which may be used to enter or
leave the Jet Route system. (Do not enter the "*" as part
of the procedure name)
In this case, one might select the route:
Enter route: LOUPE8.LIN *J DBQ.JVL2
which would depart San Jose using the Loupe Eight departure,
Linden transition, then automatically routed via jet airways to
Dubuque, then via the Janesville Two arrival into O'Hare. The
route produced by the planner would be:
KSJC LOUPE8 LIN J84 DBQ JVL2 KORD
The pilot can use the interactive nature of the flight planner to great advantage. Let us examine several possible routes which the planner could generate for a flight from RHV to TRK.
Selecting Low-Altitude Airway Auto-Routing or using the "*A" routing option for automatic low-altitude airways would produce the following routing:
KRHV SUNOL V195 ECA V113 LIN V338 SWR KTRK
Examining a sectional would show that the portion of this route which goes over the Sierra Nevada mountains takes a path over relatively hostile terrain. A better solution might be to fly to Sacramento and then to Truckee, which could be specified by the user-selected route "*A SAC *A". The result:
KRHV ALTAM V334 SAC V6 SWR KTRK
Unfortunately, this also travels over hostile terrain. Choosing a slightly different point along the route would cause the routing to go via airways which are very near to Interstate 80, which is a better choice in terms of safety. Specifying "*A SIGNA *A" would yield:
KRHV ALTAM V392 SIGNA KTRK
Comparing the distance of this route, 160.1 nautical miles (12% longer than a great circle, which is 143.1), to the first (*A) routing, which was 152.6 nautical miles (7% longer than great circle), would tell you that a more conservative route would add only 7.5 nautical miles to the trip.
Now let us examine a flight from RHV to STS (Santa Rosa, CA). Selecting Low-Altitude Airway Auto-Routing or using the "*A" routing for automatic low-altitude airways would produce the following routing:
KRHV OAK V107 V87 SGD KSTS
The pilot might prefer to avoid the San Francisco Terminal Control Area, so a departure via the SUNOL intersection is requested using the user-specified route "SUNOL *A":
KRHV SUNOL V301 V87 SGD KSTS
Unfortunately, V301 goes from SUNOL to Oakland, so the pilot chooses to revise the routing request to "SUNOL *G SGD *A", which utilizes a great-circle (straight-line) routing from SUNOL to the Scaggs Island VOR (SGD):
KRHV SUNOL OAK030011 SGD KSTS
The pilot then realizes that the automatically-selected route from Scaggs Island VOR (SGD) to Santa Rosa airport is direct, and the pilot would prefer an airway to be shown for this portion of the route. "SUNOL *G SGD *A STS" produces:
KRHV SUNOL OAK030011 SGD V108 STS KSTS
The first example compares user-selected airway routings with automatically-selected airway routings:
Departure point: oak
Destination: dpa
User-Specified Route: oak v6 dpa
This specifies a flight from the Oakland Airport, which has an on-field VOR named OAK, to Chicago-DuPage Airport, which has an on-field VOR named DPA, via the airway V6. The flight plan route would be shown as:
KOAK OAK V6 DPA KDPA
Note that the user-specified route must include the VOR names at both ends of the flight, even though the airport and VOR names are identical. This is because the flight planner modifies the airport identifiers to begin with a "K" so it can distinguish airports from navigational aids.
Using the *A (airway) or *V (vor-direct) routing option for this example would produce a different and slightly shorter route than V6:
KOAK SALAD V244 HVE V8 JNC V134 DEN V8 IOW V6 DPA KDPA
The second example compares different kinds of direct routings:
Departure point: oak
Destination: dpa
User-Specified Route: direct
A direct (great-circle) flight from Oakland to DuPage is computed. The total time and distance for this flight are the same as the great-circle path, so a comparison at the end of the plan with a great circle route is not given. No intermediate fixes are shown for the flight plan, and the flight plan route would appear as:
KOAK KDPA
To get intermediate fixes, use either "Direct Routing for GPS/LORAN" (*G) or "Direct Routing for RNAV" (*R). The Direct LORAN option would produce the following flight plan route:
KOAK LIN150001 MVA330015 BAM150085 ELY330015 DTA330042
MTU330017 CHE330021 CYS150001 SNY330018 HCT330069 OBH360023
OMA360043 DSM360030 IOW360026 DBQ180027 KDPA
There are two routing choices which produce identical flight routes but display them with slightly different values. The Direct Routing option is available with waypoint computations for GPS/LORAN and for RNAV. The difference between the two is how the mileage from a nearby VOR to a waypoint is computed: for RNAV, the height of the aircraft above the navigation aid is taken into account in computing the distance from the VOR; for GPS/LORAN, the aircraft's altitude is not taken into account.
The distance shown for a GPS/LORAN Direct Routing is suitable for measuring on an aeronautical chart. The air distance shown for an RNAV Direct Routing is suitable for loading into an RNAV computer such as a King KNS-80, or for in-flight verification using DME.
Let us examine a Direct Routing from RHV (Reid-Hillview Airport in San Jose) to SAN (Lindberg Field in San Diego), and compare a selected waypoint for the GPS/LORAN and RNAV routing options. This plan was computed at 10,500 feet; the waypoint chosen is relatively close to the Avenal VOR.
This waypoint using Direct Routing for GPS/LORAN would be:
3. Wpt. d117.1/210.0/2.3 |
AVE .- ...- . |
35:37:14 120:00:40 105 |
and using Direct Routing for RNAV, the waypoint would be:
3. RNAV d117.1/210.0/2.8 |
AVE .- ...- . |
35:37:14 120:00:40 105 |
Notice that the waypoint is in exactly the same place (35:37:14N, 120:00:40W), but the mileage shown from the Avenal VOR differs -- it is 2.3 nautical miles for the GPS/LORAN waypoint, and 2.8 DME for the RNAV waypoint.
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