How computers make my job easy

Back in the day, there were true aviators. They took off in airplanes which were hardly airworthy by today's standards, flew them in weather that they really couldn't predict and somehow managed to navigate themselves with crude and basic instruments over long distances and still get the job done.

Fast forward to today. Our company uses an online flight planning website run by Honeywell. The software in seconds can figure out the most optimum routings between airports based on winds, temperatures and airspace. Using up to date and forecast information, it is an incredibly accurate tool that makes my flight planning as safe and efficient as possible.

Here are some screenshots of a trip I've planned from Calgary Alberta to Palm Springs California.

Here we have the opening screen for inputting information for a flight. Just simply input the from and to airports, time of departure, fuel information and after clicking proceed, it will take only a few seconds to think of some routes for you to select from which usually includes one routing that is optimized for current/forecast winds and temperatures.









Now on the second screenshot here we have a few different options I can select for a routing, or I could manually enter in the waypoints myself. For this trip I've opted to use a company stored route that is what we always get routed on for a trip between these two destinations. I also enter in my cruising altitude at the bottom of this screen and then continue to the next page.



I can also select to view the map of this routing to make sure it is in fact what I want. I can then also overlay current satellite imagery to show cloud cover, and also radar coverage to show precipitation. This image shows the routing we have to use when traveling from Calgary to Palm Springs due to a lot of the restricted airspace in the vicinity of Nevada (Area 51 anyone?).





Finally here we have the finished printout showing our flight information. It tells me how long the flight will take and how much fuel I'll be burning. It also specifies information on the winds to be expected along the routing and mentions a "shear level" which refers to windshear and turbulence, it has computed via the winds where we could likely expect some turbulence and tells us where it will be the worst with a value from 1-15, 1 being very smooth and 15 being holy moly, hold onto your bagel.





So there we have it. Within 5 minutes I was able to build a flight that spans over 1000 nautical miles, figured out the most optimal routing, computed my fuel planning and will also now have an extremely accurate time I can use to inform customs of our arrival in the US. This same online site will also file my flightplan for me automatically so all I have to do is show up to my aircraft and talk to the air traffic controllers initially to obtain my clearance, if they have any adjustments to my routing, they'll give it to me then.

Had this been "back in the day" a trip like this would have taken considerably longer to plan out. Many maps would be required, adding up distances, checking wind charts and using complicated math to figure out ground speeds and estimated times of arrival. Something I've very thankful I do not have to do. It is a very very handy tool, especially with my job as our schedules change all of the time and having the ability to quickly jump online and alter or produce a new flightplan quickly really does save time, money and heartache. I'm sure the company pays a pretty penny for this service, but it's worth every cent, whatever it may be.

So.. now who wants to go to Palm Springs?