More Efficient Flight Planning

[flames]

Can anyone suggest tips on being more efficient or quicker with VFR flight planning?

I have read things about creating block speeds, and block fuel flows but what does that mean?

I have a PPL, but I want to do things quicker and more efficient

Thanks

[KK7]

One word:

Software

It's essential to have the knowledge to plan a trip by hand, and in fact it's quite fun to do it from time to time. But if you don't have the time, and you just want to get going, but want to do your planning properly, software is the way to go. You can input fuel flows at various altitudes and conditions, and many have airport locations programmed in so you just enter point A, point B, and the altitude, and sometimes the winds (some programs will get the winds off the internet) and it does the rest. The real fancy software like what Jeppesen is top notch, but it's for people with deep pockets only. I haven't used any of the more recent software, but I knew the guy who made this handy program, and it appears to have been updated as time goes on:

Copilot for iPhone: http://www.ljd-tech.com/copilot/
Copilot for PalmOS: http://lauriedavis9.tripod.com/copilot/

There are loads of others I'm sure people can suggest, but it's been a while for me so I'm a little out of the loop.

Afterthought: if you have a handheld aviation GPS, many of them have functions in them to do flight planning also.

[Hammer_]

I have been using this site for a little while and have been happy so far. The cost is low and it is Canadian based. The support has been good and it is being upgraded on a consistent basis.

What I like the best is the ability to put in VFR waypoints (towns etc) which makes the planning easier. Make the plan the night before, log on before you go and it updates winds etc. Made life a lot easier!

There is a 30 day trial period.

http://www.worldflightplanner.com/

[200hr Wonder]

First of all, be wary of Software, it is a tool, and like all tools needs to be used correctly. IE Garbage IN, Garbage OUT. As the pilot you need to be sufficiently comfortable with the performance of your aircraft to know if the number coming out of flight planning software make sense. For example if you true out at 100knots and you are traveling 150 miles and get around 1+35 for your trip time from the software then you know that you are in the right ball park, however if your software spits out 1+50 why is that? Strong winds, or did you FT when you keyed in the info?

As for block times, fuel burns etc, they make it quick easy and safe assuming that you know when "ball park" planning is not good enough. In the flying I do I am lucky enough that I usually have 1+00 additional gas over and above my IFR min fuel so ball park planning for me works most of the time. Most aircraft have some good rules of thumb to follow, for example the type I fly, 900 lbs of fuel the first hour and 800 every hour there after is pretty darn accurate. The extra fuel at the top being for climb. The little less fuel you use in descent does not make a huge difference at the end of the day. I block out at 300 knots. Sure you go a little slower in climb and a little quicker in descent but at the end of the day 300 is about what I average for a flight. So given a trip of 450nm I can safely say that it will take about 1+30 and I will use 1700# of fuel. Add 600# for IFR reserve and lets for sake of argument say that my alternate is 150nm away, so 450# to get there. I like to use first hour fuel burns if I have to go to alternates for what ever reason because you just did an approach, climbed out and are usually way lower therefore less efficient. So for the trip I can say I need about 2750#. I use 50# for taxi/run up so 2800# ball park for the trip. Now being a scaredy cat if I only 2800# of fuel that I can take I am going to spend some serious time checking upperwinds, weather, flow control etc and decide how much extra fuel I will leave with. If I have 3600# of fuel so an additional hour I will just go.

What it all comes down to is how close to limits in terms of weather/endurance/comfort is this leg? If you are going for your favorite $100 hamburger for the umpteenth time a quick flight plan like above is great. You know your track so no need to even draw it on your map. However if you are adventuring out into new territory there is NO short cut for proper planning. 2hours spent on the ground doing proper and thorough flight plan could save you from getting lost, running out of fuel or some other equally as bad situation.

A note about upper winds, when you true out at 300knots a 15 knot head/tail wind is a difference of 5% or 45# of fuel. Not a heck of a lot, but when you are only traveling at 100knots a 15% change in time can become quite significant so pay attention to your planned vs. actual ground speed.