Flight planning
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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 minimise the risk of mid-air collision. In addition, planners normally wish to minimise flight cost by appropriate choice of route, height, and speed, and by loading the minimum necessary fuel on board.
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. Furthermore, under the supervision of air traffic control, aircraft flying in controlled airspace must follow predetermined routes known as airways, even if such routes are not as economical as a more direct flight. Within these airways, aircraft must maintain flight levels, specified altitudes usually separated vertically by 1000 or 2000 feet, depending on the route being flown and the direction of travel. When aircraft with only two engines are flying across oceans, they have to satisfy extra safety rules to ensure that such aircraft can reach some emergency airport if one engine fails.
Producing an accurate optimised flight plan requires a large number of calculations (millions), so commercial flight planning systems make extensive use of computers (an approximate unoptimised flight plan can be done by hand in an hour or so, but more allowance must be made for unforeseen circumstances). Some commercial airlines have their own internal flight planning system, while others employ the services of external planners.
Overview and basic terminology
A flight planning system may need to produce more than one flight plan for a single flight:- *Summary plan for Air Traffic Control (in FAA and/or ICAO format).
- *Summary plan for direct download into an onboard flight management system.
- *Detailed plan for use by pilots.
- *USA domestic: enough fuel to circle for 45 minutes at the destination.
- *percentage of time: typically 10%, i.e. a 10 hour flight needs enough reserve to fly for another hour.
- *percentage of fuel: typically 5%, i.e. a flight requiring 20,000 Kg of fuel needs a reserve of 1,000 Kg.
- It is often considered a good idea to have the alternate some distance away from the destination (e.g. 100 miles) so that bad weather is unlikely to close both the destination and the alternate; distances up to 600 miles are not unknown. In some cases the destination airport may be so remote (e.g. Pacific island) that there is no feasible alternate airport; in such a situation an airline may instead include enough fuel to circle for 2 hours near the destination, in the hope that the airport will become available again within that time.
Various names are given to weights associated with an aircraft and/or the total weight of the aircraft at various stages.
- Payload is the total weight of the passengers, their luggage, and any cargo. A commercial airline makes its money by charging to carry payload.
- Operating weight empty is the basic weight of the aircraft when ready for operation, including crew but excluding any payload or fuel.
- Zero fuel weight is the sum of operating weight empty and payload, i.e. the laden weight of an aircraft, excluding any fuel.
- Ramp weight is the weight of an aircraft at the terminal building when ready for departure. This includes the zero fuel weight and all required fuel.
- Brake release weight is the weight of an aircraft at the start of a runway, just prior to take-off. This is the ramp weight minus any fuel used for taxiing. Major airports may have runways which are about two miles (3 Km) long, so merely taxiing from the terminal to the end of the runway might consume up to a ton of fuel. After taxiing the pilot lines up the aircraft with the runway and puts the brakes on. On receiving take-off clearance, the pilot revs up the engines and releases the brakes to start accelerating along the runway in preparation for taking off.
- Take off weight is the weight of an aircraft as it takes off part way along a runway. Few flight planning systems calculate the actual take-off weight; instead, the fuel used for taking off is counted as part of the fuel used for climbing up to the normal cruise height.
- Landing weight is the weight of an aircraft as it lands at the destination. This is the brake release weight minus the trip fuel burnt. It includes the zero fuel weight and all alternate, holding, and reserve fuel.
Units of measurement
Flight plans use an unusual mixture of metric and non-metric units of measurement. The particular units used may vary by aircraft, by airline, and by location (e.g. different height units may be used at different points during a single flight).- Distance units
- Distances are always measured in Nautical miles, as calculated at a height of 32,000 feet, with due allowance for the fact that the earth is an oblate spheroid rather than a perfect sphere.
- Aviation charts always show distances as rounded to the nearest Nautical mile, and these are the distances which are shown on a flight plan. Flight planning systems may need to use the unrounded values in their internal calculations for improved accuracy.
- Fuel units
- Many airlines request that fuel quantities be rounded to a multiple of 10 or 100 units. This can cause some interesting rounding problems, especially when subtotals are involved. Safety issues must also be considered when deciding whether to round up or down.
- Height units
- In China and some neighbouring areas, height is handled using metres. Vertical separation between aircraft is either 300 metres or 600 metres (about 1.6% less than 1000 or 2000 feet).
- Up until 1999, the vertical separation between aircraft flying on the same airway was 2000 feet. Since then there has been a phased introduction around the world of Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM). This cuts the vertical separation to 1000 feet between about 29,000 feet and 41,000 feet (the exact limits vary slightly from place to place). Since most jet aircraft operate between these heights, this measure effectively doubles the available airway capacity. To use RVSM, aircraft must have certified altimeters, and autopilots must meet more accurate standards.
- Speed units
- Aircraft with propellers normally use knots as the primary speed unit, while aircraft powered by jet engines normally use Mach number as the primary speed unit, though flight plans often include the equivalent speed in knots as well (the conversion includes allowance for temperature and height). In a flight plan, a Mach number of 820 means that the aircraft is travelling at 0.820 of the speed of sound.
- The widespread use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) allows cockpit navigation systems to provide air speed and ground speed more or less directly.
- If GPS is not used, the following steps are required to obtain speed information:
- :An airspeed indicator is used to measure indicated airspeed (IAS) in knots.
- :IAS is converted to calibrated airspeed (CAS) using an aircraft-specific correction table.
- :CAS is converted to equivalent airspeed (EAS) by allowing for compressibility effects.
- :EAS is converted to true airspeed (TAS) by allowing for density altitude, i.e. height and temperature.
- :TAS is converted to ground speed by allowing for any head or tail wind.
- Weight units
Describing a route
A route is a description of the path followed by an aircraft when flying between airports. Most commercial flights will travel from one airport to another, but private aircraft, commercial sightseeing tours, and military aircraft may often do a circular or out-and-back trip and land at the same airport from which they took off.Components
Worldwide, there are a large number of named official airways, along which aircraft fly under the direction of Air Traffic Control. An airway has no physical existence, but can be thought of as a 'motorway' in the sky. On an ordinary motorway, cars use different lanes to avoid collisions, while on an airway, aircraft fly at different heights to avoid collisions. Charts showing airways are published by various suppliers and are usually updated once a month coinciding with the AIRAC cycle. AIRAC (Aeronautical Information Regulation and Control) occurs every fourth Thursday when every country publishes their changes, which are usually to airways.Each airway starts and finishes at a waypoint, and may contain some intermediate waypoints as well. Airways may cross or join at a waypoint, so an aircraft can change from one airway to another at such points. A complete route between airports often uses several airways. Where there is no suitable airway between two waypoints, and using airways would result in a somewhat roundabout route, air traffic control may allow a direct waypoint to waypoint routing which does not use an airway (often abbreviated in flight plans as 'DCT').
Most waypoints are classified as compulsory reporting points, i.e. the pilot (or the onboard flight management system) reports the aircraft position to air traffic control as the aircraft passes a waypoint. There are two main types of waypoints:
- *A named waypoint appears on aviation charts with a known latitude and longitude. Such waypoints over land often have an associated radio beacon so that pilots can more easily check where they are. Useful named waypoints are always on one or more airways.
- *A geographic waypoint is a temporary position used in a flight plan, usually in an area where there are no named waypoints, e.g. most oceans in the southern hemisphere. Air traffic control require that geographic waypoints have latitudes and longitudes which are a whole number of degrees.
- *After take-off an aircraft follows a Departure Procedure (SID or Standard Instrument Departure) which defines a pathway from an airport runway to a waypoint on an airway, so that an aircraft can join the airway system in a controlled manner. Most of the climb portion of a flight will take place on the SID.
- *Before landing an aircraft follows an Arrival Procedure (STAR or Standard Terminal Arrival Route) which defines a pathway from a waypoint on an airway to an airport runway, so that aircraft can leave the airway system in a controlled manner. Much of the descent portion of a flight will take place on a STAR.
Complete routes
There are a number of ways of constructing a route. All scenarios using airways use SIDs and STARs for departure and arrival. Any mention of airways might include a very small number of 'direct' segments to allow for situations when there are no convenient airway junctions. In some cases political considerations may influence the choice of route (e.g. aircraft from one country can't overfly some other country).- *Airway(s) from origin to destination. Most flights over land fall into this category.
- *Airway(s) from origin to an ocean edge, then an ocean track, then airway(s) from ocean edge to destination. Most flights over northern oceans fall into this category.
- *Airway(s) from origin to an ocean edge, then a free-flight area across an ocean, then airway(s) from ocean edge to destination. Most flights over southern oceans fall into this category
- *Free-flight area from origin to destination. This is a relatively uncommon situation for commercial flights.
Fuel calculation
Calculation of fuel requirements (especially trip fuel and reserve fuel) is the most safety-critical aspect of flight planning. It is also rather difficult to do accurately and quickly, for at least four reasons:- *There are no useful equations.
- *Any change of flight level causes a discontinuity.
- *At any stage in a flight, the weight of an aircraft includes the weight of the fuel which has not yet been used.
- *A number of values are interdependent so that neither can be calculated until the other is known, e.g. reserve fuel is often calculated as a percentage of trip fuel, but trip fuel can't be calculated until the total weight of the aircraft is known, including the weight of the reserve fuel!
Considerations
Fuel calculation must take many factors into account.- Weather forecasts
- The air temperature affects the efficiency/fuel consumption of aircraft engines. The wind may provide a head or tail wind component which in turn will increase or decrease the fuel consumption by increasing or decreasing the air distance to be flown.
- By agreement with the International Civil Aviation Organization, there are two national weather centres (in U.S.A. and U.K.) which provide worldwide weather forecasts for civil aviation in a format known as GRIB weather. These forecasts are generally issued every 6 hours, and cover the next 36 hours at intervals of 6 hours. Each 6-hour forecast covers the whole world using gridpoints located at intervals of 75 miles or less. At each grid point the weather (wind speed, wind direction, air temperature) is supplied at 9 different heights ranging from about 4,500 feet up to about 55,000 feet.
- Aircraft seldom fly exactly through weather gridpoints or at the exact heights at which weather predictions are available, so some form of horizontal and vertical interpolation is generally needed. For 75-mile intervals, linear interpolation is satisfactory. GRIB format superseded the earlier ADF format in 1998/9. The ADF format used 300-mile intervals; this interval was large enough to miss some storms completely, so calculations using ADF predicted weather were often not as accurate as those which can be produced using GRIB weather.
- Routes and flight levels
- Fuel consumption rate
Calculation
The weight of fuel forms a significant part of the total weight of an aircraft, so any fuel calculation must take into account the weight of any fuel not yet burnt. Instead of trying to predict fuel load not yet burnt, a flight planning system can handle this situation by working backwards along the route, starting at the alternate, going back to the destination, and then going back waypoint by waypoint to the origin.A more detailed outline of the calculation follows. Several (possibly many) iterations are usually required, either to calculate interdependent values such as reserve fuel and trip fuel, or to cope with situations where some physical constraint has been exceeded. In the latter case it is usually necessary to reduce the payload (less cargo or less passengers). Some flight planning systems use elaborate systems of approximate equations to simultaneously estimate all the changes required; this can greatly reduce the number of iterations needed.
- If an aircraft lands at the alternate, in the worst case it can be assumed to have no fuel left (in practice there will be enough reserve fuel left to at least taxi off the runway). Hence a flight planning system can calculate alternate holding fuel on the basis that the final aircraft weight is just the zero fuel weight. Since the aircraft is circling while holding there is no need to take wind into account for this or any other holding calculation.
- For the flight from destination to alternate, a flight planning system can calculate alternate trip fuel and alternate reserve fuel on the basis that the aircraft weight on reaching the alternate is zero fuel weight plus alternate holding.
- A flight planning system can then calculate any destination holding on the basis that the final aircraft weight is zero fuel weight plus alternate holding plus alternate fuel plus alternate reserve.
- For the flight from origin to destination, the weight on arrival at the destination can be taken as zero fuel weight plus alternate holding plus alternate fuel plus alternate reserve plus destination holding. A flight planning system can then work back along the route, calculating the trip fuel and reserve fuel one waypoint at a time, with the fuel required for each inter-waypoint segment forming part of the aircraft weight for the next segment to be calculated.
- At each stage and/or at the end of the calculation, a flight planning system must carry out checks to ensure that physical constraints (e.g. maximum tank capacity) have not been exceeded. Problems mean that either the aircraft weight must be reduced in some fashion, or else the calculation must be abandoned.
Cost reduction
Commercial airlines generally wish to keep the cost of a flight as low as possible. There are three main factors which contribute to the cost:- *amount of fuel needed (to complicate matters, fuel may cost different amounts at different airports),
- *actual flying time affects depreciation charges and maintenance schedules etc.,
- *overflight charges are levied by each country the aircraft flies over (notionally to cover air traffic control costs).
- *Least cost based only on time.
- *Least cost based only on fuel.
- *Least cost based on a balance between fuel and time.
- *Least cost based on fuel costs and time costs and overflight charges.
Basic improvements
For any given route, a flight planning system can reduce cost by finding the most economical speed at any given height, and by finding the best height(s) to use based on the predicted weather. Such local optimisation can be done on a waypoint by waypoint basis.Commercial airlines do not want an aircraft to change height too often (among other things, it may make it more difficult for the cabin crew to serve meals), so they often specify some minimum time between optimisation-related flight level changes. To cope with such requirements a flight planning system must be capable of non-local height optimisation by simultaneously taking a number of waypoints into account, along with the fuel costs for any short climbs that may be required.
When there is more than one possible route between the origin and destination airports, the task facing a flight planning system becomes more complicated, since it must now consider many routes in order to find the best available route. Many situations have tens or even hundreds of possible routes, and there are some situations with over 6,000 possible routes. The amount of calculation required to produce an accurate flight plan is so substantial that it is not feasible to examine every possible route in detail. A flight planning system must have some fast way of cutting the number of possibilities down to a manageable number before undertaking a detailed analysis.
Reserve reduction
From an accountants viewpoint, the provision of reserve fuel costs money (the fuel needed to carry the hopefully unused reserve fuel). Techniques known variously as reclear or redispatch or decision point procedure have been developed, which can greatly reduce the amount of reserve fuel needed while still maintaining all required safety standards. These techniques are based on having some specified intermediate airport to which the flight can divert if necessary; in practice such diversions are rare. The use of such techniques can save several tons of fuel on long flights, or it can increase the payload carried by a similar amount.A reclear flight plan has two destinations. The final destination airport is where the flight is really going to, while the initial destination airport is where the flight will divert to if more fuel is used than expected during the early part of the flight. The waypoint at which the decision is made as to which destination to go to is called the reclear fix or decision point. On reaching this waypoint, the flight crew make a comparison between actual and predicted fuel burn and check how much reserve fuel is available. If there is sufficient reserve fuel then the flight can continue to the final destination airport, otherwise the aircraft must divert to the initial destination airport.
The initial destination is positioned so that less reserve fuel is needed for a flight from the origin to the initial destination then for a flight from the origin to the final destination. Under normal circumstances little if any of the reserve fuel is actually used, so when the aircraft reaches the reclear fix it still has (almost) all the original reserve fuel on board, which is enough to cover the flight from the reclear fix to the final destination.
The idea of reclear flights was first published in 'Boeing Airliner' (1977) by Boeing engineers David Arthur and Gary Rose. The original paper contains a lot of magic numbers relating to the optimum position of the reclear fix, etc. These numbers apply only to the specific type of aircraft considered, for a specific reserve percentage, and take no account of the effect of weather. The fuel savings due to reclear depend on three factors:
- *The maximum achievable saving depends on the position of the reclear fix. This position can't be determined theoretically since there are no exact equations for trip fuel and reserve fuel. Even if it could be determined exactly, there may not be a waypoint at the right place anyway.
- *One factor identified by Arthur and Rose which helps achieve the maximum possible saving is to have an initial destination which is positioned so that descent to the initial destination starts immediately after the reclear fix.
- *The other factor which is also helpful depends on the positioning of the initial alternate airport.
Additional features
Over and above the various cost-reduction measures mentioned above, flight planning systems may offer extra features to help attract and retain customers:- Other routes
- While a flight plan is produced for a specific route, flight dispatchers may wish to consider alternative routes. A flight planning system may produce summaries for say the next 4 best routes, showing zero fuel weight and total fuel for each possibility.
Trivia
Flight planning systems must be able to cope with aircraft flying below sea level, e.g. Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has an elevation of -3 metres. The surface of the Dead Sea is 417 metres below sea level.See also
- Air navigation
- Air safety
- Air speed
- Climb
- Cruise
- Descent
- Flight plan
- Holding
- Instrument flight rules
- Landing
- Runway
- Take-off
- Taxiing
- Visual flight rules
References
Boeing Airliner (1977): "REDISPATCH for fuel savings and increased payload". Arthur & Rose.[Official details re Dead Sea]
External links
Federal Aviation Regulations: [Section 121.631] (re redispatch)
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