Pre-Flight Planning

[uwochris]

Hey guys,

I'm just wondering as to what type of planning is involved for those of you who fly for airlines.

At my stage (170 hrs) I still like to take my time planning, using the E6B for my calculations and reviewing every leg of my flight; however, I realize that one day, I will probably not have all the time in the world to plan a cross country flight. Do you guys use special computer software that determines your groundspeed, mag heading, etc for you, or do you ever use E6Bs or similar flight calculators?

I was once told that most pilots who fly charters try to get a general idea for their flight, and skip all the planning processes because they simply are not given adequate time to do so. Is this common for the airlines? ie) do you guys still fill out nav logs, do frequent groundspeed checks, do you draw 10 degree drift lines on your sectionals, etc etc as you did when you were building time for your cpl?


Thanks in advance.

 

[SDdriver]

Well, when you get to fly a scheduled run, your flight plan is done by your company and then it is canned at flight service, there is no filing or planning, it is the same almost all the time. It is a lot different flying IFR than it is flying VFR. I can honestly say that I don’t think I have actually done a FP like I did for my private or commercial, probably since I got the rating. When I flew charter, we would just use flight planning software to generate us a quick FP. Then we would grab the Low Enroutes and plates and check what the computer gave us, if it was kosher, file it and fly. As far as doing groundspeed checks and all of that stuff, using an E6B, why would you use that when you have a GPS or DME telling you what your GS is and if you are on course or not? If you lost that, sometimes it is kind of hard to look for checkpoints to do a speed check, when you are at FL310 with about 6 layers of clouds below you. Ask ATC for a check if it bugs you that bad. WE always kind of joked about it saying, who cares, we get what we get and we’ll get there when we get there. Kind of like some of the junior guys coming up and weather, they always kind of in the beginning freak out over what the weather is going to be when you get there. I mean checking it every 5 min and 100 times before you leave, I always said, dude look, we have to go pretty much no matter what, I mean if the things starts and has the wings on it, we are going, and as far as the weather, it is going to be what it is going to be when we get there, and checking it 50 million times is not going to make it change, so chill out.
Simple thing is, you will find all of this stuff out when you start working. You will probably have much better equipment than the Cessna you are flying, but maybe not, haha..but you will be on an IFR FP following an assigned route or Airway and have the chart to back you up if you need it. Other than that, not much else I can say but, no it is totally different when you fly for Charter, Airlines, Cargo and such. Take care, and good luck!!

SD

 

[Speedtree]

What you are describing are the fundamentals. Once you have the fundamentals down you can shortcut. Does Michael Jordan think about his dribbling when he plays basketball? SDdriver is correct, in the real world of flying most of the routes are pretty routine so you already know the drill. And IFR takes all the fun our of navigating.

That being said, do what you are comfortable doing. If it makes you feel better do the extra steps and be safer. Keep talking to other pilots and see how they do it and you will learn shortcuts. Software is a big help. In my corporate job we went a lot of the same places so we knew what to expect. When it was somewhere new, we would do more flight planning. Always be conservative.

 

[avbug]

Scheduled ops have it all done by someone else: the dispatcher.

Charter ops/corporate frequently leave it to the crews to do themselves. Getting weather, calculating fuels, times, and the works is part of every flight. Filling out flight logs becomes a bit redundant, but all the steps get covered just the same.