Flight Planning as a small operator

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JustAnotherC
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Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by JustAnotherC »

I work at a small 702 operation and I'm wondering what other operators are doing for Operational Flight Plans? We're required by TC to complete them before every flight, and use a spreadsheet template that we fill out and then email to the office/dispatchers. Its a clunky system and I'm trying to find out if there's a better method.

What is everyone else doing? Surely we're not the only ones having to do this.
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timel
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by timel »

What kind of 702 ops?
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Krimson
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by Krimson »

702? Flight itinerary...
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JustAnotherC
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by JustAnotherC »

We do airborne survey. I suppose our operation may be different in that we're operating away from home base, and our pilots are technically on a self dispatch system (our office is not necessarily staffed while we're flying). We submit an operational flight plan to our office as well as file a flight plan with FSS.
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FlyHigh13
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by FlyHigh13 »

I flew 702 and used fltplan.com for all my flight planning.
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JustAnotherC
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by JustAnotherC »

I just discovered the FltPlan Android App the other day... it looks like it has great potential as an alternative to Foreflight since I don't like Apple, but I haven't had a chance to really try it out yet. I use Skyvector a lot too which is also a great tool, but none of these meet the Operational Flight Plan requirements (http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/p ... 2-2350.htm).

What did you use for your W&B calculations? That's required as part of our Operational Flight Plans that we have to submit. We used to have W&Bs done for our standard loadouts, but TC stopped allowing us to do that.

Our home base is pretty close to a major TC office so we get more scrutiny than others in more remote areas, and I know some operators don't have to do OFPs (yet), but my company can't possibly be the only one doing them.
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oates76
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by oates76 »

Fltplan.com has W&B for a wide variety of aircraft as well. Check to see if yours is in there.
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timel
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by timel »

Program an excel sheet for weigth and balande that makes it all automatic.
Many places have that.
Enter the weights and print it.
Or can't you have allready made up wb always in the place docs?

Used to put flight plan for aerial survey in an excel sheet, it would piss me off so bad :x it was crap.
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Bede
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by Bede »

If I were to do it, I'd use google docs. Make something using Forms. No need for emails- the flight follower can just look it up.
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JustAnotherC
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by JustAnotherC »

Yes I have a pretty advanced Excel spreadsheet now already. I looked into Google Docs a while back but didn't move to it because it didn't support the capabilities I wanted. That was over a year ago now so maybe its improved by then. My excel sheet calculates/graphs W&B for all of our aircraft and contains a N. America airport database to calculate Track, Distance, GS, Time & Fuel for each leg, and then automatically exports the flight plan into a PDF so its easier to email to the office (with the airport database the excel file is almost 4 mb).

It is becoming an unwieldy monster. Every time we make a W&B amendment I have to update it and distribute the new version to pilots, which causes a version control headache. On top of that some of the pilots we hire don't have a compatible version of excel, which causes another headache because then they can't use the spreadsheet.

I'm really just wondering if there are any other CPs or Ops Managers out there that are running into the same issues I am. I also do software development on the side and am in the midst of creating a cloud based web app to do this (which meets TC's OFP standards and the flight planning standards in our Ops Manual) which I think is the ultimate solution, but I don't really want to reinvent the wheel. I just haven't found any ready made websites or services that provide a seamless solution for what TC requires.
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Moot
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Re: Flight Planning as a small operator

Post by Moot »

Have you check out ARINC Direct?

I have used it operating 604 but you can pretty much have it spit out any format of flight plan you like, and is very customizable. Can have any number of tails on it.

Files them, gets you slots, plus alot more.

Also does weight and balance, take-off/landing performance (runway analysis), APIS, weather, and alot of other features that all work together very well.

They have a constantly updated ipad app (includes en route and approach charts) which syncs with your flight plans.

Not sure on the cost but its worth checking out.

Moot
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