Jaybird180
Final Approach
I like the new version of FF, but it's still missing Top of Climb and Top of Decent points that I would calculate when I was doing paper planning as a student pilot on XC flights. Well, now that I's a real pile-ut I dun gots lazy and dooos ever' thing 'lectronical.
As I thought on the problem, I realized that FF now supports distance and bearing from waypoints (I'll have to watch the video again to get the syntax - unless someone posts it in this thread - hint, hint) and I can use that to plot a point and make that TOC or TOD. I should be able to name said derived waypoint (but there's a catch).
If a waypoint is named, it gets stored as a custom waypoint and that list would get cluttered fast. I would have to remember to keep it clean, a real pester when I'm just daydreaming up a new XC flight I'm thinking of. But it is a workaround solution.
What I think I'd like to do is segment a flight in different plans with different altitudes and corresponding wind data as FF now supports that too, speeds, fuel burn, etc, then concatenate them to make the complete plan.
Why? I need to know if I can remain within my 1-hr fuel min for a long XC I'm anticipating in August and do it in a single-hop. Right now single hop is for academic purposes; human factors prohibit me from doing max endurance flights. Electronic planning and a SWAG puts it about 36-45 mins fuel at destination. Would I really stop halfway when I can make day (possibly night) VFR fuel mins? Darn Skippy I would! But I don't want to have to stop. Truth is, I don't have the instrumentation to cut fuel down to 1hr confidently, nor have I yet collected enough data to have ascertained my REAL fuel burn - I only have the book numbers.
As I thought on the problem, I realized that FF now supports distance and bearing from waypoints (I'll have to watch the video again to get the syntax - unless someone posts it in this thread - hint, hint) and I can use that to plot a point and make that TOC or TOD. I should be able to name said derived waypoint (but there's a catch).
If a waypoint is named, it gets stored as a custom waypoint and that list would get cluttered fast. I would have to remember to keep it clean, a real pester when I'm just daydreaming up a new XC flight I'm thinking of. But it is a workaround solution.
What I think I'd like to do is segment a flight in different plans with different altitudes and corresponding wind data as FF now supports that too, speeds, fuel burn, etc, then concatenate them to make the complete plan.
Why? I need to know if I can remain within my 1-hr fuel min for a long XC I'm anticipating in August and do it in a single-hop. Right now single hop is for academic purposes; human factors prohibit me from doing max endurance flights. Electronic planning and a SWAG puts it about 36-45 mins fuel at destination. Would I really stop halfway when I can make day (possibly night) VFR fuel mins? Darn Skippy I would! But I don't want to have to stop. Truth is, I don't have the instrumentation to cut fuel down to 1hr confidently, nor have I yet collected enough data to have ascertained my REAL fuel burn - I only have the book numbers.