Air Plans was manned by two people, typically a sqn ldr and senior non-com. They would normally work earlies and lates with, I think, both working during part of the day. Their job was to create a flying programme that met all the varied requirements:
The station was given a number slots during the week, typically 9 per day spread between 0800 and 2300. Waddington's first slot was 0800 whereas Cottesmore was 0830. Another slot I recall was 0915 and so on.
They would offer the slots to the three squadrons whose training officers would bid. They would try to ensure that slots were spread evenly across the squadrons.
They would work with Eng Plans to ensure that there were aircraft to meet the slots.
There was also a programme of ranger slots around the world. These would be offered to sqns too.
Then they had to work with eng plans to get aircraft for the slots. I remember the flt lt air planner at Cottesmore was Ken White. Then at Waddo I remember Ivor Gallway in air plans.
The aircraft themselves were a nightmare. They were all suffering extra fatigue from the switch to low level flying. In order to preserve the force level required they were allocated certain amount of time at low level. Then the aircraft also had other requirements. One might be an ECM monitor run at 112 SU at Stornoway. Another might to calibrate the visual bombsight.
It was the planners that had to tie all this together.