I was a F/O and also a F/N. At IBM's suggestion I arranged that I and another N/O ( a Straight Navigator) visited American Airlines newish Computerised Flight Planning Center at Idlewild, I think it was in 1964 or '65. They showed us that Coast to Coast they considered 11 different routes and 9 different vertical profiles, Step up and Step down as well as Long Range Cruise. ( It was a total of 99, I remember.) Each was costed. They said that Captains usually took the lowest cost fllght plan. ( I suppose that this was a form of Spread-Sheet presentation.)
They only covered their own routes and the then newish B707.
We were then piston engined. We were long haul charter and might, and did, go anywhere. Often even ground communications were unreliable to many of "our" airfields. ( I went to 80 countries and up to a dozen airfields in some of them.)
Perhaps we were too soon !
A little history.
P.S. Lyman has reminded me that Idlewild had become JFK on 1st. Jan 1964.
Last edited by Linktrained; 7th August 2012 at 00:03.
Reason: crrection