Flight Planning Services...

[oli,_the_original]

Hi all,

I was just wondering, has anyone on here used a flight planning service? If so, how much did it cost and what did you get for that? A 'put the weather in' route plan and a case of take off or more rudimentary versions?

Cheers,

Oli

[Jan Olieslagers]

Cheese us! Planning the flight is half the fun - why should I ever pay anyone else for having MY part of the fun?

[IO540]

They are routinely used by the business jet community.

The prices start at about 30-40 euros, for a validated Eurocontrol route and a weather briefing.

Higher up the food chain, firms like Jeppesen make $millions by selling flight support services starting at a few hundred whatsits per month. I guess they also do overflight permits (necessary in the 3rd world, generally) and hotel bookings for that...

Light GA is usually tight with money and rarely uses these services, especially now that the major "black art" portion (the development of valid Eurocontrol IFR routes) has been made available to normal mortals, using software tools like FlightPlanPro. Any monkey can book hotels, etc, over the internet.

[oli,_the_original]

Hmmm, thank you for that IO540.

Also has anyone come across this where you can also hire an up to date dash/yoke mount GPS, which has all of the relevant navigation data loaded onto it so you can literally plug and play?

I am just curious whether there are any services out there where you can provide all of your relevant data and requirements, and then get a finished product back, ready to basically file and then walk to the aircraft?

Cheers,

Oli

[IO540]

No, this is Europe?

Where are you? Mars?

Or maybe in the USA :)

[oli,_the_original]

Haha no, unfortunately not.

I am in the UK, but have just got back from Morocco, and was thinking about how it would be good if this type of service existed should someone want to do a long distance, multi-leg tour of say the med and venture into north-africa, but maybe lacked the experience/time/confidence (Delete as necessary) to do this. Thus, a fully integrated 'grab and go' style package would be ideal as it also allows people to just enjoy the flying rather than faff with paperwork, something i always find a massive bugbear when going into europe.

Cheers,

Oli

[IanSeager]

something i always find a massive bugbear when going into europe

Oli

The service you're after doesn't really exist. From the above comment I'd suggest a flight or two with someone who has 'done' Europe a few times. The planning, flight plan filing and other bits and pieces can all be sorted with very little hassle with a computer and an internet connection. Similarly a decent aviation GPS is a very wise investment.

Ian

[oli,_the_original]

Thanks for the reply Ian. That was the sort of answer i was hoping for :E

Now for the next question, do people think that there is a potential market out there for this type of 'all-inclusive' flying, where you specify where you wish to go, specific routings potentially, and then receive a pack-up ready to use, full of necessary forms etc ready to go?

And then the capable pilots out there, who might not be able to afford ther latest carlos fandango GPS, will also be able to hire out a GPS unit, routing and diversions already plotted, ready for the flight to offer that additional back up when flying around?

Cheers,

Oli

[GeeWhizz]

On the flight planning services front Sky Demon are doing a good job so far. Their subscription software (although VFR) includes route planning, vertical nav, weather input, PLOG-ing, NOTAM brief, Weight and Balance. This can all be downloaded onto the Sky Demon GPS too. I've used Sky Demon for planning and plogging and found it to be not as accurate as I'd have liked. Not used the GPS yet though.

If you fly long distance IFR go for the hefty Jetplanner program. It's an amazing piece of software that will do everything for you quickly and accurately (and probably cook a buffet lunch on board too).

I find nothing more satisfying than plotting and planning my flights in the utmost detail. Then flying them to find that they are incredibly accurate. All done by hand :D

[flybymike]

Now for the next question, do people think that there is a potential market out there for this type of 'all-inclusive' flying
No. I do not think there is any such (sane) market.
If I had no idea what I was doing on such a venture (and I would not) I would not rely on some fandango GPS I had never used before which contained impenetrable information and reams of paperwork all of which were gobbledegook to me, unless I had the time to go through it all beforehand in order to understand it, and also had someone with me who knew what they were doing.
Hence I might as well have sussed out the whole business for myself from the start.

[flybymike]

I've used Sky Demon for planning and plogging and found it to be not as accurate as I'd have liked.
In what way is Skydemon not accurate?

[GeeWhizz]

Sounds absurd, granted. I did little test comparing Sky Demon hdgs and timings to my own hand worked hdgs and timings. Even allowing for the unknown element of actual conditions, Sky Demon was consistently further out on the timings. Headings were similar, but the 214/whizwheel/GS combination was more accurate. Admittedly the differences may be negligible but I'm a nerd with these things!

[IO540]

It is easy to sound elitist in forums :) but (a) I don't think planning a flight is in any way difficult (these days, any chimp with a laptop and an internet connection should know how to plan a flight from say Bournemouth to say Casablanca) and (b) I would not trust somebody else to do the weather planning for me.

In the high-end bizjet and airline world, the pilot is handed a pre-planned package and he just flies, like a bus driver. That is done

- to save time
- the aircraft are massively capable machines, fully de-iced, with radar, and with a 99.x% despatch rate, so the chance of the pilot looking at the wx and saying he doesn't want to fly is close to zero (and he might get the sack if he did that and the wx was above the minima in the approved ops manual ;) )
- the routes are often long enough to require complicated overflight permit arrangements which could take days to sort out

At the lower end of the bizjet world, the pilot has to do it all himself.

The weather decisions, for a relatively much less weather-capable aircraft like most of us fly, are much more individual. For example, I don't fly in IMC enroute on high altitude IFR, because airframe icing is almost guaranteed, eventually, but there are conditions where I would do that, like when the "IMC" is just a haze, and I use the IR satellite images to evaluate that. OTOH some pilots would just drill through anything; and usually they survive. Climbing and descending through icing layers is another one, where I am not going to have somebody else telling me what I can do or not.

[mm_flynn]

For typical PPL flights I think the maximum anyone is likely to want to pay for is a package of

1 - Your route determined
2 - Plog Created (reflecting forecast winds on the route)
3 - Flight Plan filed and managed for you (notified to the correct agencies if you are VFR or mixed VFR/IFR)
4 - A sensible weather briefing pack
5 - A chart printout
6 - Plates for your departure, destination and alternate
7 - A file you can upload to your GPS
8 - A Gen Dec created for you to carry send
9 - Updates on slot times and ATC messages (like , hay you don't have a PPR number so you are not going to get landing clearance - applies to light jets more than spam cans)

Getting people to spring more than a 10er for that list is going to be hard. Also, there are a number of existing operators already providing most/all of the list.
---------------
You then move on to the things that are more costly to provide and much less relevant to the PPL

1 - Selecting which handling agent to use and booking it.
2 - Booking catering, limos, hotels, at the destination
3 - Arranging overflight permits
4 - Arranging fuel deployment (for remote locations are Avgas burners )

These are all highly manual processes that are provided by specialist support agencies (and Ops Departments)

On hiring a GPS... I am struggling to picture someone who can afford to fly IFR and can't spring a couple hundred quid for a quite good gps (or less than 100 for 'last years model' used).

[flyingfemme]

From long, and varied, experience I can say that nothing beats doing it yourself.

There are services available that will do some, or all, of your planning/filing/booking but they come at a price (generally cost plus) and are usually of the "garbage-in-garbage-out" format. You tell Jepp or Universal (etc) where you want to go and they send you the package and a bill.......what they won't do is tell you what the options would be; with their various costs and complexities. So if you don't know where you are going, you won't know what is good planning. If you know what is good you might as well do it yourself........

I have seen quotes and routes prepared on this basis and the cost made me wince while the route made me laugh. Technically the stops were fine, routes OK and valid, leg distances sensible, handling agents appointed. But they had just drawn a line on the map with no regard for how easy (friendly) a stop would be or how the costs compared to alternatives. Making a dogleg or avoiding certain countries could save a lot of dosh as well as plenty of hassle.

They are also pretty jet-centric and avgas is not freely available in many places. I'd always rather check myself than be stranded.

[IO540]

I have it on excellent authority that Jepp et al are not too happy these days, since Eurocontrol route generation has passed into the hands of the great unwashed. That happened in 2008 when Autoplan (http://www.autoplan.aero/) (an abandoned tool now, since the author was unable to keep up with Eurocontrol's constant attempts to thwart it) busted the whole cartel wide open, eventually resulting in Eurocontrol offering a "route suggest" feature which actually works much of the time. Anybody and their dog can book hotels, and there are several overflight permit agents who can get the permits for overflying various bits of Bongo-Bongo Land :)

[GeeWhizz]

get the permits for overflying various bits of Bongo-Bongo Land

Never flown over or into this place... Must be using an old chart. Any route suggestions or better still a computer to plan it for me :D

[piperarcher]

Personally I wouldnt say there is much of a market, not in GA. Firstly, its best to do all the planning yourself, then you can evaluate danger areas, weather, diversions and so on, and have extra additional information in your head based on what you picked up while doing all that. Plus, I make the ultimate go / no go decision, and am responsible for what I do in the air - so I generally wouldnt want, or trust anyone else to do all the planning for me and then just shoot up into the air. I dont mind using various low price bits of software (SkyDemon, RocketRoute and so on) to generate some of the information - but I spend as much time double checking it, as I would creating it all in the first place really.