FLIGHT VERSION 3.00 written by Patrick C. Roe Route 1 Box 2201 Lopez, Washington 98261 Copyright 1988 Pebble Point Corporation - all rights reserved Phone 206/468-3366 (Days) HOW IT WORKS (a quick introduction) 1. Put the Flight disk in any drive (or load it in a hard disk directory) and type "Flight". The introductory screen appears, then the waypoint file is automatically loaded appears on the left side of the screen. 2. You can move the cursor (actually a bar), up and down the list with the Up/Down arrows, the PgUp/PgDown keys, the Home/End keys, or ^Home/^End. 3. The Waypoint file is sorted alphabetically by states. To move to the begining of the waypoints for a state press F3 and enter the two letter state abbreviation. To find a specific Waypoint press F4 and enter in up to eight letters of its name (usually four or five letters are enough). 3. When the waypoint you want is illuminated by the bar press or . That point will appear on the right side of the screen. Enter up to 20 waypoints in this fashion. Press F10 when you are through. 4. The Waypoints will appear, with a place on the right to enter wind directions and speed. If you don't want to bother with wind calculations just press F10. Otherwise, use the arrow keys to move the cursor to each location and enter wind direction and speed. Press F10 when you are done. 5. When asked, enter your estimated airspeed. 6. From here on the machine does the work. It will print out on the screen a flight plan in log form showing each waypoint, the lattitude and longitude (so you can enter them in your loran), the wind direction and speed, course, heading, distance, estimated time enroute, and total distance and time. On request the printer will print out the flight log. That's all there is too it. Now, you can run the program and read the details later. FLIGHT - The flight planning program Index 1. What the program does (and does not); 2. Hardware. 3. Setting up the system. 4. Loading and starting the program. 5. Navigating through the waypoint file and selecting waypoints. 6. Entering new points, deleting and editing the file. 7. Loading a new file. 8. Entering wind speed and direction. 9. The Waypoint file. 10. The Intersection program. 1. What the Program Does (and does not). FLIGHT calculates the magnetic course and distance between selected waypoints, computes ground speed, heading and time enroute between waypoints based on the wind directions and speeds entered, and prints out a flight log showing all these factors, plus the total time and distance for the flight. It will calculate a flight with up to 19 legs (twenty waypoints, including the origin). This version does not estimate fuel consumption, or attempt to calculate the most economical altitude based on the fuel consumption and wind direction at various altitudes. 2. Hardware. FLIGHT is designed to run on the MS-DOS system and to be printed on a printer using the Epson or Toshiba control codes. The program can be run from either floppy drive or from a directory on a hard disk. Just make sure all the program and the data files are on the same disk or directory. 3. Setting Up the System The FLIGHT disk contains the following files. The data files and the file CONFIG.INF should be on the same disk, or in the same directory as FLIGHT.EXE. FLIGHT.EXE - the Flight program CONFIG.EXE - Configuration program (see instructions) INTER.COM - Intersection computer CONFIG.INF - Contains configuration data ALLUS.DAT - Waypoint file - U.S. (Alaska and some Canada) CARIBMEX.DAT - Waypoint file - Carribean and Mexico EUROPE.DAT - Waypoint File - North Atlantic and Europe FLIGHT DOC - Instruction file INTER DOC When you have arranged the files on the disk or directory you must run the configuration program first by entering CONFIG. This short program generates the CONFIG.INF file which is automatically read each time the program FLIGHT is run. This tell the program which waypoint data file to load automatically and also provides the proper codes for the printer in use (Epson or Toshiba) so that the flight plan will be printed out in the right format. 4. Loading and starting the program. With your computer up booted, and logged onto the drive with the FLIGHT program just enter "FLIGHT". The program will load, show you and introductory screen, then automatically load whichever waypoint file you have designated at the time you ran the configuration program. The first twenty waypoints in the file will be displayed on the right hand side of the screen. The cursor location is shown by illuminating the waypoint it points to in reverse video - like a bar. An instruction list is displayed at the bottom of the screen to remind you of the commands. 5. Navigating the Waypoint File and Selecting Waypoints. You move the cursor bar through the waypoint file with the following commands: Arrows Up/Down Moves the cursor bar up or down one line. If the cursor bar is at the bottom of the screen the down arrow will add the next waypoint at the bottom of the screen with one waypoint scrolling off the top, and similarly if you are at the top. The cursor will not move beyond the beginning or end of the file (except that there is always a blank waypoint at the very end of the file. Home/End These commands move the cursor bar to the top or bottom of the page. PageUp/Down This moves the cursor bar up or down one page, displaying the next page or the previous page. Control-Home/Control-End (^Home/^End) This moves the cursor bar to the first waypoint or the last waypoint in the file. F2 Find St This command move the cursor bar to the first waypoint in each state. Press F4, then enter the two letter abbreviation for the state. You can then scroll through the state to find the exact waypoint you want. F3 Find Pt This command moves the cursor to the exact waypoint you want. Press F4 then enter enough letters of the waypoint name to identify it uniquely. For example, to find Detroit you would only need to enter "Detr". You can enter the name in either upper or lower case, or both. The cursor bar will move to the first waypoint which matches your entry. What happens if you have two or more waypoints with the same name such as Albany, New York, Albany, Georgia, or Albany, Oregon. Since Albany, Georgia is the first one in the list, the cursor bar will stop there. Just type F4 and the cursor bar will continue to the next Albany. Using this feature you can find a waypoint if you only know the first two, three or four letters. Just press F4 and type in the letters you know. By repeatedly pressing F2 you can skip through the list until you find the point you are looking for, or until you have to try another letter. What happens if you have three airports in the same city? Like Bakersfield. Using F4 will select one, with two more following. You should be able to tell them apart by their identifier. Just use the arrows to move the cursor bar to the one you want. Alternatively, when you are making up or modifying your waypoint list, enter the airport by its name, rather than the city. For example, for San Diego you can enter "LINDBERG", "MONTGOMERY" and "BROWNFIELD". F4 Rpt Find When there are several waypoints with the same name, on the same first eight letters, the command F3 will find the first one. But when you have Albany, Georgia, Albany, New York, and Albany, Oregon this is a problem. Just press F4 and it will continue the search to the next waypoint with that name. F5 Find ID Press F5 then enter the two, three or four letter identifier of the airport or navaid you are looking for and this will select it from the waypoint list. To Select a Waypoint Just move the cursor bar to the waypoint you want and press or . You will hear a "beep" and the waypoint, with a number, will appear in a box on the right hand side of the screen. As you enter each waypoint it will appear below the previous waypoint. When you have entered all the waypoints you want press F10 to go to the next step. You can only enter 20 waypoints. At the 20th waypoint you will hear a beep and the program will automatically go to the next step. F1 Re-Start If you make a mistake in the order in which you enter waypoints, or if you change you mind, just press F1. This will clear the box of waypoints selected and you can start over. 6. Entering new points, deleting and editing the file. The Waypoint file or files were designed to be made up separately with your word processor or data base program. (See section 9 below). However, when you are in the middle of computing a program and need to add another waypoint you can do so. Or, if in computing a flight you find that Detroit is 6237 miles from Palwaukee field in Chicago you can be sure there is an error in the waypoint file. So an editor has been provided so you can correct this. Alt-A Add a Point A line will be cleared and all waypoints will be moved down one line. You can enter the new waypoint by typing it in (IN CAPITALS PLEASE). New waypoints should be entered in their proper alphabetical position so you can find them again, but other wise they work just fine in any location. Enter the name, lattitude, longitude and so on so there are in exactly the same position as the others on the list. The waypoint line is exactly 39 letters long. The program selects lattitude, longitude and other data by its position on the line. You can enter more than 39 letters, but the program will only read the first 39 anyway. Use the backspace to make corrections, press when done. Alt-E Edit a Point When you press Alt-E and go into the edit mode you edit by writing over the waypoint on the screen. The right and left arrows will move you to the proper position. To blank something out space over it with the space bar. Press when through. Alt-D Delete a Point Pressing Alt-D deletes the point under the cursor bar and moves all other points up one. If you flub a new entry you can either delete it with F7 and start all over or you can edit it with F6. The program automatically saves all new entries and changes to the file which was originally loaded. In this way as waypoints are added or changed you will gradually build up a highly customized file which fits your own area and flying pattern. 7. Loading a new file. A new file can be loaded at any time just by pressing F8. This does NOT erase the waypoints you have already selected. For example, if you can working on a flight from Bakersfield to Cabo San Lucas you can enter the waypoints up to the border, and the limit of the ALLUS waypoint file, load the waypoint file CARIBMEX and continue right on with your flight plan. Of course if you fly this are regularly it would be handier to combine the waypoints you might need into the same file. To load a new file press F8. A pop up screen will list the waypoint files available on the disk. You enter the name, including the three letter extension and the file will load. You can then continue with your flight plan, or you can press F1 and start over again. 8. Entering wind speed and direction. When you have finished entering the waypoints for your flight and have pressed F10 the Wind Screen will appear. The wind screen is like a small spread sheet. The waypoints are listed in order with two columns on the right, one for wind direction and the other for wind speed. You make your entries line by line, or go down each column. The left/right and Up/Down arrows will move you the to proper space. When you have typed in an entry you can press the key to enter the speed, or direction, or press the arrow keys to move to the next space. If you press F9 it will repeat the last entry. If you enter a direction greater than 360 degrees you will get a beep and be asked to re-enter. You cannot enter a wind speed greater than 99. Anyone who flies in a wind greater than that does not need this flight planning program. When you are done press F10. You will then be asked for your estimated air speed. 9. Printing the Flight Plan From this point on the machine takes over and does the work. All you need to do is answer questions such as: Do you want a print of this flight plan? If you answer yes the program will print out a flight log in the format shown. Otherwise you will be asked if you want to compute another flight plan. If you answer no the program will end. All changes to the waypoint file are automatically saved. 10. The Waypoint file. The waypoint files are ASCII text files written in the following format: BELLINGH BLI 048-56.7 0122-34.7 -22 WA This is the data file entry for Bellingham, Washington. New waypoint entries or files must be written in this exact format with the same number of spaces for each item, the same number of spaces between items, and the same total number of spaces as follows: a. The first eight characters are the first eight characters of the name of the waypoint which can be a navaid, an airport, an intersection, or any other geographic feature. As a convention, there are no spaces, i.e. Paine Field would be written PAINEFIE. Common preceding words such as "point", "port", "saint", "fort", "cape" are all abbreviated PT,PT,ST,FT,CP, and so on. Given these conventions, eight characters are more than enough to identify a waypoint uniquely. b. There is a space, then the next four characters are the identifier as shown on in the various navigation publications. No use of the identifiers are made in this program, so far. c. The next eight characters are the latitude written to the tenth of a minute. Figures of less than a minute are not all that critical, but as long as they are shown that way in the navigation publications they can be used. With reasonably accurate loran receivers the tenth of a minute can be very helpful. d. The longitude takes up nine characters. A minus sign [-] should be place before south longitude or east lattitude. This is simply a convention for the purposes of this program. The extra leading character in both the latitude and longitude allows room for the minus sign. This program calculates the proper course and distance when going from south to north lattitude, and conversely, and from west to east longitude, and conversely. However, in computing a course which crosses the international date line an anomoly occurs. You will have to subtract your course from 360 degrees. The distance in such cases is correct. Since crossing the dateline, for the users of this program, will be a rare occurence, and the correction so simple, it didn't seem worthwhile to include a fix in the program. e. The magnetic variation takes up three characters, including the sign. f. The last two characters are the two letter state abbreviation as used by the postal service. The Canadian provinces have similar abbreviations and the overseas navigation publications give similar abbreviations for foreign countries. The program includes a very simple editing program which can add waypoints, or make changes while you are running the program. Howver, the file of waypoints can be edited with any text editor which prints plain ASCII text. They can also be read into a dBase file or a Lotus file and sorted, edited and re-written using those programs (The files were written from a "Smart" database program). The order of waypoints in the file in not particularly important except for ease in finding the points. The configuration program will select one waypoint file, the one you use most often, to load automatically. Any other waypoint file with the extension ".DAT" will be listed in the menu that appears when you press F8. Since the seach program to find states or points, runs quite fast, the waypoint file can be very large and still manageable. Therefore it is recommended that you principal waypoint file include all the points you might ordinarily need. INTER.DOC 1. This program computes the geographic coordinates of airway intersections from the course and distance from the VOR used as a reference for that intersection. 2. Operating Instructions: To run type "INTER" The introductory screen will list six choices of a file of waypoints to load. These are the files which contain the VORs which govern the location of the airway intersections. You can use the same waypoint files you use for the flight planning program FLIGHT. Make your selection and the program will tell you it is loading. The input screen will list four items - Intersection Name VOR reference Course from the VOR (as shown on the instrument charts) Distance from the VOR (as shown on the instrument charts) Enter all test data in capital letters. If you enter a VOR reference which is not on the file you will be asked to re-enter the name. When you have entered the four items above the the program asks if all data is OK. If you answer "n" the entry spaces will clear and you can re-enter the data. Otherwise the program will compute the intersection coordinates, add to them the variation (based on the variation of the nearest VOR), the state (based on the state in which the reference VOR is located) and print all the data out in waypoint format at the top of the screen. This is the same waypoint format used in the regular waypoint files. As successive intersections are computed they are added to the list at the top of the screen, up to a maximum of fifteen. When you reach 15 waypoint each new waypoint added at the bottom will cause the waypoints at the top to scroll off. When you have finished computing waypoints type DONE in the space for the intersection name. This will terminate the computation portion of the program. You will then be asked for the name of a file in which to save the intersections. If you choose the name of an existing file the intersections will be added at the end of that file. If you choose a new name a new file will be opened and the waypoints written to that file. You can read the intersections from one of these files into your word processor and add them to another file, or read them into a datafile, sort them, and write them out in any order you wish. --------- THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT ------------- 3. Some hints and suggestions: Intersections, except DME intersection, or those established by reference to an NDB, are established by reference to two VORs. It is worthwhile to compute the location for each intersection twice, once for each reference VOR. In most cases these will come within 5/10 of a minute of lattitude or longitude. For lattitude differences 5/10 of a minute is within the acceptable limits of accuracy, considering airways are four miles wide. Length of a minute of longitude is proportional to the cosine of the lattitude of the position. So at 45 degrees north a difference of one minute of longitude would be .707 nautical miles, also within acceptable limits. Nearly all of the differences are accountable by the rounding off of distance on the charts, and use of DME distances. The DME distances will be different, depending on the altitude. This will be particularly true the closer one gets to a VOR. If the difference between the two computed positions is more than a mile you should check the lattitude and longitude of the reference VOR to see if it has been entered correctly. ******************* If you have comments or suggestions on these programs please write or call. And register your software. You will be notified of updates, and regular additions to the waypoint file will be available. The registration fee is $25.00 Limited product support is provided. Call 206/468-3330 during hours of 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. weekdays, Pacific time.