Universal Flight Plan Translator

The purpose of this presentation is to look at each section of a Universal International Flight Plan and provide you with a plain language description of the information provided by various data blocks. Some data blocks that are either self-explanatory or not necessary for our purposes have not been decoded. This presentation is for informational purposes only.

Universal’s Flight Plan Identifier Dept and Dest A/C Registration # Mission Controller Requesting Flt Plan Flight plan directions for crew Mach.70, Indicated Departing on the 20 th at 15:30 UTC

Fuel to Dest NM to Dest Est. Touchdown Time Passenger and Baggage Weight Crew + Stores + Empty Weight of A/C Total Planned Fuel “Straight Line” Trip Distance Route was manually planned, as opposed to a canned route

‘Notepad’ to copy clearance and make note of trip details Planned route

Avg. wind is 16 knot headwind At KHPN, a/c should be at FL410, cross HANCY at FL450 Payload Wt = Passenger(s) + Their Bag(s) Long Range Cruise Speed used for planning First Enroute Altitude Max windshear of 3 knots, occurring at JFK

Secret decoder ring for the ‘Howgozit’ section The ‘Howgozit’ section. For each trip segment, cross check your time and fuel against what was planned.

I = IFR, G = General Aviation Wake turbulence category L = Light (<7,000 kg)

S = Standard Comm/Nav Setup, specifically ‘VHF RTF/VOR/ILS’ B = Localizer Performance with Vertical Guidance, specifically LPV (APV/SBAS) D = DME equipped F = ADF equipped G = GNSS equipped M3 = Satellite Communication equipped

R = Performance Based Navigation (RNAV) equipped W = RVSM Certified and Qualified Y = VHF 8.33 (Radio Channel Spacing) Z = ‘Other’ Comm, Nav or Data not listed above S = Mode S Transponder

Departure Airport and Time of Departure (UTC)

Airspeed for the initial segment. ‘N’ for ‘knots’, followed by 4 digits for airspeed. Planned cruising level (first one), indicated by ‘F’ for ‘flight level’. First portion of the planned route. SQUAD is the point at which the speed change to Mach.69, FL remains the same.

Continuation of the planned route. At HANCY, the planned speed changes to 392 knots, and the a/c climbs to FL450. Final portion of the planned route.

Destination airport Estimated time enroute (departure to destination) Planned alternate

RNAV details not previously provided. Don’t worry about the coding, not important to you. Comm details not previously provided. Not important for your flight.

Estimated enroute time to the edge of the New York Oceanic FIR. Estimated enroute time to the edge of the San Juan Oceanic FIR.

The aircraft’s SELCAL code The aircraft’s performance category (Cat B) The aircraft is TCAS equipped

Not approved for RNP 10 routings Highest planned flight level The aircraft is TCAS equipped

Constant Mach speed of.70 used for planning Fuel endurance = 5 hours and 31 minutes Souls on board = 4 ‘Maritime’ survival equipment on board

Life jackets on board are fluorescent There is one life raft (dinghy) on board The life raft seats 9 and is orange Aircraft is white and red Captain’s name is Smith

The following pages of the flight plan detail various Equal Time Points (ETPs) for different route segments given different scenarios; i.e. loss of an engine, loss of pressurization, passenger emergency at cruise altitude, etc. Be aware of not only of where you are along the route, but also where you are in relation to the ETPs. Be sure you are able to correctly interpret which should be used in a given situation.

This is the information for the equal time point for the loss of an engine at FL270 between KJFK and Bermuda’s TXKF. Should an engine fail before reaching the ETP, turn back to JFK. If an engine is lost after the ETP waypoint, continue to TXKF.

ETP Coordinates: At this point, the time to turn around and fly to JFK or forge ahead to TXKF is the same, based on winds enroute and with one engine inoperative.

Distance and time from the departure airport, HPN, to the ETP = 310NM and 47 minutes.

Wind component, distance and time from the ETP to either airport. Notice that while the distance is quite different, the time is the same due to the winds. The choice of where to divert to would best be made based on the need for CFR and facilities available based on the problem at hand.

ETP information planned using a TAS of 257 knots

Fuel burned from departure airport to ETP Fuel remaining upon arriving at the ETP

Fuel required to get from the ETP to either alternate airport (JFK or TXKF) Amount of fuel remaining when arriving at the alternate (either JFK or TXKF) Fuel required to fly from the departure airport, to the ETP and then to either JFK or TXKF

Thank you for your review. Please direct any questions, comments or suggestions for this and other training tools to Susan Henning at either or Happy flying!