Flight Planning

This set of notes describes the process of building a very simple flight planning tool for X-Plane 11 using Python.

Outline

Chapter 1: Problem Background

• 1.1: Intro and Problem Description

Chapter 2: Preparing Navigation Data

• 2.1: Navdata in X-Plane 11

• 2.2: Reading the Waypoints Datafile

• 2.3: Reading the Navaids Datafile

• 2.4: Reading the Airports and Runways Datafile

• 2.5: Airport Radial Search

Chapter 3: Computing a Horizontal Path

• 3.1: Overview

• 3.2: Constructing a Search Corridor

• 3.3: Searching for Waypoints

• 3.4: Connecting the Waypoints Into a Graph

• 3.5: Finding a Path Through the Graph

Chapter 4: Finding Aircraft Performance Data

• 4.1: Aircraft Performance Context

• 4.2: Gathering Flight Test Data

• 4.3: Processing the Flight Test Data

• 4.4: Modelling the Data with Functions 

Chapter 5: Computing the Flight Trajectory 

• 5.1: Introduction

• 5.2: Computation Preparation

• 5.3: Computing the Trajectory in Reverse

Chapter 6: Preparing the Flight Plan

• 6.1: Creating the Navigation Log 

• 6.2: Exporting the Flight Plan to X-Plane

Chapter 7: Adding Extra Features

• 7.1: Checking for Terrain

• 7.2: Getting Weather Data

• 7.3: Creating a Basic User Interface

Chapter 8: Example Flight Plans

• 8.1: Example: Amsterdam to Lugano (Europe)

• 8.2: Example: Perth to Port Headland (Australia)

• 8.3: Example: Nassau to Punta Cana (Caribbean)

Chapter 9: Conclusion and Extra Information

• 9.1: Conclusion

• 9.2: Extra: How I use X-Plane 11

• 9.3: Extra: The Flight Planning Problem

• 9.4: Extra: Flight Planning in the Real World

• 9.5: Extra: Aircraft Performance in the Real World