From the Ground Up: Flight Planning Part 1

Hangar talk in July is lots of fun because the bi-fold door’s wide open. That’s better than huddling beneath the furnace, which around here runs from Labor Day through Memorial Day. For the short summer, we bask in fresh breezes and discuss the finer points of aviating. A recent conversation turned to IFR flight planning. That’s a pretty broad task, but in a nutshell I break it down to two checklists. Checklist A: Coffee. Lots of it. Oh, and a preliminary plan I call the “paper trail.” This includes information on the airports, a basic route, charts, and publications.

Checklist B: Coffee cups. Big ones. Plus weather/route briefings, all done pre-departure. Great—more checklists? Indeed. There’s a number of items that do get missed, sometimes always. And, there’s a lot to cover. Like aircraft checklists, these can live in your EFB and help you avoid pilot-induced surprises. To sample, let’s plan a flight in a Cessna 182 from Albany, Georgia, to Lansing, Michigan. 

Big Picture, Little Details

The trip is in four days, so Checklist A is early EFB planning and collecting the related documents. Sketch out the map with a familiar route, otherwise use direct-to the airports. The line between KABY and KLAN runs just about straight north, but not quite. The rounded-up totals: 675 NM, 5 hours, 60 gallons. You know this needs a fuel/break stop. It needn’t be halfway, but that will depend on weather. For a placeholder, eyeball it for somewhere in Kentucky. London-Corbin/Magee Airport looks fine, so pop that in. Scroll along the route for anything in the way. There are the eastern edges of two Bravo airspaces—Atlanta and Cincinnati—and one Alert Area. This you tap on to see its surface to 700 feet. It’s a non-issue under normal circumstances, but with terrain and not much for airports around, you make a temporary waypoint there to check later when you look at the Bravo airspaces in more detail.  

Next, cruise altitudes. Hmm … you’re heading somewhat north, but what are the magnetic courses? Don’t let the EFB fool you; it might default to magnetic heading using the latest winds. They happen to be from the west today as I’m connecting the dots on my map, so the flight plan page gives headings of 354 and 359 degrees. This is why for Checklist A you’ll want to turn off weather if able for now. To correctly apply 14 CFR §91.179, the flight legs are 006 and 002 degrees—odd altitudes. If you mistakenly file for an even number like 8,000, ATC will quietly correct it when issuing the clearance, then call the FAA (just kidding!). It’s not a big deal, but if you had your heart set on certain altitudes due to weather or terrain, this’ll catch you off guard.

For higher terrain from the Alert Area into South Carolina, plan for a first leg at 9,000 feet, then 7,000 after the fuel stop. Next, add in potential alternates. There are lots of airports, so on the scratchpad or new route page, select what you like, all things being equal. I’ll note Knoxville (KTYS) and Battle Creek (KBTL). If feasible, I prefer alternates with precision approaches and multiple runways. If it’s a single runway, for this aircraft I want at least 4,000 feet. FBO services also win points.

Another tip: Airports designed for airlines are great if you must get down now, but as filed alternates they’d be hard to manage in a lost-comm situation. We also know that this is a wish list and §91.169 might change alternates due to weather, but those can get adjusted later. So far, we have the big picture: flight legs, airspace, terrain, and alternates. Save the route in case you start over and paste it into a new one that you can shift around for Checklist B. If you can’t stand the suspense, check weather outlooks and existing NOTAMs. If the prog charts hint at thunderstorms or a destination has a big TFR scheduled, you might pause here and reroute or reschedule. 

Departure Homework

Continuing with Checklist A, use the EFB binders for charts and publications. Publications? Yeah, there are entire books involved, but we can use excerpts so long as we know the titles. I tend to forget airport sketches, diagrams, and Hot Spots until I need them, so I start with those (see our recent article “Don’t Get Burned,” for more on that). Next, IFR procedures. This includes airport notes in the little pub with the big name: “IFR Takeoff Minimums, (Obstacle) Departure Procedures, and Diverse Vector Area (Radar Vectors).” There’s important stuff in there that gets skipped often, so here’s one solution: You might usually sequence the planning via phases of flight, i.e., departures from Albany, then approaches into London, then departures from London, and so on. Alternatively, consider a Checklist A that covers taxi/departure procedures for all the airports, then arrivals/approaches for all the airports. This simplifies everything into categories, rather than chronology. Airports can change, and it’s also easy to forget that the destination becomes the departure once you’re there. Here’s how it flows:

For KABY, KLOZ, and KLAN, check the procedures menu for SIDs—none apply. Then find the takeoff/ODP entries. For Albany, it lists Takeoff Minimums: “Rwy 35, 300-2 or std. w/min. climb of 255′ per NM to 600.” Wait, what? These options are to avoid obstructions—either see what’s there, or use a climb gradient and weather minimums. Of course, it’s legal under Part 91 to disregard all this, but sometimes we might want some built-in guidance as part of our decision-making. Most ODPs offer minimum ceiling/visibility or “std.” (standard)—minimum visibilities listed on the first page of this publication. For twins and singles, that’s one SM. While Part 91 can still ignore this, it’s a good starting point. Should you want to use climb gradients (feet per miles) to figure climb rates (feet per minute), the Terminal Procedures book has climb and descent tables. Based on potential groundspeeds from headwinds and tailwinds, the climb rate requirements for our 182 range from 450 to 750 FPM. Meanwhile, Albany lists relevant obstacles with two ODPs: “Rwy 5, climb heading 047˚ to 700 before turning left.” And: “Rwy 35, climb heading 347˚ to 700 before turning right.” You can see the towers on the map—these are definitely worth knowing about. Save what you need or pop ’em into the scratchpad; I use screenshots and a digital highlighter. (For more detail on obstacle management, see Ron Levy’s excellent article on IFR Departures.)

London-Corbin and Lansing have similar departure details; pretty common, aren’t they? Even with ATC instructions, you’re better off verifying that initial headings and altitudes get you comfortably past or over obstacles. The Cessna 182 POH has standard-condition, no-wind climb rates of 670 FPM for the lower altitudes. Given the takeoff minimums reviewed, I’d want a headwind, which is good to know before getting the weather briefing in Checklist B. This is another reason that loading all the pubs helps ensure you have the latest, and you can bookmark or put on your checklist to update anything that cycles over during the planning. Checklist A is a good time to question anything that could be unsafe, before things get busy with Checklist B and the pressure to go rises. Better than forgetting about an ODP—or worse, two.

The Pre-Planning Plan

Now some quick checks on arrivals and approaches. Albany has no Standard Terminal Arrivals. There are IAPs to each runway and everything’s fair game for our aircraft. London-Corbin has one runway, 6/24, and RNAV approaches to both ends plus an ILS 6. We’re eyeing the RNAV 24 based on the forecast. For Lansing approaches, there are plenty, noting that 10L/28R is a short parallel (3,601 feet) that we can land on, but has no approaches. There’s nothing except weather preventing us from getting in, so we have the two proposed legs:

Albany to KLOZ: 9,000 feet, 333 NM, 2.5 hours, 32 gallons. Alternate: Early stop at Knoxville, 77 NM south.

KLOZ to Lansing: 7,000 feet, 342 NM, 2.6 hours, 32 gallons. Alternate: Jackson, 32 NM south.

We’ll fine-tune routes, expected procedures, and legal alternates in Checklist B, which is also when we tackle weather. That can be a project, which is why we spend the time on Checklist A for the paper trail, summarized here: First, airport information, charts and pubs for departures and approaches. Second, routing reviewed for terrain, airspace and alternates. Third, aircraft performance: estimated times and fuel burn, plus runways and departure considerations. The charts and pubs are loaded, and preliminary weather and NOTAMs checked. We’ve included the often-missed details like takeoff procedures, giving us the bandwidth to focus on weather updates as we get ready for that standard briefing for departure. Next time, we’ll unpack Checklist B to update conditions, routes, and alternates for the trip, load the coffee and fly.