Thanks for responding! I guess yes, I should sit down and fill the forms out, it’s the repetitiveness of the process that I dread. Maybe there is a way to export a profile into XML, massage it in vi or N++ and upload it back…
Well, for creating some flightplan maybe, but most of us use the autorouter as a full flightplanning tool. For that, you want to be as accurate as possible, and that requires really knowing the aircraft in question, not just copying some POH values.
boscomantico wrote:
Well, for creating some flightplan maybe, but most of us use the autorouter as a full flightplanning tool. For that, you want to be as accurate as possible, and that requires really knowing the aircraft in question, not just copying some POH values.
Yes but still you don’t need more than 30 min to set it up correctly.
Peter,
if anything he can modify the 252 profile which is probably as close as it gets to a 231… however, not good airmanship I’d say. Profiles need to be accurate to do a proper job. In the end, it’s not Eurocontrol you are cheating with inferior data but yourself.
Particularly high performance planes require that any pilot sits down with the POH and really gets the figures sorted. Ideally, resort them into something else and back, just to work them out. Otherwise you give away a lot of performance and range.
Working a profile in Autorouter is pretty darn simple if you put your mind to it… and you learn a lot about the performance yourself.
This isn’t an airliner which is flown with minimal reserves. A climb to say FL170 to get above wx, rather than FL100 on a nice day, with an extra 20kt unforecast headwind, will blow your plan out of the water. That’s why I almost totally ignore the AR’s numbers. I just file the route with it, looking at the total distance, then use windy.com to get the rough average wind, and enroute use the fuel totaliser + GPS to get a running LFOB number, and make sure this doesn’t fall below 15-20USG (depending on the alternate situation).
The flight is done at peak EGT or slightly LOP and you don’t need a flight planning tool to work that out. Reaching near the ceiling needs “best power” and that also knocks some 30% off the MPG while you are doing that. Etc.
AR wind forecasting numbers are as precise as Windy’s. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes in the flight ADL gets winds right, sometimes not. At the end you rely on sufficient number of realistic contingency plans and good estimate when to execute appropriate one. My experience with AR is that estimated FOB on landing has been always in a ballpark of what really happened.
I don’t disagree; my point is that nature throws enough curveballs at you that an accurate plog is not worth producing. Much more important is to have good reserves and manage the flight versus weather sensibly.
I used to fly all over the place with AR’s predecessors, which didn’t need accurate models. With FPP I used a Bonanza A36 or some such, for best part of 10 years 
With another router before that (Autoplan) I just put “140kt” in the TAS box.
Peter wrote:
I don’t disagree; my point is that nature throws enough curveballs at you that an accurate plog is not worth producing.
My experience is the exact opposite. In my previous flying life (80-90s) you were given rough wind forecasts for large areas. The times on the plog figures were always off. Now, with tools such as SD and AR which have access to wind forecasts for your exact route and time I find that the leg times in the plog are usually accurate to the minute, even in flights of several hours.
I find that the leg times in the plog are usually accurate to the minute, even in flights of several hours.
I wanna know how you do that
