If you are a Student, Private, Commercial or Airline pilot who uses a pilot flight logbook, you would have seen the term ‘VFR flight planner’ before. However, if you have never heard of this term before, you may be wondering what exactly does this mean?
Piloting aeroplanes is an essential and extensive job, so knowing as much as you can will help you stay on top of your profession. As the world grows and changes, different ways to keep track of your data develop. Utilising these new methods can make your job easier!
What Is VFR?
‘VFR’ itself stands for ‘visual flight rules.’ These refer to a set of regulations created in reference to flying in visual meteorological conditions; basically, rules that aircraft pilots must adhere to when flying in weather conditions that are generally clear enough for the pilot to see.
So, naturally, a VFR flight planner is used for calculating navigation data that is used for flying under visual flight rules. The specific information calculated includes metrics such as your estimated elapsed time, wind-corrected heading, ground speed, leg fuel and fuel remaining.
Of course, when you are flying through the sky, under VFR with lives and cargo on board, seeing around you is vital to staying safe. So aeroplane pilots will typically use visuals such as bodies of water, visible landmarks and the ground to know where their aircraft is going.
Being able to see correctly is also useful when avoiding crashes and collisions with other airborne aeroplanes.
What Is The Reason To Keep A VFR Flight Plan?
Filing a VFR flight plan is used to help air traffic control supervise and monitor your flights. Aeroplane flights affect many different people, from the pilots in the cockpit, the passengers in the cabin and the people working at the airport, so keeping flights supervised is crucial to maintaining efficiency and safety.
For these reasons, you should make sure your flights are planned correctly using a VFR flight planner, such as the one provided by us at Excel Pilot Logbook.
In the unfortunate case of your aeroplane crash landing, your Filed VFR Flight Plan can be used to locate the stranded aircraft and rescue you and any passengers on board.
What Does A VFR Flight Planner Do?
It is an electronic planner that calculates your flight’s navigation headings – it will greatly assist you in the air when navigating between points. They are very similar to pilot logbook spreadsheets. When piloting large, expensive and complicated crafts like aeroplanes, it can be vital to keep all your details in order.
When you utilise a digital flight planner, a lot of different kinds of valuable and vital data will be calculated for you. As mentioned above, this data includes fuel remaining, leg fuel, estimated elapsed time, groundspeed, and more. After entering the initial data, the program will automatically calculate more data, saving you time and stress.
When you use our Excel VFR flight planner, your data will be calculated on a spreadsheet. That means that, if you would like to, you will be able to print out your VFR log to have a physical copy of the data. This also means that you will be able to print out a blank form of the VFR planner, so you would be able to manually fill in the information yourself.
Our VFR flight logbook is also highly customisable. So, you will not have to put up with any titles or columns that you do not like or need. You will also be able to add columns, rows or modify text. Additionally, you can also change features like the planner’s colours to make the program more visually suited to your style. So, when you use our flight planner, you can customise and personalise it to your heart’s content.
Because a VFR flight planner keeps track of leg fuel and fuel remaining, you can keep track of the current amount of fuel in your aircraft to know whether or not you will need to refuel. In addition, regulating how much longer your aeroplane can keep going is vital for efficient flying, so automatic fuel checks can be beneficial.
On top of all of these helpful features, you can also sync your data and save your information in the Cloud. In addition, you will be able to access and modify your data at any time.
Where Can I Find A Good VFR Flight Planner?
If you think that having a flight planner sounds valuable and convenient, we’ve got you covered! Excel Pilot Logbook offers VFR and IFR pilots a free planner, available as a lifetime license with no subscriptions required! If you have any further questions or inquiries, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us for more information.
Keep your flight data tracked and managed correctly, utilise a VFR flight planner for your future flights!
