Flight Plan Creation
The Active Flight Plan is the flight plan to which the system is currently providing guidance, and is shown on the map displays. One flight plan can be activated at a time and becomes the Active Flight Plan. The Active Flight Plan is overwritten when another flight plan is activated. Once an active flight plan is created, it may also be stored.
Auto-designation will find the most likely airport of origin and auto-populate the Active Flight Plan. Once determined, the airfield identifier automatically appears in the Active Flight Plan. Auto-designation occurs between 15 and 60 seconds after applying power to the system under the following conditions:
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Aircraft position is known
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Aircraft is on the ground
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Nearest airport is within 200 NM
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Flight plan is empty
If the pilot manually enters the origin, or any other leg of the flight plan before auto-nomination occurs, nothing gets inserted automatically. The automatic insertion logic only runs once, so the pilot can edit the origin if the nearest airport is not the desired origin.
If the pilot enters a different airport into the first point of the flight plan, the origin will change to this entry, and the pilot will be prompted to enter the departure runway.
The flight crew can insert waypoints using the Add Waypoint Button in the Active Flight Plan. Once an initial enroute waypoint has been entered, subsequent waypoints can also be entered using the Add Waypoint Button, or by accessing the 'Waypoint Options' Window and touching the Insert Before Button or Insert After Button.
If using the keypad through the Add Waypoint or Route Button, the FastFind function will suggest airports and waypoints based on the existing waypoints in the flight plan which are before and after the selected insertion point. Flight plans are limited to 100 waypoints (including waypoints within airways and procedures). If the number of waypoints in the flight plan exceeds 100, the message “Flight plan is full. Remove unnecessary waypoints.” will appear and the new waypoint(s) will not be added to the flight plan.
The 'Waypoint Options' can be accessed from any waypoint, and provides the means for the flight crew to modify the flight plan using that waypoint as a reference. Different options are available based on the type of waypoint selected. Reference the following figure and table for standard actions within the 'Waypoint Options'. Many of these actions and functions are discussed in more detail later in this section.
Waypoint/Airport Options:
- Direct-To － Forego all previously established sequencing up to the Selected Waypoint and initiate navigation directly to the Selected Waypoint.
- Activate Leg － Activate navigation sequencing from prior waypoint to the Selected Waypoint.
- Waypoint Info － Displays the information page for the selected waypoint or airport.
- Load Airway － Load a designated airway into the flight plan.
- Load Procedure － Allows the pilot to load a departure, arrival, or approach procedure.
- Select Runway － Select the desired runway to be added to the flight plan.
- Insert Before － Insert a waypoint before the selected flight plan waypoint.
- Insert After － Insert a waypoint after the selected flight plan waypoint.
- Remove Waypoint － Remove the selected waypoint from the flight plan.
- More Options － Opens a window of more options for the selected waypoint.
More Options:
- Fly Over － If enabled, the system will dictate the waypoint be flown over (the system defaults to a 'fly-by' method for establishing paths between two concurrent legs (depending on the angle of the two legs)).
- Load Hold － Establish a Hold at the Selected Waypoint. Touching the button opens a window to define the parameters of the Hold.
- Track Offset － Establish a waypoint on the path to or from the Selected Waypoint at a determined radial and distance before or after the Selected Waypoint.
- Parallel Track － Touching the button opens a window from which the flight crew can establish a flight path parallel to the current flight path.
- Heading Leg － Establish a heading leg from the Selected Waypoint.
Departure Options:
- View Chart － Opens the departure procedure chart view.
- Airport Info － Opens the waypoint info page for the airport.
- Change Departure － Allows the pilot to edit the departure procedure.
- Remove Departure － Removes the departure from the flight plan.
Arrival Options:
- View Chart － Opens the arrival procedure chart view.
- Airport Info － Opens the waypoint info page for the airport.
- Load Approach － Allows the pilot to load an approach into the flight plan.
- Change Arrival － Allows the pilot to edit the arrival procedure.
- Remove Arrival － Removes the arrival from the flight plan.
Approach Options:
- Activate Approach － Activates the appraoch in the flight plan.
- Vectors to Final － Suspends the flight plan and selects the FAF in the approach as the next active waypoint in the flight plan.
- Missed Approach － Activates the missed approach hold point as the next active waypoint in the flight plan.
- View Chart － Opens the approach chart view.
- Airport Info － Opens the waypoint info page for the airport.
- Temperature Compensation － Allows the pilot to adjust the temperature compensation for the approach procedure.
- Change Approach － Allows the pilot to edit the approach procedure.
- Remove Approach －Removes the approach procedure from the flight plan.
Certain actions within the 'Waypoint Options' Window may be subdued and unavailable for selection, depending on the context of that waypoint within the flight plan.
The following procedures are intended to provide an example that best captures a basic flight plan. It will create a flight plan from the origin runway to the destination runway — to include enroute waypoints for which lateral navigation will be provided. Information on airways, waypoint constraints, and vertical constraints is discussed later in this section.