“Flight
Planner”
Hello all you Aviation lovers, let me introduce
you today the Android Application "Flight Planner", or “Planeador de
Vuelo” in spanish. As you can notice I am a Spanish native speaker from the
lovely country of Peru in South America, and as a helicopter pilot, I would
like to do my bit to this exciting aeronautic life.
This APP has been created to calculate
performance information of Bell 212 helicopter, based on the Section 4 of the
Manufacturer Flight Manual, you just enter your flight conditions, whether they
are: height, temperature and weight and it will give you automatic reading in
numerical values, without the need of looking for them in the charts of the
Flight Manual.
In addition, you have
to know that this application works only with seven (07) performance charts,
from all the 63 others, I have only taken the ones that I considered the most
common useful for us.
Although this application involves only
the Bell 212 helicopter, I would like to know how useful is this way for you,
to calculate performance charts information in general, if so, I will continue
with other aircrafts, this is only the beginning. Shall we start?
1.
The mode of operation is very easy, the APP icon
is displayed as any of the others within your screen, just click and you are in.
2.
Once inside, you will be
shown the main picture, an icon for instructions in Spanish and the link to
enter to the performance data calculator. We will go straight to the calculator
to save us the reading of instructions.
3.
When you click the box "ingresar", you will see
the five conditions that you should consider for your flight. Don’t pay
attention to the engine type nor the heater yet, those are disabled.
4.
Ok. The first condition is Total Weight or Peso Total
which is followed by a box with three points. When you click it, you will be
delivered to another window where you will be able to enter as many types of
charges your helicopter will carry.
5.
For example: you want to put a certain type of charge
named: passengers. Ok, you got to click on the “+” image and in this window you
can write the charge you want. Passengers. OK. You save it as a name, and then
add it to the list of charges. The first time won’t show, don’t worry, do it
again and it is.
6.
Perfect. Once your charge is added, you can put the quantity
of items this charge will have, in this case, passengers, you will put the
number of passengers here and in the line below you will put the average weight
of them in kilos, don’t forget.
7.
After that, you got click on “Calculate” or calcular, and
it will automatically multiplicate in pounds in the upper line, considering one
kilo equal to 2.2 pounds. Ok? Good. Then, you got to stored it clicking on
Engrave or Grabar, and you will see your information charged therein.
8.
You can do the same way whatever times you want with
other items, and every of them will be automatically added in the upper side of
the window named as: Weight of the Helicopter or Peso del helicoptero.
9.
That will be your chopper gross weight to calculate your
performance. Of course, you will see that some certain items don’t have the
option to add the number of items, for example, the Basic weight of the
helicopter, the pilot, copilot or fuel, if you don’t need it, just put zero on
the item and that’s it.
10. To return to the main calculator
window, just push “back” and you are at the beginning. When you close the APP,
don’t worry, your last information is already stored, you are not intended to
do it again, it will be kept there for your next flight.
11. Well, after that, you are now ready to
enter the altitude of your flight, and this is much simpler. Just put the
altitude of your departure or destination, which ever you want to calculate,
and it’s stored. In feet, obviously.
12. And then, the last one. Temperature.
You got to do it the same way. Just put the temperature of your departure or
destination and you are done my friend.
13. Now, this is the part that we were
looking for. Once that you have entered to total weight, altitude and
temperature of your flight, you are ready to read the performance information.
Just click on Calculate or Calcular.
14. In the first line, you will be shown the
minimum take off distance that you need to clear a 50 feet or 15 meters
obstacle. Just like it is shown in the 4-13 performance chart of the Flight
Manual.
15. Notice that you’ve got two results
there, the first one is given in feet and the second in meters.
16. In the second line, you will be shown
the maximum weight for hover ceiling in ground effect on two types: Take off
power and Maximum continuous power.
17. In each square you will find two
results: the first is the maximum weight that you can carry with the conditions
you have, the second, is the remains of weight between what you can carry and
what you have. I mean, is the weight that you yet are allowed to carry, so, if
you have remaining of weight you can consider whether to take more weight with
you or simply have it as a weight left for safety matters.
18. In the third line, you will be shown
the maximum weight for hover ceiling out ground effect on two types: Take off
power and Maximum continuous power. The reading for this is in the same form as
the previous.
19. The next three lines are not working
yet. Don’t worry.
20. The last line, shows you the minimum
landing distance you require to land with one engine inoperative. Just like it
is shown in the 4-79 performance chart of the Flight Manual.
21. As the first line, you’ve got two
results there, the first one is given in feet and the second in meters.
22. There is a last message below, which
tells you that these results have a difference with the real ones you can
calculate with the performance charts in about 80 points. Well, certainly I increased
the number only for safety matters, for you to know, this APP has been
developed not only by me, but also by a Math engineer who helped me with the
math formulas to read Cartesian planes, so I can quietly assure you these results
are very close to the real ones, for not saying they are exact.
Well my friends, I hope you enjoy this
APP and I will be waiting for your opinions. Remember that I created this
application for you to use it because I wanted to do my bit to air safety, this
is not authorized by any aeronautical authority, you assume full responsibility
of its use and that’s why this is without a cost, this
APP only works with android systems, I am sorry, but as I told you this is just the
beginning, so let me improve this idea and let me know how you find it, your
opinions, good or bad sending them to my email: ojencho@gmail.com, in order for
me to improve it.
The
same explanation is on the video posted on this blog
Good luck aviation lovers.
