In english

“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.