Looking back over a period of time in which so much has developed in the world of commercial air travel, it is quite difficult to fully grasp just how significant the development of computer technology has been with regards to flight planning. When the first commercial flights were being planned, there was nowhere near the accuracy that there is today; all calculations were done by hand which was an extremely time consuming process. The needs of the first commercial flights with regards to flight planning were only marginally different to the needs of today’s super-fast commercial flights. The world’s first commercial jet-airliner to be built was the de Havilland DH 106 Comet and this was manufacture d in the UK. It had a low-noise cabin and generously sized windows and with its powerful ghost turbo engines, it was well on the way to promising success for UK commercial airlines. As these early commercial successes became more and more sophisticated it became necessary to create super-sophisticated flight planning systems to keep up with the speed and reliability of the craft. Today we benefit from the early work of flight planners combined with the wonderful strides which have been made in technology; planning for commercial and private flights is now so accurate and precise that expected fuel consumption can be worked out to an extremely accurate amount for any particular journey.
As weather patterns are never fully predictable there will always be a certain amount of variation involved in flight planning. As expected fuel consumption needs to be worked out ahead of a journey, the expected weather patterns along the route are looked at with great care. This is because the weather (wind speed and direction) can significantly affect an aircraft’s ability to fly well and this has a knock-on effect with regards to fuel consumption. Planning a journey takes into account many variables with regards to the weather and the time of year; the weight of the craft also comes into play as a heavier craft will of course burn much more fuel than a lighter one. Planning how much fuel it will take to get an aircraft to a particular destination is a precise science but it is not as simple as working out the maximum amount needed to get from A to B…also to be considered is the fact that any aircraft embarking on a flight needs an alternate destination to which it can safely head, in the event of unforeseen circumstances. When an aircraft flies into unexpected bad weather, especially near to its final destination, it can sometimes be necessary for the aircraft to land at its alternate airport. This is usually down to unfavourable conditions on the ground, fog and rain for instance can affect visibility and make landing safely an impossibility. So if an aircraft needs to fly past the original planned-for destination then it stands to reason it will use up more of its fuel allowance. This is why accurate flight planning is so important for the safety of all concerned. Running out of fuel on a commercial flight is almost unheard of today thanks to the efforts and expertise of many specialists and experts.