Online Flight Planning: A Much Faster Way Forward
It is not such a long time ago that online flight planning had never been dreamed of. Before the internet revolution, flight plans for private flights had to be faxed or handed in by hand. Because the internet has made so much of what used to be extremely time-consuming much easier to deal with, pilots can save time, energy and money by using online flight planning as the way forward. In the past, contacting the AFTN (Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunication Network) with flight plans which had to be checked and re-checked by hand; this was a time consuming business which could delay flights and cause much unnecessary work. The AFTN is basically an international messaging network for aviation and every subscriber has a special “address” made up of eight characters. The AFTN was established in the 1950s and used the Telex machine system to communicate; this is why today the world of aviation is peppered with abbreviations which made Telex-use much simpler. The AFTN is used for many other purposes aside from flight plans. From the early days of Telex machines tapping out slow messages, to today where online flight plans can be zipped to the recipient in seconds, we have come a long way and the benefits of the faster system are immeasurable.
Online Flight Planning Today
As the internet has taken over almost every form of communication and affected almost, (if not all) forms of business in some way; so aviation has also been changed. As the internet became more and more widespread online flight planning was the next step beyond weather reports and general airport information. As of January 2009 the UK had not one FBU (Flight Briefing Unit) left open and this led to the first online flight plan service for UK users. So the world of online flight planning opened up rather suddenly and with little fanfare but to a keen audience who were more than ready to benefit from the speedy services on offer. So much has changed and improved since those early days of Telex machine tapping out flight plans, where operators received, checked and allowed flight plans to go ahead manually. The world is changing at an extraordinary pace, online flight planning is now part of the word of aviation and to younger people, the not-so-old ways of Telex systems and waiting operators now seem antiquated.
Online Flight Planning and Big Savings
Of course it stands to reason that time is money and in a world where everything moves at a great rate than ever before, this is a big concern for pilots both private and commercial. When fuel costs more than ever, the time-saving strategies of planning flight online are a great boon; having the comfort and convenience of knowing that your flight plan can be processed so speedily makes the task so much less bothersome. The world of aviation has benefited hugely from the years of careful research done by many experts in many fields and things can only get better as we develop faster and more accurate computer programmes.