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‘I love it when a (flight) plan comes together!’  Even if you’ve never heard of the TV
series “The A-Team”, you will undoubtedly have heard the famous sentence Colonel
“Hannibal” Smith said at the end of every episode when, once again, the baddies had
been caught thanks to his ingenious plan.

I wonder whether an episode would have ended so well if my childhood hero had had to
compile a flight plan. A flight plan contains all the information needed to get an aircraft
from A to B. And that is a lot of information! A “flight planner” is given the departure and
arrival times and then has to work out the most efficient flight plan, taking a range of
factors into account. Ten things they have to consider are:

1. Take-off and landing runways

It’s useful to start here! You need a point of departure and you want to go somewhere. Air
traffic control ultimately decides the runway, but the flight planner can predict which it is
likely to be based on wind direction. The runway with the (most) headwind will usually be
used.

2. Route
Which route should you take between take-off and landing runways? You have to have
permission from the relevant countries to fly through their airspace. If you do not have
permission to fly through certain airspace, you have to adjust the route.

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Behind the scenes Behind the scenes

Taking off with aircraft mechanic: Milou Hielkema The ultimate list of what to tak
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