27.
Flight Planning¶
The flight planning Dock Window contains the four tabs: Flight Plan
, Flight Plan Remarks
,
Fuel Report
( Aircraft Performance) and Current Performance
(Aircraft Performance Collection).
27.1. Upper Part¶
The top shows a label that contains departure, departure position (parking, runway or helipad), destination, flight plan distance, traveling time, used procedures (SID, STAR, approach and transitions) as well as flight plan type.
The label also displays error messages if, for example, the runway of a STAR differs from the runway of the following approach procedure.
Traveling time is only shown if a valid aircraft performance profile is loaded that has at least climb, cruise and descent speeds set.
The ARINC name of the approach procedure which is needed by some FMCs is shown in parentheses.

Header of a flight plan. VORDME LITSY
has D34
as ARINC name.
Besides the label there are two input fields on top of this dock window:
27.1.1. Cruise altitude¶
This value is saved with the flight plan and is also used to calculate an airway flight plan.
Changing the cruise altitude of a flight plan using airways might result in errors (Error Display). This can happen if the cruise altitude violates airway altitude restrictions. Calculate the flight plan again to remove the errors.
See Flight Plan Route Calculation.
Note
Note that Little Navmap does not support step climb or different altitudes for each waypoint.
27.1.2. Flight Plan Type¶
Either IFR
or VFR
.
This is saved with the flight plan and is only relevant for FSX, Prepar3D or MSFS.
27.2. Flight Plan Table¶
The table view allows the same operations as the search table view except sorting. See Header for more information.
All selected elements in the flight plan table view will be highlighted
on the map using a black/green circle. See
Highlights and User Features for more information. Use
Shift+Click
or Ctrl+Click
to select two or more elements
(multi-selection).
The active flight plan leg is highlighted in magenta when Little Navmap is connected to a simulator, the user aircraft is airborne and user aircraft is closer than 40 NM to the flight plan.
Procedure legs have dark blue color and legs of a missed approach have a dark red color.
Alternate airports are shown at the end of the list using gray text. Note that more than one alternate can be added to the flight plan. Legs to the alternate airports originate all from the destination.
27.2.1. Table Columns¶
Ident
: ICAO ident of the navaid or airport. The ident can be suffixed as shown below:+
or-
and a distance value: Shows waypoints in procedures that are relative to a fix.(IAF)
: Initial fix of a procedure or transition.(FAF)
: Final approach fix. Depending on procedure either the FAF or FACF are shown with a Maltese cross on the map and in the elevation profile.(FACF)
: Final approach course fix.(MAP)
: Missed approach point.
Region
: Two letter region code of a navaid.Name
: Name of airport or radio navaid.Procedure
: EitherSID
,SID Transition
,STAR
,STAR Transition
,Transition
,Approach
orMissed
plus the name of the procedure. Contains the textAlternate
for alternate airports at the end of the list orDeparture
orDestination
.Airway or Procedure
: Contains the airway name for en-route legs or procedure instructions. This field also shows track names if NAT, PACOTS or AUSOTS tracks are used. Airways are suffixed with the airway type likeN601 / V
:V
Victor or low altitude airwayJ
Jet or high altitude airwayB
Both
Restriction
:- For airways:
- Example
10,000
: Minimum altitude for airway segment. - Example
0-20,000
: Maximum airway altitude. Minimum does not apply. - Example
10,000-20,000
: Minimum and maximum airway altitude.
- Example
- For procedures: Altitude restriction or speed limit. A
/
separates altitude and speed restriction. The following altitude restrictions exist for procedures:- Number only: Fly at altitude or speed. Example:
5,400
or210
. - Prefix
A
: Fly at or above altitude or speed. Example:A 1,800
. - Prefix
B
: Fly at or below altitude or speed. Example:B 10,000
orB 220
. - Range: Fly at or above altitude one and at or below
altitude two. Example:
A 8,000, B 10,000
. - Altitude and speed limit: Values separated by
/
. Example:A 8,000, B 10,000/B220
. - Speed limit only: A prefixed
/
indicates no altitude but a speed restriction. Example:/B250
.
- Number only: Fly at altitude or speed. Example:
- For airways:
Type
: Type of a radio navaid. ShowsILS
orLOC
for ILS or localizer approaches on the last runway leg.Freq.
: Frequency or channel of a radio navaid. Also shows ILS or localizer frequency for corresponding approaches on the last runway leg.Range
: Range of a radio navaid if available.Course °M
: This is the start course of the great circle route connecting the two waypoints of the leg. Use this course at departure if you travel long distances without navaids. Be aware that you have to change you course constantly when traveling along a great circle line.Course °T
: The same as the two fields above but using true course. Use this in areas with high magnetic variation.Distance
: Distance of the flight plan leg.Remaining
: Remaining distance to destination airport or procedure end point (usually the runway).Leg Time
: Flying time for this leg. Calculated based on the selected aircraft performance profile (see Aircraft Performance). This is a static value and not updated while flying. Empty if performance calculation failed.ETA
: Estimated time of arrival. This is a static value and not updated while flying. Calculated based on the selected aircraft performance profile. Empty if performance calculation failed.Fuel Rem.
: Fuel remaining at waypoint, once for volume and once for weight. This is a static value and not updated while flying. Calculated based on the selected aircraft performance profile. Empty if aircraft performance profile has no fuel consumption numbers set.Wind
: Magnetic wind direction and speed at the waypoint.Head- or Tailwind
: Wind at waypoint. Headwind is indicated by arrow down▼
and tailwind by an up arrow▲
.Altitude
: Calculated altitude at waypoint. Uses aircraft performance to determine altitude.Remarks
: Turn instructions, flyover or related navaid for procedure legs. Also shows user remarks that can be edited with Edit Flight Plan Position or Edit Flight Plan Position Remarks. See Map Flight Plan Editing for more information.

The Flight Planning
dock window. The flight
plan uses a SID for departure and a STAR, a transition and an approach for arrival.
27.2.2. Column Selection¶
Choose Select visible Columns
from the flight plan table context
menu to customize the table. You can still move and resize columns in
the table. All changes are saved.
The changes can be undone by selecting Reset View
in the context menu.

The flight plan column selection dialog with tooltip.
27.2.3. Error Display¶
If a waypoint of a flight plan cannot be found in the database it will be displayed in red. This can happen if the used AIRAC cycles do no match. The same applies to airways. The position on the map is still correct.
Airways are also displayed in red if the minimum altitude, maximum altitude or one-way restrictions are violated.
Hover the mouse over a field in the table to see a tooltip giving more information about the error.
Warning
Note that flight plans are still usable in Little Navmap although saving and exporting to other formats is limited and can lead to unexpected results.

The Flight Planning
with three different tooltips showing errors.

Tooltip on error message showing violations of altitude restrictions.
27.3. Magnetic Declination¶
Little Navmap uses the magnetic declination that is stored either with VOR stations or the actual environment declination. The latter one is calculated by the program using the world magnetic model. (WMM) or loaded from the simulator scenery database.
Note that the magnetic declination of a VOR (also: calibration for VOR, VORDME and VORTAC) may differ from the actual declination in a simulator region as it does in reality. The calibration of a VOR might be very old while the real declination in the environment changed in the meantime due to the wandering of the magnetic poles. Therefore, magnetic course values might differ. This can result in strange course readings in flight plans.
Little Navmap uses the declination of a VOR to calculate the inbound and outbound magnetic course of a flight plan leg to and from this VOR. This allows the pilot to use the VOR radials for navigation. For all other legs the actual environment declination is used.
You can disable the use of VOR declination in the options dialog on page
Flight Plan
by checking
Ignore declination of VOR and other radio navaids
. This will use the
environment declination for all calculations. You might want to use this
if you fly entirely based on GPS and ignore VOR stations.
27.3.1. Examples¶
A flight plan crossing the
VORTAC Battle Ground (BTG)
last calibrated 1975
(source) with a
declination of 21° East while the environment has an actual declination
of 15.2° East. You can see the actual declination below the mouse cursor
in the status bar of Little Navmap.
Below a flight plan with three legs all having a true course of 90°.
Example with Ignore declination of VOR and other radio navaids
not checked:

Note the course difference when flying to and from
BTG
compared to the magnetic course when flying to YIPYU
.
Magnetic course in- and outbound to/from BTG
is calculated based on
the station declination 21° East while course to YIPYU
is based on 15.2° East.
Example with Ignore declination of VOR and other radio navaids
checked:

All magnetic course values are equal since the environment declination of 15.2° East is used to calculate the magnetic course for all legs.
See also Magnetic Declination for more information about declination values and scenery databases.
27.4. Mouse Clicks¶
A double-click on an entry in the table view shows either an airport
diagram or zooms to the navaid. Additionally, details are shown in the
Information
dock window. A single click selects an object and
highlights it on the map using a black/green circle.
27.5. Top Buttons¶
27.5.1.
Clear Selection¶
Deselect all entries in the table and remove any highlight circles from the map.
27.5.2.
Select visible Columns¶
See chapter Column Selection below.
27.7. Flight Plan Remarks¶
Adds a free text remark for the flight plan.
Note that this field saved is saved only in the Little Navmap LNMPLN format (Little Navmap LNMPLN Format).
See also Remarks.