Flight Planning

Flight Planning is a game mechanic which was added to Flightline in the August 2021 Major Update. It allows the pilot to create a set of instructions (a flight plan) for the autopilot to follow.

Creating a Flight Plan
Flight plans are a set of instructions for the autopilot to execute at different waypoints. You make a flight plan by specifying the waypoints you want to fly to, and giving instructions that should be followed while en-route to each waypoint. When the aircraft reaches a waypoint, it will enter the instructions for the next waypoint into the autopilot.

If I want to, say, be at 2000ft, and 175kts by the time I reach the ZERCE waypoint, I will write these instructions under the ZERCE leg in the flight planner. The flight planner will also tell you the track and the distance between each waypoint. It is important to know this, since the instructions that are on the flight plan are only instructions, and not hard-forced commands. The aircraft will only attempt to safely follow these instructions, so don't expect the plane to enter a nose dive to reach 2000ft from 32000ft within a 5km distance.

At the end of the flight plan, you have the option to enter a speed, altitude and heading for the aircraft to maintain, or an approach to set for landing. Instructions that match the previous instruction are instead replace with "ditto" (" | | "), meaning "same as above". You may add and remove waypoints from the flight plan using the + and X buttons on the right of the GUI. You may also add an approach by selecting "+ APPR" on the final box.