Flight Software Services V5.0 x Offshore FlightPlan, V0.2 x Roster Explorer User Manual

Offshore FlightPlan V5.0x

Roster Explorer V0.2x

User Manual

C ontents

Offshore FlightPlan Custom

Multi Sector Fuel Plan Notes 26

Removing (Uninstalling) 2

Routes 15

Setting Up Duties 32

UK & Custom FTL Schemes 35

Populating the Roster Grid

Crew Recency Checks

Filtering Crews and Selecting

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Latitude/Longitude Settings

Crew Checks Records

Edit Crew Records

Crew Duty Input

Recording A Flight

Editing Flights In the Pilot Log Book

Crew Duty Records

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Synchronising to remote server 41

Quick 41

Offshore FlightPlan Copyright © 1998 – 2014 Flight Software Services Ltd.

[email protected] • www.offshoreflightplan.com

Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

I ntroduCtIon

Offshore FlightPlan and Roster Explorer will run on any PC running Windows

XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8 Tablet (except Windows 8 RT).

The minimum screen resolution is 1280 X 800. You can use it on lower screen resolutions, such as that found on some netbooks, but some windows may not display properly so these are not recommended.

Offshore FlightPlan provides on-screen and fuel plans together with flight-log forms which can be quickly produced then printed for immediate use in the aircraft.

It provides performance data for several aircraft types as well as sunrise/sunset times for each waypoint. Crew training records are also incorporated so that crews can be automatically notified of forthcoming checks and training personnel can view the status of arrangements for renewal. The crew duty/flying hour’s section is innovative and very easy to use. Duty and flying hours used and remaining can be easily checked making rostering much easier. Both UK and EU FTL schemes are included and other FTL schemes can be considered for inclusion on request. Roster explorer works alongside Offshore FlightPlan taking crew duty and flight records from a central remote database to create a historical record of actual duties carried. This information is then used to ensure that future rostering is legal according to your company FTL scheme. See the Roster Explorer section for further details.

Waypoints and routes can be quickly created as required, then saved for future use. There is an Offshore FlightPlan website (www.offshoreflightplan.com) where software updates are abvailable for licensed users from time to time. All users get a secure remote server that automatically maintains a copy of your crew, aircraft, waypoints, routes, crew checks and FTL data. This is used to synchronise all PC’s in your organisation so that everyone is using the latest data and works wherever an internet connection is available, except FTL data which is held on the remote server but is not synchronised to the local PC’s . However, you can carry out any fuel planning requirements without an internet connection. As local and external computer networks can sometimes fail, we recommend that you provide at least one computer which is directly connected to a printer. This will ensure that flight planning and printing of fuel plans and flight logs can be achieved even when the network is unavailable.

The designed accuracy for the flight planning section of this software is 1° for tracks and headings, 1 knot for groundspeed, 0.1 nautical miles for distances, 1 minute for times and 1 second for sunrise/sunset times. The operational coverage area is worldwide. All distances, tracks and headings are based on Great Circle calculations compliant with GRS80 Authalic Sphere. In other words, the world is assumed to be a perfect sphere.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

I nstallatIon

First, you must have Administrator privileges in order to be able to install software on a desktop or laptop PC. Offshore FlightPlan and Roster Explorer are available for download from the area we have set up for you on the Offshore FlightPlan website. Full detailed installation instructions are provided there. Please follow the installation instructions given on the website as these may vary according to your operational requirements.

r emovIng

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If you wish to remove Offshore FlightPlan V5.0 from your system, select “Add/

Remove Programs” (found in Windows control panel) then select “Offshore Flight-

Plan”, followed by “Remove”. The program will be automatically removed.

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u se

To start Offshore FlightPlan, either click on Start> All Programs> Offshore

FlightPlan or click on the Offshore FlightPlan desktop icon. Before you can use the software for the first time, you must provide details of your aircraft, crews and waypoints. This is done by clicking on “Add a new crew member”, “Create new aircraft record” or “Create new waypoint” in the top menu bar. You can also amend, add or delete crew, aircraft and waypoint details as required using the appropriate selection in the top menu bar. Note that the administrator password is required for these operations. This is initially set to “password” (in lower case) and you can set your own preferred password by clicking on “Settings” then “Set Administrator Password”. You should set your own password as soon as possible. Next, please define your duty types in Roster Explorer, as described later in this manual. This is required so you can start entering crew duties.

When you first run Offshore FlightPlan, you will see a window similar to this:-

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

When this appears, please click “OK”.

Offshore FlightPlan will then attempt to synchronise the databases on your PC with those held on the remote server. If connection to the remote server has been successful, a series of progress bars will appear. If connection to the remote server has been unsuccessful, then a warning like this will appear:

Following an unsuccessful connection, you can still use Offshore FlightPlan for fuel planning but it will use the last known crew, aircraft, waypoint and route data already stored on your PC.

WARNING

: In these circumstances, be certain to check that all data, particularly aircraft details, routes and moving waypoints (i.e. drillers and vessels), are correct prior to flight!

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

From this menu select “Close this window to allow access to menu’s” if you wish to access the menu’s at the top of the screen to, for example, add crews or aircraft. The top two menu items are for forthcoming features that are coming soon. Now click

“Go to legacy flight planning” and a window like this will be displayed.

Complete the boxes as required then click on “Next>>”. If more than one role is available for the selected aircraft, a drop-down selector will appear so you can choose the role appropriate to your mission. This ensures that the right APS weight and C of G arm are used for variable configurations. If the crew or aircraft that you want do not appear in the list, select ‘Any’. Notice that, if Offshore FlightPlan has already been used on the day, the wind boxes will be pre-completed. If any crew checks are due or expired a pop-up similar to this will appear:-

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

The next window that appears is like this:-

You can change anything that appears in the white boxes. This is useful if you have an aircraft or crew member that is not in the database or you want to, for example, increase the fuel safety margin to cater for bad weather, etc. Enter or amend the details if required then click on “Next>>”.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

If Offshore FlightPlan has performance data available for your aircraft type, a window like this will appear:-

If you click on “Yes (Offshore)” you will be presented with a window similar to this

(pre-completed if the software has been used earlier that day). The SAR window is slightly different to reflect specialist SAR requirements:-

Complete each section. Note that you can choose to exclude the offshore section(s) by removing the tick in “Offshore Performance Required at this location?”. The helideck elevation is automatically completed but can be changed if required.

If you do not wish for the aircraft performance data to be printed on your flight log form, remove the tick from ‘Print performance results on first flight log form?’

The button marked ‘Click here for Pressure Altitude’ will insert the airfield pressure altitude in the point of departure section and pressure altitude 1000 feet above the point of departure in the en-route box.

Clicking on “Next>>” produces a screen showing your performance results:-

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

This window allows you to view your aircraft’s Class One and PC2E (or PC2DLE for some types) performance based on the data you provided in the previous step.

A crosswind limit check is also included for your point of departure. Each section is described in more detail in the results window. You can go back and amend any figures by clicking on “<<<Back”.

You can now choose whether to create a Custom Multi Sector Fuel Plan of up to 9 sectors (best suited to longer distance flights comprising of a few sectors) or select one of your previously saved fuel plans. If you choose the custom fuel plan option, please see the Custom Multi Sector Fuel Plan notes at the end of this document. If you choose “No” you will see the “Verify Data” window.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

The “Verify Data” window that appears next confirms the basic information and provides an opportunity to make changes if required (by clicking on “Reject”):-

After accepting the data in the last window, you can now select your route. Choose a route from the list. The routes presented will be those you have previously saved (see

Creating Routes). Use the wheel mouse to scroll through the list or you can enter the first few letters to bring your route to the top of the selector box.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

Finally, your route appears on the main screen, complete with track headings, distances, fuel required, etc:-

Note that if you inserted sub-totals into your route, these will be indicated with a blue highlight. Sub-totals that appear below another sub-total will add up fuel for all sectors that appear from after the previous sub-total.

To print your route fuel plan and a flight log (which will contain your aircraft performance data, if appropriate), click on the print icon at the top-left of the window or select “File” then “Print” from the drop-down list.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

Here is an example of a printed fuel plan:-

This form provides the fuel required for each sector that forms the route. Remember that the “Sub total” will add all sectors above the sub total up to the previous sub total. The fuel reserve only appears in a sector where the destination is onshore.

When using sub totals, note that the fuel reserve is only included once, as required

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual by regulations. The boxes at the bottom are for crews to calculate alternate fuel should there be a requirement during the flight. (See Custom Multi Sector Fuel

Plan section for an alternative way of creating routes with alternates.)

Here is an example of a printed Flight Log:-

This form is completed by the crew as the flight progresses and becomes the flight record which can be retained, together with the Fuel Plan, for invoicing and audit purposes.

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The “Add Crew” window, available under the “Crews” menu, will add crews to both

Offshore FlightPlan and Roster Explorer. An internet connection is required for adding crews. Complete all the boxes in the upper section and the required boxes in the Checks section. There are two ways to enter a name here, depending on how you want names to be presented in within Offshore FlightPlan and Roster Explorer. If you have someone called “John Peter Brown”, you can put “John” in the first name box, “Peter” in the middle name box and “Brown” in the surname box. This name will be displayed as “Brown JP” throughout this software. Alternatively, you can leave the first and middle name boxes blank then put “John Brown” in the surname box. This will be displayed as “John Brown”. Be sure to use the same naming conventions for all crews.

The user name and password entered here will be used by the crew member to access his online electronic log book and roster. Be sure to make a note of the password as this will not be visible and you will not be able to find it later. Crew members can change their passwords by login in to their online electronic log book. Complete only the checks you need and leave the others unchecked. Click “Save” when done.

Most of the crew information can be edited later, if required. You will certainly need to update checks as renewals take place. There is a special section within both

Offshore FlightPlan and Roster Explorer to help you keep track of checks. For now, please enter the required check expiry dates.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

Click “Create new aircraft record” under the “Aircraft” menu. Complete all the boxes in the left column. You can enter up to 10 different roles with your own descriptions.

This is useful if you frequently change roles for your aircraft. You must complete at least Role 1 then you can add as many more as you need up to a total of 10. Click

“Save” to save the record. You do not need an internet connection to add aircraft as aircraft are synced each time Offshore FlightPlan is launched. Therefore, any aircraft you add here will automatically be added to all other PC’s using the automatic sync function.

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w aypoInts

Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

Before using Offshore FlightPlan for the first time, you must add the waypoints you require. From the main screen (click on “Close this box” to clear the first window, if required), click on “Waypoints” in the menu at the top of the screen. Then select

“Create new waypoint” from the drop-down list to reveal this:-

Most of the boxes are self-explanatory. The “Waypoint type” is used by the software to determine things like whether to add deck fuel to a landing. The “Helideck landing area certificate expiry date” will help alert crews if a helideck certificate is within date. If you do not use helideck certificates in your area then we recommend setting a date that is several years into the future. The field name is used to enable a field weather report to cover more than one waypoint within the same field. For example, the Tapis field contains several platforms so, for each Tapis platform you would enter “Tapis” in the field weather box. Then, where field weather is used for aircraft performance, any platform in the Tapis field can benefit from a single weather entry.

You can use any name you like but for airfields please use the airfield ICAO code.

Complete the boxes and click on “Save waypoint”. If the waypoint name is already being used, you will be notified and given an option to change it. The waypoint is saved and can now be used when creating routes. You can view, edit or delete waypoints from the Waypoints menu. Note that waypoints cannot be deleted if being used in a Route.

If the waypoint is an offshore helideck, you will also be asked to enter the ‘D’ value and the weight limit that the helideck can operate up to.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

r outes

From the main screen (click on “Close this box” to clear the first window, if required), click on “Routes” in the menu at the top of the screen. Then select “Create new route” from the drop-down list to reveal this:-

Creating a new route is a simple matter of selecting waypoints from the drop-down list. The waypoint that is selected (highlighted in blue) can be “placed” on the grid wherever you click the mouse. When you select a waypoint, the details appear in the information area at the bottom-left of the window. Place your first waypoint in the top left of the grid then work down to build up your route. If the waypoint you require is not present, click on “Create waypoint”.

Use the various buttons to insert or delete cells or sectors as required by clicking on a button

(button colour changes) then “placing” the function on the grid. For example, let’s say you have two completed sectors (as in the screenshot above) and you want to sub-total them. Click on

“Insert a Sub Total” (colour of button changes) then click the mouse on the grid anywhere in sector 3. A sub-total is placed and this will cause all the sectors to be added together to give a round-trip fuel figure. Every sector up to the previous sub-total (or the top of the grid at sector

1) will be included in the calculation. You can leave sectors blank to aid clarity.

When you have completed your route, which can be between 1 and 90 sectors, click on

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

“Save & use route”, give your route a name then click on OK. From then onwards, your route will appear in the route selector in alphabetical order with the other saved routes. If your route is a one-off and you don’t want to save it, choose “Use route” instead of “Save &

Use”. To edit a saved route, from the main screen (click on “Close this box” to clear the first window, if required), click on “Routes” in the menu at the top of the screen then select “Edit

Route”. You can select the route you wish to edit and the same window as above appears but this time it is pre-loaded with your selected route.

Q uICk

C alC

If you are involved in short-sector flights between waypoints that are less than

50NM apart, you can use QuickCalc, available from the “In-field Fuel Calculator” drop-down menu. This is a very useful tool when operating in unfamiliar areas:-

Select your “FROM” and “TO” waypoints, click on “Calculate” and a screen like this with appear:-

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

A special algorithm calcualtes the zero wind fuel burn, including deck time, rounded up to the nearest 10.

l atItude

/l ongItude

s ettIngs

Click on “Settings” in the main menu, then select “Lat/Lon minutes display format” to see this:-

This sets the lat/lon display format in various parts of the software but does not affect the stored data. Select as required then click on “OK”.

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To assist with your training schedule, the crew checks section offers a simple way to record and view crew check expiry dates. Furthermore, whenever a crew member uses Offshore FlightPlan, they will receive a pop-up notification when a check is due or has expired. An email is also sent to the crew member and the training department as a reminder (if you requested to use this included service). You can set the expiry dates for the various checks either when adding a new crew member or by editing a crew member’s record.

You do not need to use all the available check records, just select the ones you want.

To view all crew checks at once, select ‘View all crew member’s checks records’ from the “Crew” menu:

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

All crew members are listed in alphabetical order. Upcoming and overdue checks are highlighted in pink, yellow or red.

It is also possible to view the checks status for one single crew member by clicking

“View a crew members checks record” under the “Crews” menu.

You can click “Edit” to edit a crew members record and “Print” if you wish to produce a hard copy. Click on the “Select” box then use the mouse wheel to scroll alphabetically through the crew names. Again, checks are colour coded according to expiry date for convenience. You can also click on a date to view a scan of the training certificate/document if one is available. The scan can be viewed, zoomed, printed out or saved to your local computer using the included menu functions.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

You can edit any crew record at any time (providing an internet connection is available). Click “Edit a crew members details” under the “Crews” menu. The crew edit window appears:-

Apart from the usual crew edit functions, such as amending a phone number, email address, etc., you can change both the check expiry dates and the date of the last check. You do not have to use all checks. Just tick the ones you want then set the dates using the date-picker. These dates will be reflected in Roster Explorer and can asssist roster planners as they will be able to see when checks for each crew member are due. You can also upload a PDF scan of each check certificate or other document so that all users of Offshore FlightPlan can see it. This can be very useful for audits.

The PDF file can be any size and any number of pages. When you upload a PDF scan, any previous scans will be automatically overwritten.

There is a “Checks” button beside each check item. This is normally grey but it changes colour when someone has started to make arrangements for a check which needs to be renewed. In this case, you can click on the “Checks” button and see what has been done so far. Here is an example:-

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

In the above example, it can be seen that the Medical check expires on 31/12/2013 and that the preparation is ongoing, along with some brief notes. When you change the expiry date of any check in “Edit crew”, all items in the “Crew training checks progress” box are cleared ready for next time.

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Each time a crew member is on duty, whether on base or off-base standby, a record must be made of the duty and any flying hours along with other related information. This is required to comply with national regulations and company flight time limitation restrictions as published in the company operator manuals. Furthermore, recording a crew duty populates Roster Explorer with important information which will assist rostering and help prevent illegal duties. It also provides the numerous reporting functions within Offshore FlightPlan with important data to help ensure that Flight Duty Period regulations are complied with.

To enter a crew duty, click on the Crew menu and select ‘Enter crew duty times’. A window will appear like this (an internet connection is required for this function):-

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

Some of the boxes will be pre-completed. Complete the other boxes as required. The items that appear in the ‘Duty type’ drop-down box are the duty types that you have created in Roster Explorer. The duty start and end times are initially set in accordance with duty times as defined for the duty in Roster Explorer but you can change these as required. There can be up to three split duty periods. The comments box is available to record comments or any other information as required or it can be left blank.

Take care to ensure that everything is completed correctly as crew duty records cannot be amended once saved. If you make a mistake and want to rectify it, you must re-enter the crew duty record again. Note that re-entering a crew duty record will erase all flights for the crew member for that day so you must re-enter all the flights as well. Click ‘Save’ to save the duty record.

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Recording a flight for a crew member has the effect of:-

• Adding the flight to the pilot’s electronic log book on the Offshore FlightPlan global pilot log book server.

• Adding the flight to the remote server we have set up for your company flight records for Flight Time Limitation monitoring.

• Adding the flight to Roster Explorer so that the crews flying hours available can be accurately checked at the rostering stage.

• Providing data to Offshore FlightPlan for various reports and for showing how many flying hours a crew member has available on each day for the next 14 days.

It is therefore important that all flights are accurately entered. This has been made as simple as possible within this window (an internet connection is required for this function):-

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

Complete all the boxes paying particular attention to recency items such as IFR hours flown, instrument approaches, night flying and night deck landings. These items may have recency requirements such as a minimum number of instrument approaches within 90 days. Note that, for two crew operations, you must make a separate entry for both the captain and the copilot.

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To edit a flight in the pilot log book, select “Edit a flight in the crews electronic log book’ in the Crews menu. Then select the crew member that you want to edit and the date range in which the flight occurs. If you are not exactly sure which when the flight occurred, enter a start and end date then all flights that this crew member undertook during the perod will be listed. Click “Next” then edit the flight as required. Editing a flight will edit the flight for the selected crew member but

NOT the other pilot. Therefore, you should make sure the flight for the other pilot is also edited, if required. Click “Save” to save the edited flight. The crew log book will be updated along with the crew flight records in Roster Explorer.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

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There are a number of ways to view crew duty and flight records. The most detailed way to view a flight record is to log in to the pilot electronic online logbook at: www.offshoreflightplan.com/logbook

You can click on the “Pilot online flying logbook” menu item from within Offshore

FlightPlan which can be found in the Offshore FlightPlan Online menu. Use the crew members user name and password or the admin global password provided to you. Alternatively, an overview of a days flying can be found by clicking on the

“Crews” menu then “View a crew duty and flight totals on a specified date”. Select a name from the drop-down list. Shortly after you have selected the name, the date selector will be populated with all the dates that the crew member has been on duty.

Select a date then click “Continue”. A window like this will appear:-

The full details of the selected crew member’s duty for the date selected is shown together with the accumulated totals for both today and the selected date. In the example above, the selected date to view is 10 July 2012 and today’s date is 9 August

2012. The accumulated totals are shown for today (9 August 2012) and the selected date (10 July 2012). This makes it easy to see if any exceedences were present as these are shown in red.

To quickly check the accumulated duty hours for a crew member, select ‘View a crew

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual member’s accumulated duty time record’ from the “Crew” menu. Select the crew member from the drop-down box and a window similar to this will appears:-

This gives the accumulated totals as of today. Once again, exceedences are shown in red. This information can be printed if required.

Note that the above example’s show the UK FTL scheme. The EU FTL scheme is also included and can be selected in the ‘Settings’ menu. All duty records are recorded in the same way, whether EU or UK FTL scheme is selected but the way records are displayed on retrieval is different according to the selected FTL scheme.

This is helpful to those that fly under both schemes.

As well as the above, you can also view a crew member’s duty records for any period you like by selecting ‘View a crew member’s duty record listed between selected dates’. The selector looks like this:-

You can either enter the dates yourself or use the date presets. For example, if you want to view the last 7 days duty records, click on the ‘Last 7 days’ preset button and the end date box will be loaded with today’s date and the start date box will be

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual loaded with the date 7 days ago (including today). Click ‘Continue to continue and see a screen similar to this:-

You can click ‘Hide split duty details’ to narrow the view. You can also hide the days off for an even better view. The list is scrollable in either direction and can include up to 2000 days of duty. At the bottom of the list, highlighted in blue, are the totals for hours on duty, flying hours, IFR hours, night flying hours, night deck landings and

IF approaches. Also shown are the number of days off and days worked during the selected period. This is a very powerful and unique tool that offers great flexibility.

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You can view the crew duty and flight records for all crews in one window along with the remaining hours available for every crew member. As various people add crew duty and flights, roster duties and add planned flights, the server will automatically carry out a recalculation of all crew hours every 5 minutes. The hours available shown here take into account rostered duties and planned flights. Note that if a crew member is rostered for a day off, the hours available will be zero. If your FTL scheme places a restriction on the number of hours available, that will be correctly shown here (eg, your FTL scheme may define a reduced number of flying hours available if the duty starts before 07:00). You can look ahead up to 14 days in advance in this window by selecting the required date then clicking on “Go”. A colour code system highlights impending and actual excedences.

Note that most items under the “Crew” menu require an internet connection.

On-screen icons:

Print fuel-plan and nav-log

Add a flight to the crew members flight record.

Add a crew duty.

Sets the display format for latitudes and longitudes.

Go direct to www.offshoreflightplan.com

Select a route.

Soft restart (legacy mode only). When you click on this, the program restarts but all your previous information is retained. Use to make late changes such as change of aircraft, crew, etc.

o ffsHore

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The Custom Multi Sector Fuel Plan section is best suited to longer “crew-change” type flights that comprise of a few sectors where maximising payload is important.

It also assists in limiting payloads when platform weight restrictions apply. The

“Requested Payload” function allows the customer’s requested payload to be entered for each sector making it easy to see where the requested payload exceeds what is available or highlighting unused payload which can then be used for additional fuel.

The main features are:

• Easy selection of waypoints including wheel-mouse support and ability to enter first few letters making route creation very quick and easy.

• Available payload shown for each sector.

• Option to select an alternate where fuel is available. Alternates are listed in order

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual of time based on sector en-route wind.

• Fuel availability can be switched on or off for each waypoint in the route.

• User can set a different en-route wind for each sector. The initial en-route wind is set to that which is entered on program start-up.

• Full waypoint information is provided at the time of creating the route; useful for checking driller and boat positions.

• Sector fuel includes helideck and approach fuel. These can be changed as required by clicking on the appropriate blue coloured box in the results screen.

• Detailed information about track (Magnetic & True), heading to steer, distance, time, etc. given for each sector.

• If payload has been restricted due to destination helideck weight restrictions or the helideck MTOW/MLW is less than the aircraft MTOW the background changes to yellow.

• The D-Value is checked for each sector.

• Exceedences are shown in red. This applies when the route requires more fuel than aircraft can carry or requested payload exceeds available payload.

• Results can be printed for the trip then retained for audit purposes.

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To create a route, complete these boxes. Start with the green Point of Departure selector, then select the red Final Destination (and yellow destination alternates, if required) then select blue en-route waypoints starting at “First En-Route Waypoint”.

As alternates must be onshore, the alternates list includes only onshore waypoints listed in order of the shortest flying time. Where fuel is available at an en-route waypoint, an option to select an alternate is offered. Select an alternate from the yellow list or leave as “_NONE_”. When alternate is selected for an en-route location, fuel must be taken at this point as this will improve the available payload in the previous sectors.

Therefore, if you do not wish to take fuel offshore (perhaps because of light payloads), do not select an alternate. If the route cannot be completed because more fuel is required than the aircraft can carry, this will be shown in red in the results window.

You can then go back and select an alternate at a convenient offshore location where fuel is available. The results window will show the minimum fuel for the location and the required fuel uplift.

Wherever an alternate is selected, there is also an option to add approach fuel. Selecting

YES adds the aircraft recommended approach fuel whilst NO ignores approach fuel.

*The approach fuel can be changed by clicking on the blue area in the results screen.

Clicking on any wind box allows a new en-route wind to be entered from the current waypoint to the next. The default wind is that which you entered on first running

Offshore FlightPlan.

As you choose your waypoints to create the route, information for the currently selected waypoint is shown in the bottom left area of the window.

Type the first few letters of the waypoint to aid selection in the drop-down boxes or use the wheel-mouse to more easily scroll through the list. When you have completed creating your route, press “Next>>>”

The results window below gives the sector details at the top together with a horizontal route table which shows the running fuel total, MTOW/MLW for each waypoint and available payload. Note that the slightly darker background gives the route fuel

(and available payload) for your route without any refuel stops. This enables a quick comparison with the bold fuel figures. Bold fuel figures also include any refuel stops which were specified when the route was created.

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In the example above, the alternate for 27AD was selected as Humberside. The minimum fuel on arrival at the 27AD is 519 Kgs and a refuel to 989 Kgs is required to complete the route. Between the 27AD and North Denes (plus alternates) the lowest unused payload is 103 Kgs. It would therefore be possible to add 76 Kgs to the 989 Kgs uplift

(total 1065 Kgs) without risk of exceeding MTOW/MLW at any point in the route.

Similarly, although the fuel required from North Denes to the 27AD (using a Humberside alternate) is 714 Kgs, it can be seen that there is a further 126 Kgs of unused payload which could be added to the outbound fuel without risk of exceeding MTOW/MLW.

The results window shows each sector in the top grid so you can see how the fuel figures have been made up. The lower grid shows the fuel in relation to the route together with available payloads and other useful information. The very last (rightmost) fuel figure is the amount of fuel that should be present on landing assuming the en-route winds were correct and there were no delays or changes in cruise airspeed. Be aware that all fuel calculations are based on the fact that the aircraft is established in the cruise at the TAS shown. On very short trips (i.e. less than a few minutes each way) the ‘Absolute minimum fuel between sectors’ that you specified when you added the aircraft will be used.

Press the Print button to print the results. Here is a sample:-

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

Notice that where there is a weight restriction, the figures are surrounded by a pair of **

(eg ** 6400 **). If the route requires more fuel than the aircraft can carry, the figure is surrounded by !! (eg !! 1780 !!). Sometimes the available payload will be restricted because of a weight restriction at the destination.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

r oster

e xplorer

Overview

Creating rosters for aircrew can be a complex process as many considerations must be taken into account. These include the types of duties previously worked, the number of flying hours available, which can depend on the type of duty, previous hours flown, etc. With one crew member it can be complicated enough but with tens or even hundreds of crew members, creating a roster that is legal and then publishing it to the crews is not at all easy. This is where Roster Explorer is invaluable.

Roster Explorer is designed to be used in conjunction with the Crew Duty and

FTL facility within Offshore FlightPlan (OFP). Operations staff input actual flying duties into OFP which will record this information in a remote database. Roster

Explorer uses this historical flight time and duty information to calculate actual cumulative totals of duty and flight hours, and in turn, can predict FTL exceedances and problems which may occur in the future roster plan. Notes can be added for individual crew members attention and, once a roster is “Published”, it becomes visible to all crews and ops personnel thus solving the problem of distribution..

In summary, Roster Explorer enables operations staff to plan a sustainable roster for pilots, compliant with the relevant FTL rules, whilst at the same time providing them with accurate crew availability information for effective commercial planning.

Communication of Roster via Online Logbook

When the roster is published to the remote server, duties become visible in the pilots online electronic logbook which is part of the Offshore FlightPlan suite of included software. This is an online logbook viewer which reflects the flight time information as input into OFP as described above. The URL for the logbook is:http://www.offshoreflightplan.com/logbook

Individual usernames and passwords are those which you set up when you added your crews to OFP.

Installing Roster Explorer (Internet Connection is required)

The first step is to download Roster Explorer from the download link that you have been given. Open any internet browser and enter the link into the address bar. Click on Install and follow the on-screen instructions. The prerequisite requirements are the Microsoft .NET 4 framework. If your computer does not have this, it will automatically be downloaded. This process will only occur once, and will also provide updates and enhancements to your system. For further information, or should you wish to download and install .NET 4 manually, use the following link:http://www.microsoft.com/en-GB/download/details.aspx?id=17851

Once the setup is complete, there will be a desktop icon which can be double-clicked

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual to run the application. Enter the username and password that you have been given and Roster Explorer will begin communicating with the remote server for the first time. This process will download the Crew details which will already have been set up for you.

s ettIng

u p

d utIes

The next step is to define Duties which correspond to the work patterns used within your organisation. Click on Duties->Create New Duty Type to display the Duty dialog box. Here it possible to define every aspect of the Pilot’s duty day.

Duty Details

Enter a duty name, and a 4 letter identifier for the duty. The latter is used to identify duties within the roster grid, so it’s important here to create your own conventions.

Select the time zone in which this duty is to be performed. This is important, as it means that duty times can be defined and displayed to pilots in local time, and

Daylight Saving will be applied. Finally, select the check box if the duty falls into any of the following categories:

• Planned Off Day (an FTL compliant off day which comprises of at least 36 hours

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual and two local nights)

• A Rest Day (A Day free of duty, but will not be counted as an Off day)

• A Leave Day (When selected, the type of leave options will appear: Annual /

Requested / Sick / Compassionate or Other)

• A Standby Duty (When selected, the amount of duty to be counted in the event of the crewmember not being called into work can be selected as a percentage).

Timings

Here we can set the start and end times of the duty. The maximum allowable FDP and Flying Hours will be automatically calculated, according the the FDP rules which are selected in the “FDP Rules” drop down box.

During the consultation process, any applicable FDP rules will already be available here having been setup prior to the installation. All that remains is for you to select the scheme applicable.

Important Note: All Times are LOCAL

As the time zone has already been selected on the previous tab, now enter the planned Duty and FDP start and end times in the time boxes.

If a duty is planned to “roll over” to the following day, then select the “Next Day”

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual checkbox.

If you wish to use a reduced minimum rest period before a duty (normally 12 hours), set the required minimum rest time that meets your requirements in the “Min. rest before duty” box. For many FTL schemes, the rest period must be at least 12 hours or the length of the previous duty, if the previous duty was more than 12 hours. The box marked “If duty > min. rest then rest = length of previous duty” is set by default but can be unticked if required.

If a split duty is planned, then click the split duty checkbox, and enter the amount of time planned as a split. The legal extension of FDP will be calculated and added to the maximum allowable FDP for this duty.

Appearance

You can select the background and text colours of the duty box as it will appear in the main roster and in the crews online roster. Be careful to choose background colours

that do not conflict with the red, yellow and green coloured squares and lines that Roster

Explorer automatically overlays in the roster grid to indicate recency of checks and legality of duties.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

uk & C ustom

ftl s

CHemes

Roster Explorer allows different pilots to operate under different FTL rule schemes.

The default setting is the standard CAP371 UK FTL.

Define a custom FTL Scheme

To define a variation on the UK FTL scheme click on FTL Variations -> Define

Custom Scheme

This universal form allows a user-defined FTL Scheme to be defined by simply adjusting the flying or duty hour limits, or the limits on days off.

To enable or disable any rules, simply check the “Enabled” checkbox, and adjust the parameters by typing the new parameters into the text boxes.

The 5 letter identifier will be displayed on the roster grid to identify which FTL scheme they are working under.

To Apply Custom Scheme to a Crew Member

Click on the FTL box next to the crew member you wish to apply a custom scheme to:

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

You can define multiple FTL variations and apply them to any pilots within the roster. Only the rules which are “Enabled” within that scheme are checked for as duties are inserted.

IMPORTANT: Your organisation must have the appropriate dispensations and permissions to operate an FTL variation. All custom schemes must be checked to ensure they comply with your company rules. For rules which are not covered by this dialog, please consult with Flight Software Services Ltd to arrange modifications to your

Roster Explorer package.

p opulatIng tHe

r oster

g rId

Inserting Duties

Move the mouse to the empty duty box corresponding to the pilot and date you wish to apply a duty to. Right click the mouse to display the context menu.

Options on the context menu include:

• Insert (This produces a sub menu to select the duty you wish to insert)

• Edit Remark (Allows a remark to be applied to a duty with extra operational information)

• Edit Estimated Flying Hours (Applies an estimate of flying time to that duty to aid future planning. Cumulative totals will be adjusted accordingly)

• Global Set Estimated Flying Hours (Allows a flying estimate to be applied to all occurrences of a selected duty within the roster table)

• Delete (Deletes the selected duty)

• Bulk Add Duties (Applies a large number of a selected duty)

• Insert Duty Patterns (Applies a number of cycles of a pre-defined roster pattern)

• Insert Equal Time Roster (A tool to automatically populate a roster line with various equal time roster patterns)

Try inserting the duties you created earlier using Right Click->Insert. If you have defined a duty and saved it, it will appear in the Insert sub menu. Select the duty

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual and it will appear in the grid.

Inspecting a duty day

Hover the mouse over any duty and left click. A pop-up menu should appear:

Here, all the information concerning this day is displayed:

• Legality. The (OK) and duty name in Green colouring indicates this duty complies with the FTL rules which are applied on this line. If there items nearing limits

(such as flying totals or duty hours) the duty name will be displayed in amber with a (W), or if over limits occur, in red with a (X).

• Timings. The start and end time of the duty are displayed in local time, along with the time zone in which the duty is to be performed. [DST ON] or [DST OFF] indicates whether daylight saving has been applied.

• Cumulative flying totals. Following the “F:” are displayed the current status of the crew member’s flying totals ON THE DATE SELECTED. The flying hours available appear at the end, for example if a crew member has 4 hours 50 minutes available (04:50 Av) will be displayed.

• Cumulative duty totals. Following the “D:” are displayed the current status of the crew member’s duty hour totals ON THE DATE OF THE DUTY SELECTED.

The duty hours available appear at the end, for example if a crew member has 11 hours available (11:00 Av) will be displayed.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

• Days Off. Any information here displayed in green is for information only. Any violation of the days off requirements will be itemized here in red with relevant information to enable rectification.

• Early Starts / Late Finishes. Violations of rules concerning consecutive early starts, or night duties will be displayed here, with relevant information to enable rectification.

• Remarks. Any remarks are displayed here, as well as being visible in the Online

Logbook Roster area.

• Recency Items. The number of days to expiry of various checks ON THE DATE

OF THE DUTY SELECTED are displayed. Checks which are out of date on the date in question are displayed in red.

Legality Indicators

A rostered duty has two visual indicators to warn of FTL violations and recency items.

The Duty Legality Indicator is a Green/Amber or Red square displayed at the top right of the duty cell. If this is RED then the duty IS NOT LEGAL according to the

FTL rules applied, and needs attention. By hovering over the duty and left-clicking the mouse, the reasons will be displayed.

The Recency Warnings Indication Line is a Green/Amber or Red line at the bottom of the duty cell which will display Green when all recency items (i.e. Medical / LPC

/ Line Check etc) are in date on the DATE OF THE SELECTED DUTY (The expiry dates of the these checks are input into OFP).

This line will turn Amber when there are one or more items within 30 days of renewal.

A red line indicates that one or more recency items are out of date on the date of the selected duty.

NB As roster explorer can be used to plan years in advance this information is advisory only and is to aid the roster planner in scheduling checks for crew members in good time.

Finally, a duty code which is underlined, such as in the screenshot above indicates

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual that there are remarks associated with the duty which are available for the crew member to read when viewing his or her roster via the online logbook. Alternatively, left click the mouse over the cell to bring up the pop-up window to read the associated remarks.

C rew

r eCenCy

C

HeCks

You can see the status of crew members recency checks that are coming up for renewal or expired by looking at the coloured line in the duty entries on the roster grid or you can left-click on a duty to view all the crew duty, flight records and recency items, as described above. You can also view the checks status of all crews by clicking on “Roster Actions” then “View recency items”. The window that is displayed is like this:-

You can scroll through the list and see both the check expiry dates, colour coded to indicate status, and also the “Status” of any actions that are already in progress for arranging renewal of the check. Furthermore, any notes that have been left relating to the status can also be read here. This list is set to display checks that are due within the next 120 days, in order of date. If you wish, you can click on “Name” to sort the list alphabetically instead. The window and the grid can be resized with the mouse as required. You can print this if you wish. The information presented here is that which has been entered in “Crew Edit” within Offshore FlightPlan.

f

IlterIng

C rews and

s eleCtIng montHs

There are lots of options to enable the roster writer to hide and show various crewmembers. The main features are:

• Show crew members only working a certain roster schedule

• Show crew members who are not “Off ” on any particular day

• Show crew members associated with a particular base

• Show months in the future

To filter by Roster Schedule: Click on the column header labelled “schedule”.

Each click will cycle through the various roster schedules before arriving back at all schedules. The current selection is displayed in the toolbar at the bottom right of the window:

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

To filter by pilots not “Off ”: Click on the date you wish to view available pilots for.

Clicking again removes the filter, which will then display “No Filters Applied”.

To filter crews by either month or base: The main menu has two items “Months” and

“Bases”. The current selection is highlighted with a tick.

Lower Grid

The bottom row of the roster grid displays various number boxes to assist rostering.

First, you should declare how many crews you need for a given day by entering the number required in “Total duties required”. Very often, this number will be the same every day but you can enter a different number for each day depending on operational requirements. If you do not want to use this feature, leave a zero in the

“Total duties required” box. Roster Explorer will colour code the remaining boxes to indicate that your requirements have been met, as you enter duties in the roster grid. The duties allocated should equal the duties required. If they do then the boxes will change to green. The “Total revenue duties allocated” shows only duties that are allocated to a duty type where the “Revenue flight” was ticked in the duty definition. This helps you to compare crews that are rostered for revenue and non-revenue duties such as training, etc.

The lower box “All duties legal” automatically changes from green to red if an illegal duty is placed in the roster grid. This provides a quick way to see if a duty is present that does not comply with the rules of your FTL scheme.

a dvanCed

f eatures

It is possible to summarise the pilots rostered on any date in the future by using the menu item Duties->View Pilots Rostered by Date.

This produces a tree view of all the Captains and Co-Pilots rostered on any day, grouped by duty type.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

This feature is useful to check the P1-P2 balance of crews rostered on particular types of duty and also check their FTL, as the colour of the crew member’s name indicates whether the duty they are rostered on complies with the FTL requirements. The name can be Green,Amber or Red in the same way as the FTL indicator.

In brackets, after the crew’s name, is the number of flying hours they have available on that date.

By clicking on the name of the crew member, the FTL pop-up menu appears, giving information about the crew member’s cumulative limits.

s ynCHronIsIng to remote server

Under the Roster Actions menu item are two other options:

1. Publish/get

2. Undo all changes since last sync.

The first option will publish your roster the the main server. From that point onwards, your roster will become visible by all crews (when they log-in to their online electronic log book) and to anyone else that uses Roster Explorer. It will also get any changes that other Roster Explorer uses have made and save them on your PC. It is recommended that you frequently use Publish/get in the same way as saving a

Word Document, i.e. periodically during a session, providing you are happy with the changes.

The second option will undo any changes you have made since you last clicked

Publish/get. You can try out different roster ideas then, if you don’t like them, undo all your changes with this option.

NB. When Publish/get is selected, the future rostered duties become visible in each pilots online logbook. Remember to place a comment in the remarks section for the crews if you are making short-term changes.

Q uick

S tart

Install the software

Install both Offshore FlightPlan and Roster Explorer following the instructions given at the download location provided to you at www.offshoreflightplan.com

Add Your Crews in Offshore FlightPlan

Add each of your crew members using “Add a new crew member” in the Crews menu. The user name and password that is entered here must be provided to the crew so they can access their online electronic log book. Crews can change their password later but the user name is fixed and is case sensitive. The crews that you

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual enter here will also automatically appear in Roster Explorer.

Add Your Aircraft in Offshore FlightPlan

Add each of your aircraft using “Create new aircraft record” in the Aircraft menu.

You may define up to 10 different APS weights and C of G arms for each aircraft so that you can easily handle different roles. You must, at least, enter an APS weight and C of G arm for Role 1. The other roles are optional.

Add Your Waypoints in Offshore FlightPlan

Add the waypoints that are required for your operation using “Create new waypoint” in the Waypoints menu. There are three different types of waypoint: onshore, offshore and en-route. Be sure to select the correct type. In the Field Weather box, enter the airport ICAO code for onshore waypoints and enter the field name of the offshore field that the platform is situated in, for offshore waypoints. If the platform is not in a field but is situated on its own, enter the platform name. The field weather will be used for aircraft offshore performance calculations.

Enter the Crew Training Records

Select “Edit a crew members details” in the Crews menu. For each crew member, enter the expiry dates of the required recency (checks) items. You only need to select the recency items that are relevant to your operation. If you wish to include a scan of a check document (e.g. a scan of the LPC certificate), make sure there is a PDF format scan available on your local PC then use the “Upload” button to upload it into the system.

Define your Duty Types in Roster Explorer

Start Roster Explorer and notice that the crews that you entered in Offshore Flight-

Plan are already there. Select “Create new duty type” in the Duties menu. Create a duty for each type of duty that you use for your operation. Be sure to select the correct time zone. When choosing the background colour, for your duty, please avoid red, orange or green as these colours will clash with the built-in alerting system. If you have more than one base, select the correct ICAO code that applies to the duty.

Points to Note

Thanks to the special sync function, all the crew, waypoints and aircraft that you have entered will appear on all computers running this software throughout your organisation.

In the Settings menu of Offshore FlightPlan, you can select whether to show crews and aircraft from your base or all bases in the various crew and aircraft selectors.

There is also a setting which enables you to turn aircraft performance on and off.

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Offshore Flightplan v5.0 User Manual

s upport

w eBsIte

Offshore FlightPlan is frequently updated as new features are added. The latest version, together with instructions on how to install, is available as a download on the Offshore FlightPlan website. You will be notified when an update is available along with download instructions. An area for your company will have been set up on our website under “Existing Users”. You can log-in here using the user name and password provided. Please also use the support website to report bugs you may discover and to make suggestions for inclusion in a future update.

Email support is available at [email protected]

The Offshore FlightPlan website is at www.offshoreflightplan.com

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