Chris Collins

Tools · aviation

Nav log and VFR planner

Plan a VFR cross-country: waypoints from airport codes, coordinates or a tap on the map; great-circle course and distance; magnetic variation from the World Magnetic Model; winds aloft per leg (typed or the US forecast from aviationweather.gov); wind correction angle, true and magnetic heading, ground speed, time and fuel per leg with climb, descent, taxi and reserve; checkpoints; and a printable kneeboard nav log.

Added

How to use it

A training and planning aid — not for navigation. Your POH/AFM, current charts, NOTAMs and an official weather briefing govern. Check every heading and time against your own plotter and E6B.

How to use it

  • Route — type waypoints separated by spaces: ICAO airport codes from the site’s airport list (KPAO, EGTK), coordinates (37.47/-122.45, 37 28.2N/122 27W), or a named point (HMB_coast@37.47/-122.45; an underscore is a space). Find an airport searches by name or city. Show map draws the route; tap the map to add a waypoint (it snaps to an airport within 2 nm) and drag a marker to move one. ⛶ Full screen (or F) gives the map the whole screen.

  • Each leg has its own altitude, wind (degrees true / knots, as forecast: 270/15, optionally /−5 for the temperature), TAS and variation — leave them blank for the defaults; the variation placeholder shows the World Magnetic Model value at the leg’s midpoint. ↑ ↓ ✕ reorder and remove waypoints.

  • Aircraft and fuel — cruise altitude, TAS and burn; fuel on board, taxi fuel and reserve minutes; climb rate, TAS and burn; descent rate and pattern height; and Checkpoint every to split long legs into equal pieces. Distances and speeds in nm and kt, statute miles and mph, or km and km/h; fuel in US gallons, litres, imperial gallons, pounds or kilograms (just a label — use one unit throughout).

  • Nav log — one row per checkpoint: altitude, true course, wind, TAS, wind correction angle, true heading, variation, magnetic heading, distance, ground speed, time en route, fuel and fuel remaining, with the top of climb (TOC) and top of descent (TOD) as their own rows; totals for distance, time, flight fuel, fuel required with taxi and reserve, what is spare, and endurance. It warns when the fuel is short, when the wind is too strong to hold a course, and when a cruising altitude does not follow the VFR hemispheric rule. On a phone each row is a card.

  • Print kneeboard log prints a landscape log with blank ETA, ATE, ATA and actual-fuel columns and lines for ATIS, frequencies and the squawk.

  • Winds aloft — the US winds and temperatures aloft forecast (FB) for 6, 12 or 24 hours. Each leg takes the forecast station nearest its midpoint, with the wind interpolated (as a vector) between the levels either side of the leg’s altitude; Fill the legs' winds writes them into the route. aviationweather.gov sends no CORS header, so a web page cannot read it directly: open the page in the gitwebsite app (its companion relays it — Connect asks once), give the URL of your own relay, or paste the bulletin from aviationweather.gov into the box. Outside the US, type each leg’s wind from your briefing.

How it works

  • Distance and course on a sphere of radius 3,440.065 nm (Ed Williams, Aviation Formulary); the true course of each row is measured at its midpoint, as you would with a plotter at mid-leg.

  • Wind triangle (from the E6B): WCA = asin(W·sin(ω − TC) / TAS), TH = TC + WCA, GS = TAS·cos(WCA) − W·cos(ω − TC). MH = TH − variation (east is least, west is best); apply your compass deviation card for the compass heading.

  • Magnetic variation from the World Magnetic Model 2025 (NOAA NCEI and the British Geological Survey; valid 2025–2030; checked against NOAA’s published test values) at each segment’s midpoint and altitude, for today’s date. Current charts round it to a degree.

  • Climb from the departure field’s elevation at the climb rate, climb TAS and climb burn; the top of climb sits where the climb ends. Descent at cruise TAS and burn at the descent rate, to the next leg’s altitude or to the destination’s elevation plus the pattern height.

  • Fuel required = taxi + flight + reserve (reserve minutes × cruise burn). US rules: 30 minutes day VFR, 45 minutes night (14 CFR 91.151). VFR cruising altitudes: 14 CFR 91.159 (SERA.5015 in Europe).

  • FB winds (FAA AC 00-45H, Aviation Weather Services): DDSS±TT, direction in tens of degrees true, speed in knots; 9900 is light and variable; a direction of 51–86 means 100 kt more and 50 less (731960 = 230° at 119 kt, −60 °C); above 24,000 ft temperatures are negative without a sign; no wind within 1,500 ft of the station and no temperature within 2,500 ft.

Limits

  • Not for navigation. Airspace, terrain, obstacles, NOTAMs and the weather are not checked.

  • The airport list (OurAirports) holds larger airports and those with scheduled service; many small airfields are missing — use coordinates or the map for them. Elevations come from the list.

  • Climb and descent use one rate and speed; real climbs slow with altitude and temperature (use your POH’s time, fuel and distance to climb tables for accuracy). Density altitude is not applied.

  • About 30 of the forecast’s sites are navaids or offshore points with no airport in the list and are skipped; a leg far from any station shows how far away the nearest one is.

  • No compass deviation, and no wind change along a leg.

Related: E6B pilot calculators, Weight and balance, Aviation weather (METAR/TAF), Great-circle routes, Flight tracker.

Linking to an example

Each setting has a short parameter (knots, feet, minutes; fuel in your unit), and the tab comes from the # part of the address, for example /tools/nav-log/?route=KPAO+KMRY&alts=4500&winds=300/15#log. Per-leg lists are comma-separated, one entry per leg (blank for the default).

Parameter Meaning Example

route

waypoints, space-separated (+ in a link): ICAO codes, lat/lon, NAME@lat/lon

route=KPAO+KSQL+KMRY

alts, winds, tass, vars

per leg: altitude ft, wind dir/kt, TAS kt, variation (13E, 4W)

winds=300/12,300/15

alt, tas, burn

default cruise altitude, TAS, burn per hour

alt=5500&tas=105

fob, taxi, res

fuel on board, taxi fuel, reserve minutes

fob=40&res=45

crate, ctas, cburn

climb rate ft/min, climb TAS, climb burn

crate=700

drate, tpa

descent rate (0 = none), pattern height ft AGL

drate=500

cp

checkpoint every so many nm (0 = none)

cp=10

u_dist, u_fuel

units: nm/sm/km; gal/L/imp gal/lb/kg

u_fuel=L

fcst

winds-aloft forecast hours: 06, 12, 24

fcst=12

example

one of the presets below; other parameters override it

example=kpao-kmry

Presets:

  • kpao-kmry — Palo Alto to Monterey at 5,500 ft in a C172, wind 300/15

  • bay-tour — Palo Alto – Half Moon Bay coast – Monterey – Salinas, with checkpoints every 10 nm

  • oxford-cambridge — Oxford to Cambridge (UK) at 2,400 ft in litres

  • sfo-tahoe — Climb over the Sierra: Buchanan Field to Truckee at 11,500 ft

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