                E6B+ FLIGHT PLANNING UTILITIES SOFTWARE
                               SHAREWARE

INTRODUCTION

The E6B+ flight planning shareware is designed to simplify flight planning
using the computational power of today's personal desktop and portable
computers.  The software has all the features needed to plan a VFR cross
country flight within the United States.

The features designed into the program permit either the translation of
aeronautical chart measurements and weather information into magnetic
headings, ground speeds, etc or this aeronautical data can be developed by
the use of an extensive data base of airports, NDBs, and VORs.  

The software was designed with human factors issues taken into considerations.
A user friendly graphical user interface has been developed to ease the
use of the software.  The E6B+ functions are arranged so that they
follow the normal calculational procedure used to perform a preflight
for a cross country trip.  In addition, to make the calculations more
interesting, several of the calculational backgrounds are aerial photographs
of backcountry regions of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana.

Automatic cross country route planning was intentionally not incorporated
into the program at this time. Automatic route tracking eliminates decisions
that should be undertaken by the pilot and a software route optimization
tool may introduce unexpected problems into the flight plan.  Software
tools are provided that permit the pilot to select the best route based
on detailed airport and navigational information selected from a data base
and a function that provides route information.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

The E6B+ Preflight Planning software was developed using Microsoft
development products.  The following personal computer (PC) hardware and
system requirements are needed to run the preflight software: (a) the
Windows 95 or Windows NT 3.5.1 or later operating system, (b) an IBM
compatible PC with a 80386 or higher processor, (c) a mouse, (d) at
least 8 megabytes of memory; 16 megabytes is preferred, and (e) 8 megabytes
of free hard drive space.  The software was designed for the 32 bit
operating environment and requires the use of Windows 95 or
Windows NT 3.5.1 or later.

E6B+ PRE-FLIGHT UTILITIES SET UP

The files provided on the compressed and cannot be installed by
copying them directly to the hard disk.  The software is installed by
using the Windows 95 installation program or by directly running the
setup program..  To install and setup the pre-flight software follow
the instructions provided by the setup program.

The setup software copies several compressed files to a user defined
directory.  The files are uncompressed during setup.  The installed files
include some visual basic files, a few C++ files, the E6B+ pre-flight
utilities program, and several data files needed by the pre-flight
utilities program.

E6B+ SOFTWARE FUNCTIONS

The E6B+ program performs several unique flight planning functions.
The VFR flight planning functions are listed as follows:

(1) E6B Functions   (The typical E6B functions)

(a) Wind Correction
Provides wind correction information needed to fly between two waypoints.
(b) Density Altitude
Provides the density altitude using the equations describing the standard
atmosphere and the current atmospheric conditions.
(c) Airspeeds            
A function that converts true airspeed to indicated or indicated
airspeed to true.  The airspeed function uses the standard atmosphere and
current conditions to calculate these values.

(2) Cross Country (Two functions that greatly simplify cross country route
planning.)

(a) Route Function       
The route function calculates the true course, distance, magnetic heading,
and ground speed between airports and navigational aids in the data base
or between two different latitude and longitudes.
(b) Cross Country Track       
The cross country track function identifies airports and navigational
aids between two pilot selected airports. The function plots the airports
and navigational aids along the route.  Dragging along the route map
information allows one to select waypoints and refueling stops.  The
function also provides a list of potential refueling stops along the
track based on flight time.

(3) Navigation Data  (A collection of functions that returns information
concerning airports and navigational aids.)

(a) Airports        
General information concerning public airports is provided by this function.
The function search is based on the airport identifier.  Airport information
provided includes: latitude and longitude, airport city, state and name,
only runway length, width and surface conditions are provided, and
the magnetic variation.
(b) Navigational Aids         
General information concerning VORs, NDBs, VORTACs and TACANs is provided
by this function.  The data provided includes latitude and longitude,
frequency, name, city and state along with the navigational aid's
elevation and magnetic variation.  The search is based on the identifier.
(c) Airport Search       
This function searches for airports within a specified distance from a
given airport or city.  The function identifies the closest airport and
calculates the distance and true course to all the airports within the
specified radius.  In addition, information concerning the airports is
provided.

(4) Planning Forms  (Printable planning forms needed to assist in
VFR cross country flight.)

(a) Route Form           
A form listing the waypoints, distance, ground speed and magnetic heading
of a proposed flight path.  The function calculates the total distance,
fuel needed, and the time required to complete the enroute legs.
(b) Weight & Balance          
Calculates the aircraft's center of gravity and gross weight.
(c) Various Weather Forms     
A collection of printable weather forms that are useful in preflight
VFR cross country route planning.

(5) Assorted Functions  (Various additional functions have been provided
to assist in VFR flight planning.)

(a) Data Map        
This function plots navigational aids and airports within a specified
distance from a given airport.  It is similar in function to the airport
search function but it is more detailed and has a better graphical
resolution.
(c) Conversions               
A function that performs most of the standard units conversions needed
to perform a preflight.
(d) Calculator 
A simple calculator to support preflight planning.
(e) Search Functions          
Search routines that locate airports and navigational aids given the state.
(f) Data Base Routines        
Functions have been also provided so that the data base can be modified and
updated.  There is no limit to the amount of data in the data base. 

DATA BASE

One unique feature of the E6B+ software is its data base when it is compared
to other flight planning programs. The E6B+ data base is derived from the
FAA airport and navigational aid data.

The data base contains a large amount of data that may not be of use to all
users of the program.  In order to reduce the search time, the user may wish
to remove or reorder the data in the data base.  As an example if one flys
mostly in Wyoming, one can reorder the Wyoming data to be at the start of
the data file and then delete all of the other state data in which one does
not typically fly.  The original data files should be archived in a
separate directory prior to performing this action.  The files to review
for these changes are the two airport data files DATA.DAT and apt_2.dat
and the two navigational files nav_1.dat and nav_2.dat.  The data files
are in ASCII rather than binary format to ease data base management by the
user of the program. Any word processing or text editor can be used to
perform data base management.

HELP FILES

The software contains a list of help files to acquaint the pilot with the
features of the software.  The E6B+ program is very user friendly and easy
to use once the functions have been exercised.  Additional help can be
obtained by contacting Idaho PreFlight Products at P.O. Box 51746,
Idaho Falls, Idaho 83405, or by E-mail at pge@micron.net or through
the internet at http://netnow.micron.net/~pge/.

NOTICE

This software contains information compiled by the US Government which may
contain unidentified errors.  As a result the software should not be used
as the primary tool for navigation.  In addition the use of this data and
the use the Microsoft products to develop the E6B+ software requires the
publication of the following notice.

No warranty, expressed or implied, nor is any legal liability assumed
for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of the E6B+ pre-flight
software or any information, presented herein.

Copyright 1996, 1997 by Idaho PreFlight Products  All Rights Reserved
