Howdy,

     I remember back in the day with FSX & ActiveSky weather program ActiveSky would help plan your flight level according to the best winds aloft head wind, tail wind etc.

Simbrief always seems to plan the route according to the max ceiling of the aircraft. Please correct me if I am wrong on simbrief. My question is there a flight planner out there that helps you find the optimum altitude according to headwinds/tailwinds. I am familiar with Windy, Skyvector etc for winds aloft.

                                                                          Thanks & Happy Landings,

                                                     

17 hours ago, jwhak said:

 

           Howdy,

     I remember back in the day with FSX & ActiveSky weather program ActiveSky would help plan your flight level according to the best winds aloft head wind, tail wind etc.

Simbrief always seems to plan the route according to the max ceiling of the aircraft. Please correct me if I am wrong on simbrief. My question is there a flight planner out there that helps you find the optimum altitude according to headwinds/tailwinds. I am familiar with Windy, Skyvector etc for winds aloft.

                                                                          Thanks & Happy Landings,

                                                     

I have for years done my flight planning at Fltplan.com, and use their companion app on my iPad when I fly.  Beyond being a Garmin-owned aviation website/service It interfaces with all of the popular simulators. The service is free, though you do have to establish and use an account.

Fltplan.com will put the altitude layer it selects one column in from the left, FL300 in this case.  It will then show the next altitude layer up to the left, and the next two below to the right,  You can select the Exit button at the top left to return to a page where you can adjust the altitudes, so you can easily take looks at what-if scenarios.  The site also has weather, and the full compliment of maps and airport charts for the North America and the Carribean.  All at no cost.  The following link is to a post from 2016 showing some of the other features of the iPad app.  It has continued to get even better.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/471387-fltplan-go-app-for-ipad-way-cool/

 

PFPX takes wind aloft into account. On longhauls I have seen it plan nicely around zones of strong head wind. It's a really great tool. Unfortunately, it has been abandoned and overtaken in many aspects by simbrief. This would be a really good addition to simbrief, indeed. 

20 hours ago, jwhak said:

Please correct me if I am wrong on simbrief.

While I'm not sure that you're wrong, it does seem that Simbrief can do some flight level optimization. For a short hop between KEWR and KIAD, it output a LIDO format OFP that included the following table:

OPERATIONAL IMPACTS

-------------------

WEIGHT CHANGE UP 1.0 TRIP P 0018 LBS TIME M 0000

WEIGHT CHANGE DN 1.0 TRIP M 0020 LBS TIME P 0000

FL CHANGE UP FL1 TRIP M 0015 LBS TIME P 0000

FL CHANGE DN FL1 TRIP P 0051 LBS TIME P 0000

FL CHANGE DN FL2 TRIP P 0145 LBS TIME M 0001

SPD CHANGE CI 0 TRIP M 0074 LBS TIME P 0001

SPD CHANGE CI 50 TRIP P 0009 LBS TIME M 0000

--------------------------------------------------------------

So it does look that Simbrief did try to optimize fuel utilization, if not time, while giving the pilot the information needed to select a different altitude based on operational considerations.

This info may not appear on alternate OFP formats depending on how the real life airlines provide dispatch information to their pilots. Perhaps some want to reserve such decision making to their dispatchers.

 

Haven't used it in a while but if memory serves, in Simbrief you can also use the weather displayed for your flight plan to select different altitudes and see what the wind is doing. I do recall the planner picking very high cruise altitudes at times but as someone already mentioned, it does seem to optimize already to account for the most favorable winds.

Appreciate the intel.  Briefly looked at the fltplan.com pretty cool Thanks Patton. 

                                                      Happy Landings All