What is an OFP?
The Operational Flight Plan (OFP) is the master document for your flight. Generated via our SimBrief integration, it contains everything you need to safely operate your flight.
Key Sections of Your OFP
| Section | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Header | Flight number, date, aircraft type, registration |
| Route | Full route string with waypoints, airways and transitions |
| Fuel | Trip fuel, reserves, alternate fuel, taxi fuel, total fuel required |
| Weights | ZFW, takeoff weight, landing weight and their limits |
| Weather | METARs and TAFs for departure, destination and alternates |
| NOTAMs | Relevant notices for your airports |
| Alternate(s) | Designated alternate airport(s) with distance and fuel |
Reading Fuel Figures
Fuel is typically shown in kilograms (kg) or pounds (lbs) depending on your settings:
- Trip Fuel — Fuel needed from takeoff to landing at destination
- Contingency — Extra fuel (usually 5% of trip fuel) for unexpected situations
- Alternate — Fuel to fly from destination to your alternate airport
- Final Reserve — Minimum 30 minutes holding fuel at 1500ft above alternate
- Taxi Fuel — Fuel for engine start, taxi out and taxi in
- Block Fuel — Total fuel loaded = Trip + Contingency + Alternate + Reserve + Taxi
Legs SimBrief Cannot Dispatch
SimBrief will not build a plan for everything on the network. Two things can rule out an OFP:
- The airport. SimBrief plans from the Navigraph navigation database, which only carries aerodromes that hold a four letter ICAO location indicator. Seaplane bases, and the small strips that only ever received a three or five character FAA local code, are not in it.
- The aircraft type. SimBrief holds performance data for a fixed list of types. A tail of any other type has nothing for SimBrief to plan with.
In either case a dispatch request comes back as a SimBrief error rather than a flight plan. JetStream Virtual knows about both, so you never meet that error.
What happens instead
- Select your aircraft exactly as you would on any other flight. This step is not skipped, because the JSV Flight Logger cannot start a flight until a tail is attached to your booking. Types SimBrief cannot plan are marked in the picker.
- The booking is completed for you. If the flight was not already on your bids it is added, and the aircraft you picked is attached to it. That is everything the Flight Logger needs.
- The flight briefing opens. Instead of an OFP you get the operational data we do hold for the leg: route and block figures, the aircraft with its open MEL items and airframe health, and live METAR, TAF and runway data for both airports.
From there, Open in JSV Flight Logger takes you straight into the app. The Logger receives the booking, the aircraft and a direct routing between the two fields, so it starts, tracks and files the flight exactly as it would on any other leg. No OFP is required for any of that. Bush and float sectors of this kind are flown without a computerised flight plan in the real world too.
Airports SimBrief cannot plan are also left out of the alternate airport search, because a single alternate SimBrief cannot resolve will fail the whole OFP even when both of your own airports are fine.
Airports affected
| ICAO | IATA | Airport | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMS | — | Las Americas Airport | Guasave |
| 19P | PPV | Port Protection Seaplane Base | Port Protection |
| 51Z | MNT | Minto Al Wright Airport | Minto |
| 96Z | WWP | North Whale Seaplane Base | Whale Pass |
| 9Z8 | KLL | Levelock Airport | Levelock |
| A63 | TWA | Twin Hills Airport | Twin Hills |
| AK62 | NKI | Naukiti Bay Seaplane Base | Tuxekan Island |
| CGA | CGA | Craig Seaplane Base | Craig |
| EDA | EDA | Edna Bay Airport | Edna Bay |
| HYL | HYL | Hollis Clark Bay Seaplane Base | Hollis |
| KEK | KEK | Ekwok Airport | Ekwok |
| KPB | KPB | Point Baker Seaplane Base | Point Baker |
| KS31 | LPS | Lopez Island Airport | Lopez |
| KTB | KTB | Thorne Bay Seaplane Base | Thorne Bay |
| KXA | KXA | Kasaan Seaplane Base | Kasaan |
| PAHY | HYG | Hydaburg Seaplane Base | Hydaburg |
| PAKC | KCC | Coffman Cove Seaplane Base | Coffman Cove |
| PAMM | MTM | Metlakatla Seaplane Base | Metlakatla |
| WBB | WBB | Stebbins Airport | Stebbins |
Aircraft types affected
A189, A19N, AJ27, AN12, B39M, B773, BLCF, C207, C212, C402, C560, C68A, CL65, CVLT, DHC3, E120, E550, EC25, EC75, F2TH, F900, FA7X, GA8, GALX, GL5T, GL6T, GL7T, GLEX, GLF5, H60, J328
Both lists are generated live from the current fleet and schedule, so they are never out of date. If you hit a SimBrief error at an airport or on a type that is not listed here, or you find something listed that SimBrief can in fact plan, please report it and we will correct it.