If you've ever felt like going for a simulated
flight, but not known where to go, this page may help. It generates a
random "mission," then assigns a coherent departure and arrival city
pair, aircraft, and passenger count. It also estimates the distance, and
calculates the time required in the selected aircraft.
Depart/Arrive This is a
random world city pair. It is weighted to select cities in the following order:
- Domestic U.S. city pairs.
- Flights between the U.S. and other North American
countries.
- Flights between the U.S. and other countries of the
world.
- Flights outside of the U.S.
Distance The
distance is calculated based upon the latitude and longitude of the city
pairs. The current algorithm is not very accurate.
Time The time is
calculated based upon the cruise speed of the assigned aircraft, and the
distance of the flight. Mission
The mission is randomly assigned, and is fairly general.
For instance, you get "Medical Flight" rather than "fly Billy Johnson to the
hospital for an arm transplant." Aircraft
The aircraft is chosen based upon the number of
passengers, and the length of the route. That being said, you can still get
routes that exceed the range of the aircraft, requiring fuel stop(s). This is
on purpose because this happens in the real world.
The aircraft library is a selection of active,
passenger-carrying, real world airplanes. The passenger capacity ranges in
size from 1 (Cessna 150) to 555+ (Airbus A380).
Passengers The number of
passengers is random, but appropriate for the mission. The main purpose of
having this information is so you can calculate weight/balance information for
the flight.
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