Back-end modifications

[Steve Kuekes <skuekes tangram com>]

I have added include file processing to the back end and sent some code
updates to John Peterson.

Now that I have some familiarity with the code I would like to add some
more changes.

I propose the following new input statements...

	aircraft <tailnumber>, <type-name>;
This would just be used as comments and printed in the results headers
so that you were sure that this flight plan was for the proper aircraft
profile.

	climb <rate-in-fpm>, <fuel-burn>, <tas>;
This would allow automatic insertion of top of climb waypoints into the
flight plan and account for different fuel burn rates and speeds during
the climb for the flight plan.

	descent <rate-in-fpm>, <fuel-burn>, <tas>;
Same as climb but for descent point insertion into flight plan.

	cruise (<altitude>, <%power>, <fuel-burn>, <tas>), (more entries...),
...;
Multiple cruise profiles that include different burn rates and speeds
for different altitudes.  The flight plan would automatically choose
which entry depending on the altitude directive.

These new parameters would allow you to create an include file that
defines aircraft your aircraft and just include the appropriate one
using the new include directive into the flight plan.

I modelled these tables of information from the www.duats.com site where
you enter this type of information into the aircraft profile for their
flight planner.  I would be happy to get some feedback on what other
flight planning software uses.  As always we can always add more
parameters later.

After adding these I would like to add an optimize altitude command that
would choose the optimum altitude for the flight depending on optimizing
time or fuel burn.  I would like to add a new statement that can point
to a table of winds-aloft data to be used for this optimization as
well.  For those who are aopa members you can get winds aloft data from
their web site in a savable text file.  I am looking at parsing this
file to get the winds automatically.

Let me know what you think.

Also, if possible I would like to get access to the CVS tree so that I
can make these updates (pending some type of group approval) without
interferring with other work.

Thanks and good flying.
-- 

Steve Kuekes
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Tangram Enterprise Solutions, Inc (Nasdaq SmallCap:TESI)
Cary, North Carolina
(919)653-1203 ---- (919)653-6004 (fax)

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email: skuekes@tangram.com --- http://www.tangram.com
Private Pilot: N9259R '95 Saratoga based at Raleigh Triple-W (5W5)