Introduction

This repository has nothing to do with Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft O365 or Powershell. It's just about one of my passions: aviation. I got back into the sky after 20 years grounded, and I recently reviewed cross-country navigation, so I decided to make an Excel tool to help out in the navigation preparation.

As I'm a visual person, I also included compasses showing the wind direction and runway orientation (as well as a plane heading) that moves as you change the plane/wind/runway headings and calculate your WCA and the crosswind (and headwind) components - which are calculated using math trigonometry which I won't cover the details here although these are good reviews of high school math - you'll see a quick explanation of these formulas in the Excel workbook anyways.

Aviation Navigation Log - Instructions

NOTE: 8 July 2023 I updated the margins in the Excel calculator as newer Excel versions made it get out of the page

This is an Excel workbook to help planning a cross country flight.

Here's the download link for this Excel Workbook (right-click "Save link as" or click on the link to open on a browser supporting view only Excel files)

Fill the following with your VFR map, upper winds tables, POH and compass swing table:

1. True Course (TC) - with your protractor on your VFR map

2. Altitude (ALT) - it's not used for calculations, just to remember your planned altitude.

Note: Remember the cruising altitude rule above 3000 FT ASL

• Right or East half - 0° - 179° => VFR : odd + 500ft (3500, 5500, 7500,...)
• Left or West half - 180° - 359° => VFR : even + 500ft (4500, 6500, 8500, ...)

In the Canadian Southern Domestic Airspace (SDA), these are the Magnetic Course (TC + VAR), and in the Northern Domestic Airspace (NDA) these are the True Course (see CAR 602.34) - therefore I will need to put the VAR column closer to TC, and remove the TH (True Heading) column and replace it with an MC (Magnetic course) column before the WCA (Wind Correctopn Angle) => then the MH (Magnetic Heading) will be MC + WCA... but that will be for the V2 of the workbook !

3. Wind Direction (Wd) and Wind speed (Ws) - check the Upper Winds map at your planned altitude, for example from Transport Canada website for Canada

4. Temperature (TEMP) - it's also not used for calculations, just as a reference.

5. True Air Speed (TAS) - from your Pilot Operating Handbook (POH)

6. Magnetic Variation (VAR) - from your VFR map

7. Compass Magnetic Deviation (DEV) - compass swing table from your plane (see the photo on the Mag Dev Compass Sample tab for an example) - it's updated every 12 months

8. Distance (DIST) - with your plotter on your VFR map

and the spreadsheet will calculate for you the Wind Correction Angle (WCA), True Heading (TH), Magnetic Heading (MH), Compass Heading (CH), Ground Speed (GS), Fuel consumption, Fuel remaining, Estimated Time Enroute (ETE) and Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA).

NOTE: the calculated cells are in orange (light and lighter so that it's easy on ink when printing), and by default the sheets are protected to avoid accidental deletion of the formulas for WCA/TH/CH/GS/Fuel/ETE/ETA - headers (TC/Wd/Ws/...) are also protected, and you can unprotect the sheets anytime to customize the logs, it's not password protected.

This Workbook has several tabs

• Formulas: shows the trigonometric math formulas used in the Nav Logs tables to calculate the WCA
• Nav Log (not foldable): you fill (TC, Wd, Ws, TAS, VAR, DEV, Dist) and it calculates the above values (WCA, TH, CH, GS,ETE, ETA,...). If you fold it, you won't be able to see the checkpoint names along with the CH/GS/ETE/ETA/Fuel info without unfolding your sheet
• Nav Log (Foldable): same as above, but I moved the checkpoints names column so that you can fold and use the relevant part of your Nav Log in flight (the part that shows the CH, Dist, GS, ETE, ETA, Fuel consumed, Fuel remainig. Indeed the TC, Wd, Ws, TAS, VAR and DEV are of no use while flying through your navigation checkpoints; only the CH, GS, ETE, ETA and Fuel information are the metrics you check (and correct with the actual values) in flight.
• Cross Wind Calculator: illustrates and calculate the cross-winds (and the wind correction angle for illustration purposes); Along with the calculation of the cross-wind/head-wind components, I put there 2 compass-style schemas: one with the plane and wind headings, and one with the runway orientation and wind heading
• Mag Dev Compass Sample: that's just a photo of what the compass swing table looks like in a plane.

Screenshots

Showing only the Nav Log (Foldable) here as the Nav Log (non foldable) is exactly the same in a different disposition (checkpoint names is on the first column instead of in the middle-right)

Nav Log (Foldable) tab

Cross Winds tab

This tab illustrates the effect of the wind on the plane - upper part is to show the True Course and the wind direction (always True wind heading given in TAF/METAR) and calculating the WCA, and lower part to show the actual Runway (remember Runway is always oriented relative to the magnetic north) and the magnetic wind heading, with the corresponding calculated cross wind (and head wind). NOTE: if the Head Wind has a negative value that means you have a tailwind. That means the opposite runway is the active one.

I have 2 versions here with just cosmetic differences, and v1.6 includes magnetic deviation for the wind direction; in v1.5, I used a compass with full regular heading numbers, and in Log v1.6 I used an "inverted" compass to match runway markings.

About the magnetic wind direction in v1.6: you need to put in you magnetic deviation, which is important for the cross wind component calculation relative to your runway: runway is always maked according to the magnetic north.

• V1.5 Log Cross wind tab:

• v1.6 Log Cross wind tab:

Nav Log - vNext

For the Nav Log under the VNext - TC and MC first folder, it's the same as the main one above, I just added the Magnetic Course column because in Canada SDA (Southern Domestic Airspace) and in the US the VFR cruise altitude is determined by the Magnetic Course, then it's easier to check and set an altitude just after the MC calculation (and the terrain physics and the airspace classes of course), and I removed the True Heading column because with the MC calculated, we obtain directly the Magnetic Heading aka MH from the Magnetic Course aka MC to which we add the WCA (Wind Correction Angle) (MH = MC + WCA).