392 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
392 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
TRIP PLAN II USER'S GUIDE
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To run the Trip Plan II program type TP2 and press <Enter>.
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Trip Plan II is a time & distance calculator designed primarily to aid in
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the scheduling of private and corporate aircraft.
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Because it can estimate road miles as well as air miles, it can be very
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helpful in planning vacation and other road trips.
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It comes with a data base containing the geographical location of 4,000+
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airports in the continental United States.
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The only limit on the number of airports you can have in the data base is
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the storage capacity of your computer. You may add additional locations to
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to the system, however you will need some way of knowing the latitude and
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longitude before you can enter them.
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There are a number of publications available that will have this
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information, and they usually can be found at your local airport.
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THE MAIN MENU
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After the program has been successfully loaded the following main menu
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should be on your screen.
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TRIP PLAN II - TIME & DISTANCE PROGRAM Ver 2.2
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Copyright 1990 by Matrix Software Co. All Rights Reserved
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PROGRAM SETTINGS Airports on File 4,004
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Mileage calculations are based on Air Miles.
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Speed and distance are Nautical Miles.
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Speed is set to 205 Kts.
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Layover time = 10 minutes.
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Wind Direction = 230
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Wind Speed = 25 Kts
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Cost per Mile = 0.09
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MAIN MENU CURRENT ITINERARY
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Lawrence Municipal
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(1) - Enter Trip Itinerary
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(2) - Add/Edit Locations
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(3) - Print List of City/Airports
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(4) - Change Program Settings
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(5) - Remove Current Itinerary
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(6) - Save Current Itinerary to Disk
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Press <Esc> to Exit program
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Enter selection >
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You may select any of the menu items by number or by the first letter of the
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selection.
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Page (1)
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You do not need to press enter after selecting a menu item. In fact while
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you are using TP2, you will discover that the only time you need to press
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the enter key is when your entry does not fill the entire field.
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The first item on the menu is of course the main function of the program.
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In order for TP2 to calculate distance and various other items of interest,
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you have to tell it where you want to go.
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When you select item 1 the trip itinerary screen will be displayed and the
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current itinerary (if there is one) will be calculated and displayed. The
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cursor should be at the next location for entering a city/airport name.
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TP2 is a disk based data management system. Most of the data needed to make
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calculations and display important information is stored in disk data files
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and TP2 needs to find that data in order to do it's job.
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Since it is a disk based system, the speed with which TP2 can find cities and
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make calculations depends a lot on the computer you are using. Probably the
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most noticeable effect on speed is a hard drive. TP2 works several times
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faster on systems with hard drives than it does on a floppy drive system.
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To help TP2 locate cities faster, we have kept them in alphabetical order in
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their files. This gives the program the advantage of knowing where to look
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for locations, rather than searching through the entire 4,000+ records.
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This also allows you to find your desired cities without having to enter the
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complete city/airport name.
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For example, suppose you are looking for Houston Texas. You could type "hou"
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and press <Enter> TP2 will find and display Houghton Lake MI.
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The program tries to match whatever information you give it to the first
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alphabetical occurrence in the file.
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If there is no match, TP2 will get as close as it can and display that city.
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When the city is displayed, it should appear brighter on your screen and a
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message at the bottom of your screen will advise you to press enter to
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select the displayed city, or to use the up or down arrows to scroll.
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In this example, you could press the down arrow 4 time to scroll to the first
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airport in houston which would be Houston Andrau.
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Now lets try another method. With a city displayed and the message line at the
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bottom of the screen telling you you can press the <Esc> key to Re-Enter the
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city, press <Esc> to clear the field.
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Type "houst" and press enter. Houston Andrau, Tx should be the first match to
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your request and should be displayed bright on your screen.
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Suppose you really wanted to go to Houston Hobby airport. Enter "houston h"
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and, bingo, Houston Hobby, Tx is displayed for you.
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Where there are more than one city and airport with the same name in the data
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base (example Lawrence Muni, Ks and Lawrence Muni, Ma) then TP2 will use the
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state for alphabetizing. In this case, Lawrence Ks would be found first.
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Even though the state is used to sort the data files, you CAN NOT use it to
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find locations. TP2 uses only the city/airport names in it's search. If you
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include the state it will be treated as part of the city/airport name and
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will not help you find the desired location.
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Page (2)
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Where you have two locations with the same city and airport name, you can
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force TP2 to sort one ahead of the other by changing the name of one of them.
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For example, if you want Lawrence Muni, Ma to be found before Lawrence Ks
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then select item 2 at the main menu and edit Lawrence, Ma so that it reads,
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Lawrence Muni, Ma.
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Note that there are 2 spaces between the word Lawrence and Muni. The space
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has a lower ASCII value than letters that might be used in an airport name
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and will cause Lawrence Muni, Ma to be placed ahead of Lawrence Muni, Ks in
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the file.
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When using menu item 2, make sure you have a few minutes to spare. Any time
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you add a new location to the system or edit the name of an existing one, it
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will automatically be sorted to the proper location in the file.
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This could take a few minutes depending on how much sorting and swapping has
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to go on. The sorting is usually done in less than 2 min. on most computers.
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Once you have your desired itinerary displayed, study the information to the
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right of each city name.
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The first column under RWY is the longest runway available at that airport.
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The value has been rounded to the nearest 100' and then divided by 100. Add
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two zero's when you read the number. For example the number 118 actually
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represents a runway length of 11,800'.
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Most of the airports in the data base have hard surface runways, there are
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a few with other than hard surface and we have tried to indicate those by
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putting an * in the last position of the City/Airport name field.
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The next column (MDA) tells you if there is a published instrument approach
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for the airport. If not, than it is a VFR airport and will have VFR in that
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column.
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If there is an instrument approach then the type of the first published
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approach will be indicated by one of 10 letters. The one letter codes are as
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follows:
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V = VOR
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N = NDB
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L = Localizer
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B = Localizer Back Course
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D = VOR/DME
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I = ILS
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S = SDF
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P = PAR or ASR
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A = LDA
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E = NDB/DME
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Following the code will be a 2 or 3 digit number indicating the lowest
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published decent allowed on the approach.
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This number is always rounded UP to the nearest 10' and then divided by 10.
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Add one zero to read the value. An ILS approach with a decision height of 246'
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would be coded I25. A VOR/DME approach with an MDA of 1212' would be coded
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D122.
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The next column is distance and is not coded. If you are using air miles for
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your calculations, you will find this figure to be quite accurate.
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Page (3)
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If you are calculating road miles, then there will be some error in the
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calculated distance. This is because TP2 simply applies a formula to straight
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line distances to give you the approximate distance by road.
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The amount of error varies according to the type of terrain the itinerary is
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over. Distances will usually be under estimated in mountainous terrain and
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over estimated in the flat lands.
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Next is the Avg Hdg. This is the approximate magnetic heading required to fly
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between selected cities. The effect of the wind and magnetic variation have
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been taken into consideration and as a rule, this information is fairly
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accurate, however, this program is not intended for, nor is it approved as
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a means of obtaining navigation information.
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You should use Trip Plan II for estimating and planning purposes only!
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NOT TO BE USED FOR NAVIGATION OR DETERMINING FUEL REQUIREMENTS
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After Hdg is the Ground Speed. Again the effect of the wind is considered in
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the calculation.
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Now that we know the distance and the speed, the ETE (Estimated Time Enroute)
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is calculated and displayed. When Air Miles are used TP2 adds about 4 and 1/2
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minutes to the ETE to allow for climb out and decent at airports.
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Finally the cost of the trip is calculated based on the distance and whatever
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you have set the cost/mile figure to.
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By the way, if you are using TP2 for quoting charter's, verify the distance
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and cost by some other means before you confirm things with your customer.
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WE CAN NOT AND WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR BUSINESS LOSS OR DAMAGES caused by
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or related to, the use of this program.
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With all of this information now displayed and the totals for distance, ETE,
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and cost at the bottom of the screen, press <Enter> with a blank city name
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and the cursor jumps to the upper right of the screen under "Depart".
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Enter your first expected departure time. Don't use 24 hr time. Use "A" or "P"
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for AM or PM and you don't need to use the colon.
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For example, if you expect to depart at 9:30 AM, type 930a and press <Enter>.
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TP2 calculates all of your arrival and departure times for the entire trip.
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Whatever layover time you have set the program for will be used calculating
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each departure time.
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You can move to any departure with the Up or Down arrows and change the times
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if you would like. When you do, times below it will be re-calculated for you.
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You should note that all times represent local times. Trips that involve more
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than one time zone have the Arrival and Departure times corrected to local
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times automatically.
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Use the Print Screen feature of your computer to get a hard copy of the trip
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calculations if you would like.
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NOTE: Some printers are not capable of printing solid horizontal and vertical
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lines. If your print out is cluttered by D's, M's, 3's or other characters
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where lines should be, you can toggle the screen lines from solid to broken
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by pressing the F10 key while in the enter city name field.
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Now press <Esc> to get back to the main menu and we will talk about some of
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the other features of TP2.
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Page (4)
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At the top of your screen under PROGRAM SETTINGS is where you will find the
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current settings that TP2 uses in making time & distance calculations.
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The first line is where you select <A> for air miles or <R> for road miles.
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If you select "Air Miles" then the next line is automatically set to Nautical
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miles. Selecting "Road Miles" will set it to Statute miles.
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You may override these settings if you wish.
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The next line is for setting the speed. You should use the average speed you
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expect to make good regardless if you are computing air or road miles.
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If you are in an air mile mode, the next line will be for Layover time. This
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is the number of minutes (0 to 59) that the program will use when calculating
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departure times in your itinerary.
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The next 2 lines are for wind direction & speed and the last line is where you
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enter the cost per mile.
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For road mile calculations, you would enter your average miles/gallon and cost
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per gallon. The cost per mile is then calculated for you.
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The Airports on File message at the upper right of your screen tells you how
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many locations are currently on file.
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You can add as many locations to the file as your computer system has room for
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but you should keep in mind that records CAN NOT be deleted from the file.
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To conserve space and keep TP2 as fast as when you first started using it, we
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recommend that if you need to add locations to the file, consider editing one
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of the existing records instead.
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Out of 4,000+ locations, there should be one or two that you will never need
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to go to!
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Just to the right of the MAIN MENU is the "CURRENT ITINERARY".
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If you were to Press "E" for Enter Trip Itinerary now, whatever city's listed
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under CURRENT ITINERARY would be calculated and displayed and the cursor would
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be in the next City Name entry field.
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You can remove the current itinerary at the main menu by pressing "R".
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This will only remove it from memory and not the disk file that keeps track of
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the itinerary between program runs for you.
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It you want to remove it from the disk file press "R" then "S" to save a blank
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itinerary.
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Most charter operators like to keep there home base as the current itinerary
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so it is ready to use for charter quotes.
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Menu item # 3 will allow you to print all or part of the data base TP2 uses.
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You can select any one state by entering the 2 letter abbreviation. The city's
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will be printed in alphabetical order and will contain all of the pertinent
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information such as Latitude, Longitude, Runway length etc.
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At the bottom of your screen is the date of the last data base revision and
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the date of the next scheduled revision.
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Page (5)
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Data base revisions are available to all registered owners of Trip Plan II
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for $15.
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The revision will include the latest copy of the program along with the latest
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changes and corrections to the data base.
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You can reduce the $15 charge to $0 by helping us make corrections to the data
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base.
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If you have discovered any errors such as spelling, longest runway, MDA, or
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Lat/Lon while using TP2, let us know about it at least 30 prior to the next
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revision date and we will allow you $5 credit for each error (maximum $15)
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that you tell us about.
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Please include your Name, Address, and program registration # when ordering
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the revision. If you are submitting corrections to the data base for credit,
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you must include the name of your reference material (Jep charts, airman's
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information manual sectional chart etc.) along with the correction.
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There is a $3 shipping and handling charge for a total of $18.
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Send orders for revisions to:
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Matrix Software Marketing Co.
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3308 West 22nd Street
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Lawrence, Ks 66047
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Page (6)
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