USN OPARS

[Stirling_Taylor]

Any of you guys used the USN OPARS system for flight planning. It performs Route Optimization including off airways.

I\'m interested in hearing pro\'s / con\'s etc. in comparison to other systems including civilians systems.

Cheers,

ST

[meh130]

We used to use OPARS to wind CFPS flight plans, but the Air Force computer Nazis would not allow any non-Standard Desktop Configuration PCs on the LAN, so the flight planning computers are no longer network connected.

OPARS/CFPS was an awesome combination. It worked reasonably well for quickly and accurately winding low-level and SKE routes as well as high-level routes.

OPARS also has a duplicated system on the SIPR side which allows you to wind classified CFPS flight plans. This was awesome in the desert, especially when tactics has to generate 16 lines each with four legs with hard frag times at each stop.

I used to use the optimized OPARS a decade ago when I was in Rescue, but since returning to airlift, I either use AMC optimized CFPs or CFPS.

[HerkPFE]

OPARS was great for both the P-3\'s and C-130\'s. It was another program that was never crossed-serviced so that everyone could use it.

You have to wonder how much extra money each service could have to maintain their hardware if they would sit down in the design phase and shared programs.

Regards,

Greg

[Stirling_Taylor]

G\'day Greg,

I met with the USN METOC people (who run OPARS) not to long ago. The problem they ran into was that the USAF wouldn\'t give them the performance information for their aircraft anymore (such as the C-17). USAF didn\'t want their guys using the NPFPS winding tool with CFPS as it would demonstrate that their ACFP wasn\'t as useful.

PM me if you like and I can give you the e-mail address of the person to send your PFPS Flight Performance Model to - they\'ll add it.

Last I heard USN were adding a \"Thin Client\" similar to Jeppesen Jetplan so you can use it for strat stuff when away from home (easier).

In fact if your interested I can send you a PFPS form that prints your PFPS route out in a format exactly like Jetplan, calculates your 10% variable and appends your departure and arrival TAF\'s to the end of your form.

The USAF really should create a PFPS Module that gets your enroute NOTAMs. It\'s really not that difficult but you have to raise the requirement as the end user before they\'ll do it.

[jetcal1]

HerkPFE wrote:

OPARS was great for both the P-3\'s and C-130\'s. It was another program that was never crossed-serviced so that everyone could use it.

You have to wonder how much extra money each service could have to maintain their hardware if they would sit down in the design phase and shared programs.

Regards,

Greg

Don\'t ever mess with the rice bowls of our glorious civil servants. If a program crossed over into their branch, they would be out of a job!

[Stirling_Taylor]

OPARS have most USAF aircraft in their database. Just contact them at Fleet Numerical (FNMOC) in San Diego (or was it San Jose <shrug>).. they\'ll send you the software and give you an account.

The good old USAF will only response when you organize things yourselves. I learnt that - you should too

Use em.. works great..

If it don\'t work the way you like, email em (I can give you the email if you PM) and they\'ll actually change the software for you...

Best service I\'ve found in the US Armed Forces.