Flight Plans

Flight plans are the primary method with which the user guides the aircraft using the SwiftTab. This section focuses just on regular flight plans, however, there are three special cases which are Mapping, Takeoff, and Landing plans. Regular flight plans consist of waypoint connected by straight line segments that can either form a loop or terminate in an orbit point. In fact, the most common type of flight plan is simply an orbit point that is used as the takeoff flight plan during the preflight planning.

Creating a Generic Flight Plan

1. First move the map to your desired mapping area. Both translating and zooming gestures are used to do this here.

   

2. Open the planning menu by selecting the blue plus icon. Navigate through the menu to create a Flight Plans and then New Flight Plan. Make sure the waypoints this plan will use do not conflict any other plans. Also type in the desired altitude. For most cases it is best to use the AGL feature which sets the height above ground level.

   

3. Define your desired mission waypoints by simply tapping their locations on the map. Note that the final waypoint is defined by double tapping. If you double tap an existing waypoint, it will use that waypoint as the last waypoint, if you double tap on a map location it will add a final waypoint at that location. Also note, that to simply create an orbit, double tap for the first waypoint.

   

4. Now that you have finalized your plan, make sure it captures your missions goals. To send it to the aircraft simply tap one of its points and click on the Send Plan option from the pop-up menu option.

   

Creating an "Orbit Here" Flight Plan

The Orbit Here functionality is very useful for quickly sending the aircraft to an orbiting waypoint. This feature is used to pause any ongoing process of the current mission by placing the aircraft in a circular orbit. To do this:

1. Select the blue plus icon to bring up the flight planning menu.
2. Select the Orbit Here option.

The aircraft will respond by heading to that location and orbiting there, the altitude of this orbit will be the aircraft's current altitude. Note, this feature is only available in flying mode and is meant to be used as an emergency feature to pause an ongoing task. You should not use this feature as a means of flying the aircraft to carry out your mission.

Modifying Existing Flight Plans

This section outlines how to use the SwiftTab to modify existing flight plans.

Editing a Single Waypoint: This feature is used to edit the location of a single waypoint. Simply use the press-and-hold gesture on a waypoint. Wait for it to be highlighted in red and proceed to drag the waypoint to its desired location.

Moving and Rotating a Plan: This 2 finger gesture is used to translate or rotate any type of plan. First select a single waypoint as if to drag with the press-and-hold action. Then place a second figure on the tablet to move or rotate the plan.

Cancelling an Unwanted Plan Change: This 3 finger gesture is used to cancel an unwanted change to a plan. This gesture has to be done while you are going through a single waypoint edit or a translation/rotation of a plan.

Plotting Flight Plan Elevation: This feature is used visualize the elevation of a plan's waypoints. Select any waypoint in a flight plan by single-clicking on it and select Plot Elevation from the dropdown menu.

Deleting a Flight Plan: Open up the flight plan menu by single-clicking on a waypoint and select Delete Plan from the menu. Note that the SwiftTab will not allow you to delete a plan that includes the Lost Comms waypoint, or if it is the plan that the aircraft is currently using to fly.