Whats an OFP?

[ImButterThenYou]

I don’t know if I am just bad at IF or what but what is an OFP and do I need to be using whatever it is?

[BennyBoy_Alpha]

It means Operational Flight Plan - it basically is the flight plan you are currently using…

[ImButterThenYou]

Thank you very much.

[CaptainSooraj]

OFP is an operational flight plan.

It’s basically a very very detailed flight plan, involving aircraft registration, operator ID, release time, takeoff time, weights and balances, TOC/TOD, average temperature, TAS/CAS/ground speed, alternate airport information and routes, fuel calculations etc…

It differs from an ATC flight plan in the sense that it’s got much much more information. I’ll demonstrate below… (Source: www.youtube.com/piloted)

This is an ATC flight plan:

And this is an OFP. Or rather, this is the first page of an OFP:

So you can see, an OFP is of more use in the cockpit to program stuff into the FMC (flight management computer), and an ATC flight plan is of more use in the Tower or across ATC service centers, or for a quick reference of your route and the relevant frequencies to contact. You constantly check and cross-check the parameters and conditions, while you’re flying, with your operational flight plan vs. what you put into your FMC.

Depending on the operator there are various formats and softwares to generate an OFP. I don’t know much about that, but I know that Lufthansa uses LIDO, Delta uses DAL, American uses AAL.

A fun way to think about an operational flight plan is: it’s like performing the entire flight experiencing the exact conditions and parameters specified in the flight plan, but all the time with your feet on the ground. Or if you had to play Infinite Flight, or any other flight simulator as a text-based game on an IBM PC from the 1980s.