London Heathrow to Paris CDG

EGLL is London Heathrow, LFPG is Paris Charles de Gaulle. These ICAO codes come from your Operational Flight Plan (OFP) — the document dispatch provides before every flight.

Your callsign from the OFP. BAW = British Airways ICAO code, 304 = flight number. ATC uses this to identify you on radar.

Short-haul flights often use a lower cost index than long-haul because fuel savings per hour are smaller over short distances. Your airline's dispatch sets this value on the OFP — it's not a pilot decision.

For a 45-minute flight you won't spend long at cruise anyway, and the route sets the ceiling: the UK Standard Route Document caps the Midhurst routing to Paris at FL245, and the French airways it joins are flown at odd flight levels. FL230 is both. The OFP specifies the level.

The F-PLN page shows your route as a sequence of waypoints. After entering FROM/TO, the FMS creates a skeleton route with a gap (discontinuity) between departure and destination. You now build the route through it.

In the real aircraft you would leave Heathrow on a SID to MODMI and follow airway M185 to Midhurst (MID). The trainer does not carry Heathrow's SIDs, so MID stands in for that whole departure here: it is where this route joins the airway structure. A waypoint typed onto the flight plan goes in at the line you press and leaves a discontinuity after it — the Airbus FCOM says a directly inserted waypoint "creates a discontinuity" — so the gap is still there, now below MID.

Airways are published routes in the sky, like highways, and your OFP names the ones dispatch filed. L612 runs from Midhurst south to BOGNA, on the south coast. The FMS checks that the airway actually passes through the waypoint you start it from — no airway contains an airport, which is why the route needed MID first. One thing to know about the gesture: typing the airway straight onto the waypoint's line is a trainer shortcut. The Airbus FCOM documents one way in — a lateral revision at the waypoint (its key with an empty scratchpad, then AIRWAYS at 5R) — and does not describe this one either way; the AIRWAYS scenario teaches the documented path.

When you insert an airway, the FMS fills in every waypoint between the point you revised from and the TO, from its navigation database. MID to BOGNA is a single leg of L612, so here that is just BOGNA — two airways from now you will see a waypoint appear that you never typed.

Not every leg is an airway. In the routing ATC expects for this flow, BOGNA to HARDY is a direct (DCT) leg, so HARDY goes in as a plain waypoint. Typing a waypoint and pressing a waypoint's line key inserts it ahead of that waypoint — the one you pressed slides down, behind a discontinuity, because the FMS never assumes the two join.

In France the airway is split by level: M605 runs from FL065 to FL195 and UM605 from FL195 upwards, both on the same track from XIDIL to BIBAX. At FL230 you are on UM605. The FMS flies the same line either way; the name matters to the flight plan ATC holds, and the OFP names the one that matches your level.

This is why you insert an airway rather than typing its waypoints: everything between your start and your TO comes from the navigation database, in order, so nothing can be skipped or mistyped.

In the real aircraft an arrival (STAR) from BIBAX into Charles de Gaulle would come next; this scenario stops at the enroute part. The PERF (performance) page is where you enter takeoff speeds and configuration. This data is critical for safe takeoff — the FMS uses it for speed callouts and flight director guidance during the takeoff roll.

V1 comes from takeoff performance tables or an EFB calculation. It depends on aircraft weight, runway length, temperature, altitude, wind, and surface condition. Below V1, you can still abort the takeoff. Above V1, there isn't enough runway left to stop — you MUST continue. A wrong V1 can mean a dangerous rejected takeoff or continuing when you should have stopped.

VR (rotation speed) is also from performance tables, based on the same factors as V1. At this speed, the pilot flying pulls back on the sidestick to lift the nose. Rotating too early risks a tail strike; too late wastes runway. VR is always at or above V1.

V2 guarantees a minimum climb gradient even with one engine failed. For the A320, it must be at least 1.13 times the stall speed in takeoff configuration. If V2 is wrong, you might not clear obstacles on the departure path during an engine-out emergency.

Flap setting is selected based on runway length, obstacles, weight, and temperature. Flaps 1 gives good performance with moderate runway requirements. Higher settings (2, 3) allow lower speeds but increase drag. Your performance calculation recommends the optimal setting — at Heathrow's long runways, Flaps 1 is usually fine.

In a real cockpit, you'd also complete INIT B (zero fuel weight, block fuel), review the secondary flight plan, crosscheck with the other pilot, and run the FMGS preflight checklist before pushback.