Little NavMap duration info?

Been reading through the manual and playing around with the software a bit to get my feet wet. I'm trying to find out if it estimates duration of flight or time to waypoints? It would help to know roughly how long it would take not just to the waypoints, but also to the top of the climb and top of descent so I know when to descend (obviously for climbing, I level off once I hit my target altitude, I suppose length of time doesn't really matter so long as I maintain the optimal climb rate, correct?).

Been reading through the manual and playing around with the software a bit to get my feet wet. I'm trying to find out if it estimates duration of flight or time to waypoints? It would help to know roughly how long it would take not just to the waypoints, but also to the top of the climb and top of descent so I know when to descend (obviously for climbing, I level off once I hit my target altitude, I suppose length of time doesn't really matter so long as I maintain the optimal climb rate, correct?).

 

It may be in theory possible to have LN do this for you. I read that it was. However, I gave up figuring out how and don't try anymore. LN is extremely helpful for spitting out quick distances for all kinds of functions on the map. Once you learn those, you might care less about time calculations that obviously will vary anyway depending on speed and wind conditions.

When you investigate the flight plan after setting it up, you'll find LNM does indeed put times and distances for the various legs (scroll right) but I've never investigated the accuracy because I fly different aircraft at different times - the C152 and Cessna CJ4 do tend to be a bit different and until LNM knows what aircraft you're flying and has found the aircraft performance data (read the manual) it's a complete fairy story!

Of course it's the same with all flight planning programmes. I've played with a couple and all need the aircraft data before completion, even if it's just inputting your proposed speed - and the more sophistcated ones often go get the weather from external sources, which ATM I don't think LNM does.

I've found that, as long as you have a fairly accurate Aircraft Performance file (APF), LNM does a very good estimate of total flight time, as well as accurately reporting leg distances and ETE. Alexander Barthol provided 10 nice Aircraft performance files from his website and you can use those as a starting point to create an APF for most any aircraft. Involves using LNM Aircraft Performance Merge and average function and flying at different altitudes to establish a reasonable model 9kinda like figuring out your car's gas mileage over several tankfuls). I'm currently doing just that with the Modified ICON A5 aircraft.