In a typical scenario, the Flight Operations planners can create the flight requirements in an operational planning system and transmit them into SAP Defense and Security. At this stage, the required system type of the aircraft (for example, Fighter) and the required Operational Configuration (for example, Air Attack) are typically known, but the nomination of the aircraft to perform the flight uses also technical considerations (remaining flight hours, effort to reconfigure) and is therefore performed in a later stage, by Technical Operations working in SAP. When the aircraft is nominated, preflight activities are performed, including the adjustment of operational configuration (for example. adding or removing external fuel tanks or missiles). When the aircraft is ready for mission, the Flight Order is used to track the flight status or deviations. When the flight is completed, debriefing activities happen to record consumptions, actual measurements and malfunctions.
In the hierarchy structure, a mission is below an operation / exercise. Missions are used to map individual tasks within operations or exercises. A flight can be assigned to a particular mission. Several flights can be grouped together in one mission, and several missions can be assigned to an operation / exercise.
One of the central objects in supporting flight operations is the object flight. This is a special type of maintenance order that also contains an aircraft's flight-specific data. The flight supports the planning, execution, and completion of actual flights.
The flight order creation / editing application is built in several blocks, representing the lifecycle events of the flight. ID's and model ID are known when the flight order is originally created, manually or by an interface from an operational planning system. Flight Information contains more detailed information about the execution of the flight, such as planned takeoff time and runway. A Reference Object is filled in with the aircraft information when the performing aircraft is known. Flight Data is updated throughout the lifecycle of the flight to track flight status, deviations and required / actual configuration.
The flight plan lists all the flights that exist in the system for a given period, and therefore provides a quick overview of all flight-relevant data and simplified management of flight operations. Data from the flight and master equipment, the various statuses, and the configuration are displayed in the flight plan.
The Flight Overview can be presented in a calendar-like view using the Event Monitor.