About FuelBirds
What this is
FuelBirds is a small, independent, advertising-supported site built around a handful of aviation calculators and reference pages. There is no app to download and no account to create — you land on a page, run a number, and leave.
The tools
Six calculators, each aimed at a specific piece of flight planning: the Great-Circle Distance Calculator (shortest track between two airports or coordinates, in nautical miles, kilometres, and statute miles), the Crosswind Calculator (crosswind and headwind components for a given runway heading), the Fuel Burn Calculator (trip, reserve, and total fuel from distance, groundspeed, and fuel-flow rate), the Flight Time Calculator (block time from distance, groundspeed, and a taxi buffer), the Density Altitude Calculator (from pressure altitude and outside air temperature against the ISA standard), and the Weight & Balance Calculator (total weight and centre of gravity from each loading station).
How they work
Nothing here is a black box. Each calculator runs a plain, published formula — great-circle math for distance, vector decomposition for crosswind components, the ISA lapse rate for density altitude, moment arithmetic for weight and balance — against the numbers you type in. Change an input, the output updates; there is no hidden model behind it.
Where the numbers come from
The formulas are standard, widely taught aviation conventions, not anything proprietary to this site. The output is only as good as the input: a fuel-flow figure, a reported wind, a pressure altitude you supply. These tools do not pull live weather, live NOTAMs, or your aircraft’s actual performance data — that still has to come from your POH/AFM, briefing service, and current publications.
The museum
Alongside the calculators sits the Wings & Flight Museum, a set of galleries on the aircraft, pioneers, airports, and airlines that shaped aviation, plus the basic science of how flight works. Every entry, image, and fact there is drawn from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, not written in-house.
Independent & ad-supported
FuelBirds runs on advertising, not subscriptions or accounts — that’s what keeps every calculator free and open with no sign-up. It is a small, independently run site, not a division of an airline, an aircraft manufacturer, or an aviation authority, and it isn’t affiliated with any of the standards or references its pages describe.
Not professional advice
Every number this site produces is a general estimate, not a substitute for training, judgement, or official data. Before you rely on a result for an actual flight, verify it against your aircraft’s POH/AFM, current weather and NOTAM sources, and applicable regulations. This is educational content for pilots and flyers who want to understand the numbers, not operational or safety guidance to be followed on its own.
More to explore
Beyond the calculators, the blog and learnsection carry longer explainers and flight-planning notes, and the museum above covers the history and science side of flight. Spotted an error, or have a tool you’d like to see built? The contact page has the way to reach us.