The international procedures courses I attended (Scott IPC) and did online recurrents with (ATI) both stipulated that the plotting charts were part of the master document required to be retained (for 6 months?) following any flight in international oceanic airspace. IIRC the FARs require US operators to follow the ICAO annex 2 procedures. I would expect that other ICAO signatories have similar language in their own aviation regulations.
The potential practical benefit of plotting the actual track of the aircraft on the basis of position checking should be apparent: The position checks plotted on the chart should agree with the the pre-plotted track. This is not only a GNE detection measure but along with the heading and GS info recorded on the flight log and forecast winds is the only remaining navigational basis upon which to continue the flight by dead-reckoning should a loss of navigational sensors or computation capability (GPS/IRS/FMS) occur. As unlikely as total navigation capability loss might seem in most aircraft today, the antiquated old plotting chart is considered to be the last line of defense.
So during the relatively small number of crossings I've done, we completed the logs and plotted our position as required by company procedures then turned them in with the rest of the trip paperwork to be filed away in a box somewhere. I sometimes wonder how close we could have come to hitting our coast-in fix if we'd had to rely on dead reckoning, especially in case of a contingency deviation from planned track or a diversion to an enroute alternate. Bad days are always possible!
Last edited by westhawk; 26th Dec 2012 at 20:15.