Olympic flight plan trial day

[cessnapete]

Did anyone get their FP accepted yesterday?
I filed four, all rejected for minor format errors, none of which would have invalidated a normal VFR plan, or caused any doubt to my route on inspection.
Using enroute airfield idents in the zone as waypoints not allowed,(much more error proof than lat/long) rejected.
No enroute waypoints between dep/dest, there were not any on my route just open countryside, not allowed, rejected.
Perhaps just me, but if my experience is to go by, there will not be much GA flying in the restricted zone next year!!
Be interested to know what proportion of filed plans were accepted.

[Jim59]

No!

I was delayed logging on because my password was rejected (documentation said use your normal ID and password); I was allocated a temporary password for the test only after calling the help line.

I eventually submitted a FPL at 14:40. I did not get either an accept or reject before the service was shut down so don't know what would have happened.

Not very useful from my perspective!

[Phororhacos]

Yes, it worked, and I eventually had a thank you message in my Afpex inbox.:)

[Andy H]

I submitted two flight plans, both through SkyDemon. The morning one was accepted, but I never heard a thing about the second, afternoon, one.
Andy

['Chuffer' Dandridge]

I submitted 3; 2 were accepted, 1 rejected for not having the Lat/Long for my ZZZZ destination inside the RZ even though it was accepted as a departure ZZZZ....???

Lots of non-standard FPL requirements, such as EETs for entry into the restricted zone which just makes it even more of a faff if you just want to go for a jolly round the block, even if you are based 35miles from the bloody venue!

Of course, we do live in a free world, so us GA pilots are not restricted in any way:ugh:

[Spaace]

I filed two and both were accepted.

The first plan was EGBW to EGTF routing DCT CPT DCT. The second plan was EBOS to EGTF routing DCT MK DCT DVR DCT BIG DCT OCK DCT.

As long as you had a defined point of entry for the Olympic Zone, I.e. CPT and DVR in the above all seemed to well.

My understanding is that all GA VFR in or in close proximity to the Olympic zones will require a flight plan. These must be filed at least two hours in advance.

[Zulu Alpha]

Is it allowable to file a flightplan from a nearby airfield 4 miles away with a 4 letter identifier rather than having to enter the GPS co-ordinates of our grass strip?

I would still depart from my strip which is 30 miles from the zone.

Unfortunately my password had expired so it wouldn't let me do anything. Didn't say anything about that when they sent me the password.

Hope there is another practice day.

[GeeWhizz]

Didn't try it myself. But out of interest what waypoints/routing was in field 15 on the plans that were rejected?

The language of FPLs is very specific that needs radio aids, radial/distances, or lat/longs (not VRPs, town names, etc).

Not wanting to teach people to suck eggs, but a simplistic VFR FPL route example would be flying from Earls Colne to Le Touquet. Field 15 won't allow 'DCT SHEERNESS DCT DVR DCT CAP-GRIS-NEZ DCT'.

It would have to be 'DCT DVR DCT' or 'DCT DET035008 DCT DVR' or 'DCT N513700E0003500 DCT DVR'.

Field 18 would then contain something like: 'RMK/Actual VRP routing: Sheerness VRP dct Dover dct Cap-Gris-Nez dct'.

Is it allowable to file a flightplan from a nearby airfield 4 miles away with a 4 letter identifier rather than having to enter the GPS co-ordinates of our grass strip?

This is possible, however it would be better to enter the strip in Field 15 as ZZZZ, then in Field 18 'RMK/Departure will be from a grass strip at......'

Also ICAO 4 letter identifiers can be used only for Dep/Dest/Altn. If you plan to fly overhead an airfield, an aid identifier would have to be used, or radial, or lat/long.

[robin]

'DCT N513700E0003500

That format failed when I used AFPeX. The N and E elements come after the lats and longs on the one I had accepted.

I tried one on SkyDemon Light and one on AFPex. Both were accepted but the SkyDemon took longer to be notified

['Chuffer' Dandridge]

Zulu Alpha,

In 'normal' ICAO FPL land, you can file ZZZZ and then enter 'DEP/Funny Farm near Bonkerstown' as your departure airstrip without the Lat/Long. In Olympic FPL Land, the 'normal' FPL rules appear to go out of the window, hence making rejection of your FPL even more likely if you get it ever so slightly wrong.. I'm assuming that once this happens, you go to the back of the queue if there is such a limit to the number of aircraft allowed in the Restricted Zone at any one time?

If you call the AFPex helpdesk, they will reset your password.

Robin,

Lat/Long should be 11 characters such as: 5437N00134E


CAP 694 - UK Flight Planning Guide (http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=33&pagetype=65&appid=11&mode=detail&id=2375) tells you exactly how to fill in a FPL

[BackPacker]

I have not participated in the trial since it's very unlikely I'll be flying anywhere near London those days, but I was just wondering. What if I use homebriefing.nl or use the Dutch FIS telephone number to file an (international) VFR flight plan which does cross the restricted area, but does not *exactly* conform to the special rules for these plans?

Most likely it will be accepted by the Dutch FIS because it conforms to the international/ICAO rules for FPLs, so I get an acceptance message. The plan is then forwarded to the UK authorities (which ones I honestly don't know - normally only the destination is informed). And they can't do anything with it because it doesn't conform to their special ruleset. What happens then?

[TractorBoy]

I wonder how many people actually took part in this? The area I'm based was basically non-VFR all day (around N.E. London) and I think it was only really clear west of London.