VFR flying (navigating via intersections!)

[genius-747]

If you plan to fly VFR ie: flie your FPL as "V" in the flight rules section, but you have the aid of an on-board GPS can you put intersections and VOR's / NDB's in your rout part of your flight plan to be filed with ATC?

I mean they may say "own nav to LIFFY" (an intersection east of Dublin, Ireland) knowing you are VFR!! is that acceptable with ATC?

[Rattus]

On our regular route from the midlands to France, we use one such intersection as a turning point to avoid needless hassle with controlled airspace. As it's on the edge of quite a large town, we simply put the name of the town in s15 the VFR FPLN.

Plan B is a VOR/DME fix for the same place

Plan C - spot the town!

Some of these intersections can be useful to avoid the alu/ply/grp clouds around VORs and VRPs, but always have at least one fallback plan in case the batteries go flat or Dubya pulls the plug.

I don't think anyone at a FBU reads s15 of a VFR FPLN very closely, unless you're overdue and he's about to press the SAR button.

Rattus

[You Aint Seen Me. Roit!]

genius.

Beacons yes, intersections no.

It sounds as if Liffy is a Visual Reporting Point (correct me if I'm wrong) and is therefore known to local ATC, but will almost certainly not be known by the people who process your flight plan in Brussels.

Strictly speaking town names should not be used either (I think!) although they are normally accepted. Rather, a bearing and distance from a beacon or airfield should.

I believe you can also use a Lat/Long position and if this happens to be an intersection then so be it.

[englishal]

Just curious why you can't file Intersections? I have flown to the channel islands before, and filed NEDUL THRED ORTAC JSY and no one ever complained?

Cheers
EA:D

[Keef]

If you look at an up-to-date VFR chart of the UK, you'll see NEDUL and ORTAC and KATHY on there, which I take as an invitation to use them on VFR FPLs to the Channel Islands. Likewise, TRIPO and JACKO and LOGAN, RINTI and DEVAL and many more.

I've never had a problem with submitting a VFR FPL with RINTI on it, which I do regularly when going to Calais, or with DEVAL when going to Le Touquet. Doesn't mean it's "right" (I have no idea about that), but it works.

[IO540-C4D5D]

I can't see why you cannot use any documented aviation waypoint, including those normally used for IFR, as a VFR waypoint, in a flight plan, or in a route programmed into a GPS, or in ATC comms.

Airways intersections make extremely useful VFR waypoints. They are all over the place, in all sorts of handy places, and when it comes to programming the route into a GPS they are much easier to use and less error prone than creating user waypoints. They are easier to speak than VFR reporting points because they have regular 5-letter names whereas VFR r.p. have silly long names like "Hengisbury Head"!

This may also sound silly but if you are under a radar information service and you say "G-XXXX next waypoint BRIPO" it sounds more like you know where you are going than saying "errr, we are following the coast until we get to Bridgeport" :O

[vintage ATCO]

VFR flight plans are not processed by Brussels, they are not sent to the IFPS addresses. They are sent to the centres of the FIRs you fly through and, most importantly, your destination. No one looks too carefully at your route unless you don't turn up at your destination.


VA

[Brooklands]

The AIC Yellow 87 Here (http://www.ais.org.uk/aes/pubs/aip/pdf/aic/4Y087.PDF) would seem to suggest that this is positively encouraged, and this is why the intersections are on the latest charts. Section 3.3 says that the French want to know the frontier crossing point, so they are included for that purpose

Brooklands

[Ludwig]

As one of the main points to a vfr fp is so they know where to find the wreckage if you don't arrive, I think you can use any identifiable points, provided they start and end somewhere either with an ICAO or ZZZZ with some manuscript notes in remarks.

Not only are waypoints and intersections useful in terms of direction, but some, like ORTAC, which are in all good GPS':) are useful FIR boundary markers. Makes life easy for everyone.

[rustle]

Not only are waypoints and intersections useful in terms of direction, but some, like ORTAC, which are in all good GPS' are useful FIR boundary markers.

True enough, but in my experience if you come back from the Channel Islands SVFR/VFR the last thing Jersey ATC will ask you to report is 50 North, not ORTAC. (Mainly, I suspect, because the base of N866 is so low that unless you're happy at <3500' you're in the airway at ORTAC :) )

I think vintage ATCO's point is extremely valid too - in that the "audience" of your FPL is fairly limited even when crossing FIRs (and much more so within the same FIR)

One place where these waypoints are very useful however is on the AIS website obtaining NOTAM route briefs - you can use waypoints where you cannot use airfields etc (much easier than lat/long or beacon/radial/dme) - Popham is a good example for me - cannot put the airfield in the (AIS) route brief, but conveniently PEPIS is directly overhead ;)

[QNH 1013]

YASMR,

LIFFY is an airways (non compulsory) reporting point on airway L975 and corresponds to the FIR boundary

[GroundBound]

Filling in the route field of a flight plan is to inform ATC of your intended route - so you can use published intersection names.

Most flight plans are now automatically extracted. In the '70s I wrote software for an Automated Flight Data Processing System for ATC to automatically extract the route from the field 15 description. Such software is now common, but the specifics do vary from place to place. As noted before, VFR plans don't get sent to the IFPS at Brussels.

What you can use in the route field is defined by ICAO. Ignoring route names (airways) which you won't use, the points can be VORs, NDBs, published waypoints or intersection names, lat long, or bearing distances.

I don't think that local names - such as towns - will be extractable, and might provoke errors and be rejected by the data processing. Depending on the ground system, a town name may be acceptable because it is processed by the Mark-1 eyeball.

If you use bearing/distance references you will get around these problems.

[Aussie Andy]

Whenever I've wanted to put an arbitrary point into a flight plan without having to resort to lat/long, I've used bearing/distance references in the form "VORbbbdd" where VOR is the ident of the facility, bbb is the QDR and dd is the distance in NM.

For example, DTY18020 would be a point 20NM south of the Daventry VOR.

This seems to work so I presume I am doing it right - but I would like to know where in the AIP this format is specified so I can be sure I am doing this right. Does anyone know?

Thanks,


Andy

[vintage ATCO]

Flight Planning in the AIP is at ENR 1-10 and para 3 deals with VFR FPLs but it does not contain any information about compiling a flight plan. There use to be a useful AIC but that doesn't appear to be available any more. There is a document CA694 The UK Flight Plan Guide but it isn't available to download from the CAA website.


VA

[GRP]

I'd always thought that if you filed a flight plan (even VFR) you were supposed to stick to the route you had filed. However on a recent return flight from Dieppe we wanted to fly a different route than the one filed before leaving the UK. Dieppe was closed anyway so we took off and spoke to Paris Info to open the plan. We then asked if we could change the route at that point only to be told that we were VFR so could go whichever way we wanted.

I was confused! We flew the amended route anyway at that point. I thought the idea of a FP was so people know where you are likely to be if you don't turn up! Seems a but pointless if you can change the route without telling anybody! Nobody we spoke to en route seemed remotely surprised to find us on the route we were on!

[GroundBound]

GRP

Filing a flight plan serves two purposes. 1) If you are in remote areas, it helps the Search And Rescue to find you. 2) It tells ATC where you want to go, and allows them to disseminate the information to all relevant units, ahead of you.

ATC is generally very accommodating (honest!) and will accept routes changes, and will notify downstream sectors and units of any changes.

In the case of VFR flights, where the en-route ATC service is mainly FIS, there is very little for ATC to do. Also, VFR flights are more subject to change because of weather conditions. Consquently ATC pays little attention to VFR route descriptions and generally treat VFR flights "as they come".

The real problem in deviating from your route is the SAR aspect. If no-one knows you have deviated and you don't arrive, it makes it harder to find you (assuming a remote area - Birmingham, doesn't count :) ). If you deviate from the route, but notify ATC, there should be a record at the ATC unit and SAR will be able to follow the notified change.

[vintage ATCO]

If you deviate from the route, but notify ATC, there should be a record at the ATC unit and SAR will be able to follow the notified change.

The only record is likely to be the RT recording. Imagine someone filing a FPL from an airfield on the south coast of the UK to somewhere 'up north'. En-route he talks to airfield A for a crossing clearance of their Class D zone. Airfield A would not know he is on a FPL, the pilot's call for CAS crossing is an abbreviated FPL and all that is needed to obtain crossing clearance.

If the pilot then says "I'm changing my filed route to . . . ." what does airfield A do with the information? He may write it down on the strip, although I doubt all would, but nothing would get sent to the centre or destination.

Then, if the aircraft fails to arrive at its destination and people start to look, someone may ring airfield A and ask if they worked it and someone may remember the pilot mentioning a change of route, or see it on the strip. But then there could have been a controller change. Or airfield A could be closed. The route change would be on the RT tape but it takes time to have it played back.

I am not trying to dissuade anyone from filing a FPL, but certainly within the UK, it is only of real relevance to your destination.

VA

[GroundBound]

Found this on the web. Can't guarantee its veracity, though :)

ROUTE

INSERT CRUISING TRUE AIR SPEED for initial or whole cruise as follows:

N (knots) followed by 4 digits (e.g. N0125) (K = kilometres per hour)

Note: there is no provision for statute mph)

INSERT CRUISING LEVEL for initial or whole cruise as follows:

A – Altitude in hundreds of feet (use 3 digits eg A025)

F – Flight Level (use 3 digits eg F055). OR VFR – for uncontrolled VFR flights.

INSERT the ROUTE to be flown as follows: for flights OFF designated routes, list points normally not more than 30 minutes flying time apart and enter DCT (DIRECT) between successive points. Points may be VORs, VRPs, land features or
co-ordinates.


It misses out Bearing/Distance which is allowed.

[GroundBound]

Vintage, you're quite right of course, it depends how each ATC unit handles VFR flights , and its why I said ATC usually take VFR flights "as they come".

I finally managed to track down the ICAO document 4444 which is the definitive document on the contents of FPLs.

In the route field, it only allows, airways, significant points (published Nav points, and way points), Lat/Long and Bearing Distance. The latter are to be referred to a navigiation aid (preferrably a VOR). The sytnax is 8 or 9 characters, being a 2 or 3 letter identity, followed by 3 digits defining the magenetic bearing and 3 digits defining the distance (leading zeros to be used, where necessary).

So, no place names or VRPs - you either use Lat/Long (messy) or bearing distance for published Nav points with 2 or 3 letters identity. If you do use place names, it will depend how the specific ATC processing system treats them. :)

[vintage ATCO]

Are VFR FPLs processed anywhere except by mark one eyeball? :confused: