Originally Posted by
MCDU2
How resilient are your SOPs for crossing the ocean? Ours typically start in the office. We print out paper copies of the flight plans (LIDO generated) and check the route to the track message (if on a published track), checking its validity etc. Onboard we use acars to download the flight plan into the fmgc. each pilot will independently check the flight plan routing to the box and vice versa. If there is time available before we push we will check the lat/longs of the oceanic waypoints from the fmgc (selecting each one in turn) to the flight plan. The flight plan gets various company prescribed annotations beside each waypoint to show this was done. Once we are settled in the cruise and well before we enter the ocean if we haven't checked the lats and longs then we do that. Then we check the track and distance between each waypoint from the fmgc to the flight plan. We also have procedures for checking the OCX to the fmgc. If we get a track change then a new flight plan is sent to use onboard from operations so we can do all the above checks and balances. As as approach a waypoint we will double check the next waypoint (belts and braces as it was checked earlier) and call it out to the other pilot along with the track and distance. We have a standard call of the pfd and ND as we go over the waypoint and we log various things as we do. As a further protection against a GNE we check 2 degrees after waypoint passage that we are on the intended track. We used to use a paper plotting chart for this and occasionally still do if the EFB isn't working for whatever reason. The EFB is a hell of a lot more accurate than the paper plotting charts ever were and gets the own ships position from the aircraft. The final backstop is CPDLC with its automatic position reporting.
I sincerely hope that every operator has resilient SOP’s for crossing the NAT. Nevertheless I agree with the TS. It’s 2021, why bot change it to something more user friendly.