Additional Addressing for VFR flightplan in SkyDemon
 

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone has some good advice regarding flightplan additional addressing. I'm planning a VFR flight from North Weald to Jersey on Sunday and I will be using SkyDemon to submit the flightplan. If for some reason the weather is not suitable for the southerly Channel crossing via D036 I would like to divert to Le Touquet instead. I have entered LFAT as Alternate 1 (and also EGMD as a 2nd option just in case) in the SkyDemon flight plan - should I add addition addressing such as LFFFZFZX, LFATZTZX, LFBDZPZX & LFQQZTZX to cover Le Touqet? Or will this just confuse everyone?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Neil.

IMHO a VFR flight plan in the UK is just a paperwork exercise. As long as Jersey gets it that should be fine and I am sure that Skydemon sorts that for you.
You should very rarely have to add anything the the standard addressing.

As to diversions, you don't have to put any on a VFR flight plan (in UK/France anyway). Have a few sensible places in mind though.

I quite often include the ATSU that will cover me on parts of my flight, so as to ensure that they know I want to transit their zone / talk to them, and if they are good controllers they will already know my details, and be able to clear me through on first call, or tell me to go away!

This is particularly useful for flights through Oostend, as they have all your details, and appreciate being notified, or French ATSU whilst wanting to transit D or R areas, as they will already know what you intend to do, and roughly at what time. (you can request to transit all the zones in one go by asking the controller if they're not too busy!)

It all depends on the type of flying you're doing of course!

With regards to alternates, if you state them as alternates on the Flight Plan, they will already have a copy sent to them. BUT - remember that you may still require PPR at your alternate unless you declare an emergency!

Thank you for your replies. Very useful!

I work for SkyDemon and I can generally recommend against adding extra addresses. In the case of France, they ask (in ENR 1.11) for flightplans to be addressed to one central address, where their operatives then forward it on to whomever they deem appropriate. They can get annoyed when addresses are entered manually, since it subverts their official process.

Most of the time, SkyDemon is going to address flightplans exactly as per the instruction given in the national AIP, and the only time you are going to need to add extra addresses is when you know for sure that your plan wont be transmitted to an address that needs it - which is going to be pretty rare.

Bobby,

I used to believe that - but after my single leg flight from Copenhagen back to Biggin Hill, via northern Germany, Netherlands and Oostend about a year ago. I found that none of the appropriate ATC units had my flight plan, including Oostend who was a little unimpressed by the fact that I had not addressed the flight plan to them.

I also had a hiccup when flying from Brittany in France to Barcelona, where the ATSU had to search for the flightplan as it wasn't addressed to their respective military unit. I had assumed naturally that as my intended route crossed a military zone, that they would be given the flight plan, but they weren't. (again all filed through SD)

Technology is a wonderful thing, I too work in that industry, but it can occasionally fail (and often does too!).

Flight plans are only addressed to:
Departure Airfield
Destination airfield
Any FIR's the route passes through.

They are not addressed to en route airfields or to alternate airfields

It has taken a little bit of time and training effort for tower operators and their FP handling colleagues to get up to speed with the new digital filing methods, but I am definitely seeing massive improvements in this regard.


It used to be the case that I would get many phone-calls from pilots who had filed a plan, but whose flight-plans "did not exist" either because the central ARO had not forwarded them on in accordance with their own rules, or that a tower operator was not correctly handling them on arrival. Often, a firm "No, it has been filed in accordance with the AIP rules. Look again." would result in the plan suddenly being found.


Fortunately, I have not received any such reports in the last year, and I suspect that ENR 1.11 is now being referenced a lot more by handers. My suspicion is that in years past, when FPs were filed on paper, it was the filing agent who manually addressed the plans based on the planned route without reference to the AIP, and the receiving agents didn't have to do too much as a result. Since we have electronic tools filing plans using the official guidelines, the receiving agents need to be more aware of those guidelines and their handling responsibilities, which I am pleased to say is getting better all the time