ICAO Flight Plan Form Item 10
 

Hello PPruners...

I've been in a healthy discussion about the infamous S letter for the Equipment part of the standard ICAO FPL Form.

The issue is GA VFR aircraft pilots using S for essentially VFR flights, with their aircraft equipped sometimes only with VHF RTF.

If you read PANS ATM Doc 4444 Appendix 2, Item 10, it reads exactly as follows (bold highlighting by me):

"INSERT S if standard COM/NAV/approach aid equipment for the route to be flown is carried and serviceable (see Note 1).

(...)

Note 1 - Standard equipment is considered to be VHF RTF, ADF, VOR and ILS, unless another combination is prescribed by the appropriate ATS authority."

This seems to be a merely interpretation issue. If the route is entirely VFR with no radio navigation aids whatsoever, and all that is required is a radio, isn't the aircraft using standard equipment for the route to be flown?

The discussion was mainly based on some AIS facilities rejecting flight plan forms with the S equipment, citing that if it was only VHF equipped, the letter to be used was only V, and not S.

What can your experience say about this?

Sounds like semantics. Do you want to communicate what the receiver will understand or do you want the receiver to reprogram, after clarifying once for you what it understands?
BD

My flight planning provider puts down every blessed character--looks like the alphabet. I think "S" plus SSR code should work and "R" if the route is RNP and "X" if MNPS, but we have "I", "G" and bunch of other codes.

GF