I don’t know about you, but an ICAO flight plan can be rather confusing and intimidating at first glance. However, once you go through it a couple of times, it really isn’t that bad. There are a couple of fields that are different and take a little explanation but that’s why I’m here!

In order to help you, I’ve created a short video tutorial describing and explaining the fields found on a FAA form 7233-4 or International Flight Plan form. I have to add a disclaimer. This is not a authoritative all encompassing, everything but the kitchen sink video. This is a very basic, here-is-how-I-did-it, kind of video. I ask that you check, use and consult all references provided by the FAA (not me).

Here are some links to references to use while watching the tutorial:

FAA Form 7233-4 International Flight Plan Form (pdf)

FAA Letter to Airman concerning the change (pdf)

Advisory Circular 90-100A - U.S. RNAV Operations (pdf)

Flight Services - ICAO Flight Plans (the FAA printed version of this tutorial)

Roger’s Runway - If you have a Garmin 430/530 there is some more information here pertaining to RNAV capability

Doc8643 - ICAO Aircraft Type Designators

Information about what to put in Box 18 when filing RNAV

I can remember when as an new instructor my flight school purchased their very first Garmin 430. We were all very excited and as instructors we immediately realized that their were going to be lots of people asking us for checkouts in this airplane with this new Garmin 430. The only problem was, none of us knew how to use it. So what I did when I got home was go immediately to Garmin.com and download the training simulator. I then downloaded the user’s manual and set the two up on my screen side-by-side (tiled) and went through each page of the user’s manual while trying the function on the training simulator. Saved lots of time, money and received great training thereby putting me in a position to give great training as well. (I of course received a “formal” checkout from my chief instructor before giving any real checkouts).

Now that Garmin has the 430 and 530 WAAS approved, it was time to try this approach again. To start, I went to:

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=8052&tab=gns530

I looked on the right hand side of the screen and found the link for “Download Simulator.” Once you click that you will see a popup screen that will allow to select the simulator you want to try out. The Garming 400/500 WAAS trainer is almost 103 MB so if you are on dial-up this might take a while. Once you have it download you can install it by following the setup instructions. I would also recommend downloading the manual for the unit. You can download the manual for the Garmin 530 with WAAS here and the Garmin 430 with WAAS here. If you already familiar with the 430 and 530 but just want a quick rundown on the new features of the WAAS equipped GPS you can do so by downloading this manual from Garmin

Now that you have the manual and the training simulator launch both of them and organize your screen to look something like this:

To make this training complete you also should download an approach plate. If you are a member of AOPA you can download approach charts from their website. For my demonstration, I downloaded the RNAV (GPS) RWY 7 into Greene County Lewis A Jackson Regional Airport (I19).

Next time we’ll discuss some of the differences between a non-WAAS Garmin 530 and a WAAS equipped Garmin 530.

Fly Safe.

We had a great question on the forum tonight about shooting the MAP in Aspen, Colorado.

The missed approach procedure for this approach has you turn around and intercept the inbound localizer outbound (the back course of the inbound localizer) I know that when flying a back course inbound, you can set the HSI to the front couse and get normal sensing, but if you are flying outbound on the inbound localizer(the back course outbound, do you set the HSI to the outbound course( 300 on the Aspen missed approach or the inbound of 120 to get normal sensing?) Thanks.

Well, I thought a great way to answer this question would be to show you this approach by flying it!