Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

2 Answers

Practical flight planning

Asked by: 1906 views Instrument Rating

Hello all, this is my first post.  I have searched but didn’t find an answer.  So here it goes.

I am an instrument rated pilot looking to get more active using my rating.  When I did the training in Potomac tracon’s airspace,  I would file a flight plan playing leap frog from vor to vor along victor airways.  This often resulted in somewhat circuitous and senseless flight plan that I spent a lot of time thinking about.  When I would call to get my clearance I would usually get cleared as filed or maybe something different causing me to,have to redo the flight plan in my navigator, which negated the time I spent flight planning.  When I call approach even the updated clearance  would go out the window, and I would get a more sensible vector.  In the real world, how do you flight plan?  My thinking is that the goals are to have a back up for lost coms, have something sensible I can execute, hopefully an easy craft clearance, and stop wasting my time with flight plans that end up getting thrown aside.

1. I can continue with using the vor leap frog method.  The advantage is I benefit from easy to find waypoints that I can locate using vors or gps, and obstruction clearance, assuming I get cleared as filed.  But I infrequently would get this clearance and even less frequently would fly it.  Almost 100% of the time, as soon as I am radar identified, I would get a heading and altitude.  

2.  I see ForeFlight has recommended routes and recent ATC cleared routes.  These routes are often a more direct path recommended from random waypoint to waypoint cutting across airways and mixing in gps points in space off airways.  They sometimes include Sids stars in the flight levels, which I can’t use.  If I had lost coms it seems cumbersome to try to figure out how to locate these waypoints using crossing vors especially at a time when my workload would be high.  More sensibly I would just use gps.  I guess that is fine, but just not how I was trained to flight plan using vors.  And, I am off the airway so I have less support regarding obstacle clearance at a time when it would be nice to have more obstacle clearance certainty.  

3 I know it is frowned upon, but taking gps navigation to an extreme, why even pick waypoints at all?  Why not just file direct?  That’s the line I would like to be on anyhow and I don’t waste any time flanking some silly vor flight plan.  I do know I won’t get that clearance anyhow, but at least I didn’t waste any time flight planning something that will get thrown in the trash anyhow.

Training aside, what are some best practices regarding flight planning in the real world? Does it make sense to pick ForeFlights recommended route?  Does it make sense to pick recent act cleared routes?  

 

Ace Any FAA Written Test!
Actual FAA Questions / Free Lifetime Updates
The best explanations in the business
Fast, efficient study.
Pass Your Checkride With Confidence!
FAA Practical Test prep that reflects actual checkrides.
Any checkride: Airplane, Helicopter, Glider, etc.
Written and maintained by actual pilot examiners and master CFIs.
The World's Most Trusted eLogbook
Be Organized, Current, Professional, and Safe.
Highly customizable - for student pilots through pros.
Free Transition Service for users of other eLogs.
Our sincere thanks to pilots such as yourself who support AskACFI while helping themselves by using the awesome PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android aviation apps of our sponsors.

2 Answers



  1. John D Collins on Nov 28, 2021

    Depending on where you are located, filing direct, especially on shorter flights are what you will actually fly. In the Northern triangle, you can expect to be assigned preferred routes which will involve airways. In the southeast and much of the central US, direct flights or VOR to VOR routes are often flown as filed. In the mountains and west coast, expect airways or in California, especially the LA basin, TEC routes are most common. When you look at the ATC cleared routes on ForeFlight, in many instances one route will have high numbers of occurrences, so often you are going to get one of these routes or a variation anyway, so file it. You should use the SIDs when departing from one of the major hub areas, particularly if the SID has transitions. If your aircraft is GPS equipped, make sure you have set the appropriate equipment codes and in particular the PBN codes that apply for your GPS. If your GPS is a GNS430/530 or WAAS capable, I suggest using the following equipment codes: S, G, R and set the PBN code for D2 which allows filing RNAV SIDs and STARs.

    If you file direct for a route figuring that the ATC computer will figure out a route for you, that is OK, but not best practice. Become familiar with using preferred routes and see what other aircraft are filing.

    +1 Votes Thumb up 1 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  2. tnathan on Nov 28, 2021

    Thanks for your thorough response. My IFR training was to file these wacky senseless vor to vor along victor airways in the dc metro area but patomac would pick me up and vector me where they want. My friends seem to do what you suggested. Go into ForeFlight and pick the most common sensible route hoping to increase their chances of getting cleared as filed. I originally thought the vor leap frog was safer and easily identifiable. But in a radar environment patomac won’t route me that way and as you said with gps I can go to any waypoint if I lose coms and patomac goal is to get me to my destination and trash my strip asap. It makes sense that out west they would put me on airways more, presumably because of the mountains I don’t have to contend with on the east coast.

    The only down side I see to filing these off airway waypoint flight plans is that I would only use it if I am on my own and now I don’t have the benefit of the thought out airways with meas, mocas easily identifiable. I would be lost com and having to think about orcas. But I guess pragmatically you reverts to the mea acronym and should only get there if you don’t have an assigned or expected altitude. But it is unlikely to lose coms out here. It’s unlikely I wouldn’t have an assigned or expected altitude. So maybe it is an edge case.

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes


Answer Question

Our sincere thanks to all who contribute constructively to this forum in answering flight training questions. If you are a flight instructor or represent a flight school / FBO offering flight instruction, you are welcome to include links to your site and related contact information as it pertains to offering local flight instruction in a specific geographic area. Additionally, direct links to FAA and related official government sources of information are welcome. However we thank you for your understanding that links to other sites or text that may be construed as explicit or implicit advertising of other business, sites, or goods/services are not permitted even if such links nominally are relevant to the question asked.