and if they don’t have your flight plan, what is the best course of action? Refile? Contact whichever service you used to flight the flight plan? Just curious.
Depends on whether VFR or IFR.
IFR (Eurocontrol IFR) is very rare to get lost. A phone call from the tower to their local IFR authority will usually find it.
VFR flight plans (or UK “I” ones filed for low levels e.g. FL070 or lower, i.e. sent to London Control by Eurocontrol and then LC reject it) are much more likely to be lost, and the just re-filing (internet, smartphone, etc) is probably the best way.
The bit you might be missing is that a lot of pilots feel they should not have to make a phone call to check if their flight plan is in place
I wasnt suggesting ’phoning. I was suggesting asking when you pay. I think just about every airport I have been to have their own direct line to the tower who will provide the information. After all if the tower doesnt have your plan, be it IFR or VFR, then you arent going any where. I agree that you might feel if you have filed your plan properly you shouldnt have to ask – but the reality is it is usually you and your passengers that will be more inconvenience than anyone else when the “smug” controllers asks you to shut down.
@Fuji_Abound – and if they don’t have your flight plan, what is the best course of action? Refile? Contact whichever service you used to flight the flight plan?
Again, I always find “despatch / who you pay” is the best line of defence. if they dont have the plan at least you can almost always have a conversation on the telephone (which you are not paying for), explain where and when you filed and not surprsingly they usually seem to know who to talk to, to find out where it has gone, or will say dont worry I will refile for you. I have also heard some people end up reciting the whole plan over the radio, while everyone else sits bored to death, when it could have all have been sorted out before ever getting in the cockpit.
I just dont see the point of settling yourself in the aircraft only to find for whatever reason there is no plan and whatever it takes you are trying to sort that out in the cockpit driving someone else mad while doing so.
After all if you had a professional despatcher, the first thing you would do is call them and get them to sort it out from the comfort of their office – not your office in the cockpit!
“Booking out” and dedicated phones to talk to someone in the tower are kind of an UK extravaganza not easily found elsewhere. Anywhere else, I wouldn’t know who to call but “DELIVERY” or “GROUND” or “TOWER” (depending on the size of the airport) on their radio frequencies if I need to find out about the status of my flight plan. And for that, I need to have a powered airband radio.
Well all I can say is that is not my experience. Where ever I have been the person you pay always seem to have a point of contact with ops / the tower or the powers that be, or you actually pay in the tower any way. I suppose that sort of adds up because most places dont want to see you departing without paying, so as usual money drives the whole process. Also while I know that “they” would argue you arent paying for a clearance, I would argue its all part of the service and if I havent yet paid more likely to get that part of the service that driving everyone mad doing it on the radio.
Also, and this thread I think was more about requesting a start up, that is also all sorted out by asking the question when you pay. I never had an occasion when they dont know or find the answer, and, if you ask, tell you the frequency on which to make the request. I have had occasions when they say there is going to be a delay for one reason or another – which is great – time for another coffee in the luxury of the pilot lounge rather than a hot cockpit! (unless of course you have a young lady with you :-)
if they don’t have your flight plan, what is the best course of action?
Sometimes, yes. But at other times you just sit on your hands and wait for a while. It depends on the context and circumstances.
It takes time for a FP to filter through the system. If you do a FP the day before, or even earlier, it may have been cancelled out of the system already and you may need to refile. If you did an FP an hour before it should be there so something was probably wrong with the plan itself. So you refile but make sure you don’t make the same mistake again (like confusing UTC with local time – happens). If you filed the plan just minutes before, it’s probably not through the system yet, especially if you used a non-local FIO, so you just sit on your hands and wait a bit.
I once diverted into Norwich on a UK → NL flight, for a minor technical issue. After we fixed the issue I filed a new FP, hopped in the plane and asked for startup. Ground came back telling me that they did not have a FP. I told them that it had been filed just minutes before and that it would probably come through within a few minutes. So they were happy to let me start and taxi to the hold for my runup. By the time I was ready for departure, the FP was received and they let me depart.
I told them that it had been filed just minutes before and that it would probably come through within a few minutes. So they were happy to let me start and taxi to the hold for my runup. By the time I was ready for departure, the FP was received and they let me depart.
I like it, that is confidence for you.
In all airports with a start up clearance I had to be on the ground frequency of the delivery frequency. Although they were busy, as a SEP I have never had the waitingtime was long.
For the airports where you have to monitor a frequency I would borrow a second handheld radio for that or I would ask the NAV office for an immediate start-up before contacting them because of restricted battery power. My experience is that when you ask something nicely, there is alsways a solution. They also know we don’t have unlimited battery power as a SEP.
But normally I have more than 25 -30 minutes autonomy, so that’s more than enough to contact the delivery or ground for a start-up clearance yourself. It never took longer than a few minutes, also on the bigger/busier airports like Istanbul.
I’ve never particularly worried about current draw when waiting for a startup clearance. AFAIK the GNS430 14volt draws just over 2amp (more when transmitting obviously). So even waiting 30mins is not going to make much of a dent in a 50ah battery.
I’ve always thought of the startup request as being more for my benefit that for ATC. On an IFR flight I always ask for startup, it’s a way of asking “are there likely to be any holdups to my departure?” I certainly don’t want to sit there with the engine idling, it’ll probably overheat on a summer’s day. Furthermore I definitely don’t want to have to shut down and then restart 30 mins later.
what_next wrote:
Unless it has a “Ground Dispatch” switch (or whatever it is called with the various manufacurers)
I have usually seen it referred to as a ground clearance switch.
Jesse wrote:
This is never a good idea. Switch avionics off during start. Chances are small, avionics could be damaged or files can go corrupt (more common) when you do that.
But that means I can’t see engine instruments, annunciators, anything if the plane has G1000 or similar. Frankly, I think it’s a bad joke if a modern box really can’t take it.
On G1000 or Avidyne (old and R9) equipped Cirrus turning on the batteries turns on the “avionics”. There is a switch labeled “avionics” which turns on the rest. However you do start with the screens and computers running so that you can know engine data like eg the RPM or fuel flow. No way to not turn on the electronics …
Here you can see the connection of the handheld to the bnc plug in. In normal use the loop is closed and COM 2 is connected to the antenna. With handheld the COM 2 is disconnected instead the handheld will use the antenna.
Thank you!
