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VFR Flight plans and acceptable waypoints

So here’s the scenario:
1. You home base is under a class C in portugal
2. You want to fly up the river VFR and go over a 4000 feet hill and come back to base.
3. You need to file a flight plan.
4. You’re a low hour ppl.

Here’s what the route looks like:

Now, for the above skydemon would generate something like:
DCT 4104N00829W DCT 4106N00757W DCT 4112N00733W DCT 4117N00743W DCT
and last time I submitted something like this it was rejected with ARO saying that GPS cords are not accepted.
So instead I submitted:
DCT CREST DCT RESENDE DCT PINHAO DCT LPVR DCT

It had become a habit to call ARO to confirm my flight plan, but hey it worked the last 8 times… why would it fail today?

“C-UD we don’t seem to have your flight plan…” Porto being very helpful asked me to give them the turning points on the radio. This was when I was at 1500 feet with approaching big hills. The Portuguese “Resende” is simply unpronounceable for anyone speaking English with a Maltese accent. Anyway the whole point is that I ended up taking a lot of air time repeating myself several times and finally spelling in what is quite a busy commercial traffic area.
Thinking back I should have simply said “I would like to go up the Douro river please”.

My question is what is the correct way of filing this? Is it OK to put in the town names in the route section?

Here’s the AIP of Portugal: http://www.nav.pt/ais/cd/2015-05-28-AIRAC/html/index.html

If your flight plan was sent to the correct AFTN addresses as specified in ENR 1.11, you should be good. Sometimes the ANSP systems cannot correctly import a plan and then what you describe happens.

Geographical names are fine in VFR flight plans. I usually take IFR waypoints unless none available. Coordinates are useless because chances are slim the ANSP software converts them into something the human operator can make sense of.

Last Edited by achimha at 10 Aug 13:16

Thanks achimha for the addressing info.

If your flight plan was sent to the correct AFTN addresses as specified in ENR 1.11, you should be good. Sometimes the ANSP systems cannot correctly import a plan and then what you describe happens.

Here’s what I submitted:
(FPL-CSAUD-VG
-C172/L-S/C
-LPVL1715
-N0095A050 DCT CREST DCT RESENDE DCT PINHAO DCT LPVR DCT
-LPVL0105 LPVR
-RMK/PILOT * CREATED BY SKYDEMON, SUPP
INFO RQS KBLIHAEX DOF/150807)

Addresses: LPVLZTZX LPPCZFZX LPAMYWYA LPPRZPZX

The AIP says:

The flight plan and any other associated messages shall be addressed, by the recipient ARO to the ADEP/ADES TWR if available, to LPPCZFZX, LPAMYWYA and:
LPPRZPZX, if flight route crosses Porto TMA or if ADEP or ADES is LPPR, LPVL, LPBR, LPIN, LPAV, LPVR, LPVZ or LPCH.

So the addressing seems to be ok. When I called ARO they simply said “If you submit on the internet sometimes it goes to Lisbon but not to us”. The thing is this has worked fine in all the previous flights. However apart from the first time were I used GPS cords, I’ve always used IFR points, VRPs, VORs etc… I think this is the first time I’ve used town names.
So I don’t know… I will continue with the practise of calling up ARO to check they have it.

Geographical names are fine in VFR flight plans.

Beg to differ. They are not.

That is: The ICAO guidelines don’t mention these as acceptable waypoints

In practice, many countries don’t allow geographical names. Some however do, and encourage their use (Italy, Switzerland).

Germany does not allow geographical names in flightplans. Which doesn’t mean they will ignore a flightplan which does contain geographical names.

5-digit waypoints waypoints are certainly ICAO-complaint, but some places still apparently don’t "lik them in VFR flightplans (Switzerland).

Every country is different.

In your case, it is not certain that the FPL went missing because of the route (an ARO that will ignore the flightplan because there is an error and not advise the originator is a poor ARO). Could also have been anything else.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany
  • I never put DCT between VFR points and the flight plan never went back to me, have flown that tens of times.
  • Regarding Germany – I have used geographical points and it was never rejected. But it was some years ago I admit. These days using VOR/IFR POints is an easier way
  • good practice is to submit VFR plan only on the day of flight – I had a chat with ARO officers one day on this and get this recommendation -
  • VFR plans are processed manualy, not by CFMU computer like IFR plans. Some of internet services are doing a bad job of adressing, it´ s alway safer speak to you ARO on this
LKKU, LKTB

Just a week ago, I’ve had it in writing from the German AIS the geographical names are not allowed in VFR flight plans in Germany. But as I said, that doesn’t mean they will just ignore the flightplan – they will process it anyway.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

What do VFR pilots without IFR knowledge enter in the flight plan in Germany? VORs and other navaids are too rare to create a flight plan in a lot of cases.

LSZH, LSZF, Switzerland

I always used airway intersections and navaids.

I used to get them out of Navbox Pro.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

First of all – every country seems to handle VFR flight plans in a different way. In my experience, the best is to send it directly to the ARO concerned (Porto in your case) and not into ‘the system’. I had that issue a couple of times when using Homebriefing for FP outside Austria.

Looking at your scenario, there is, however, one thing I don’t quite understand – why do you (have to) file a route at all? In Spain, for example, this flight would be ‘local flight / vuelo local’, no waypoints required. Also, why the DCT? In fact I once had a FP rejected by LOWW ARO (I was flying with a British friend who did not believe me when I told him this wasn’t required and they would likely reject it). Reason for rejection: ‘we can’t find DCT in our database’, said with a sarcastic smile….

Other than that, if you can use intersections or navaids you’re in much better shape.

Michal wrote:

I never put DCT between VFR points

DCT is not defined in a VFR segment and should not be used because it would point to a waypoint named “DCT”.

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