READY TO FILE?

[Brian Hope]

File a Flight Plan Day takes place this Saturday, 12 November. The day-long event aims to get as many GA pilots as possible filing test flight plans ahead of next year’s London 2012 Olympics. Pilots wishing to fly though the Restricted Zone, being put in place over the capital and surrounding areas during the Games next year, will need to file an accepted flight plan with air traffic controllers before they can take to the skies.

GA pilots are encouraged to file a test flight plan between 10:00 and 15:00 on Saturday to familiarise themselves with the process and learn what they need to do next year to continue flying during the Olympics with the minimum of disruption. Pilots who already have an AFPEx account should log on through a specially created website www.olympicflightplantrial.co.uk, alternatively, pilots can use AFTN or other tools such as SkyDemon Light.

The plan should be similar to one that a pilot intends to fly during the Olympics, but as this is only a test, they do not actually have to fly the route on File a Flight Plan Day!

To avoid disruption to the ‘live’ flight planning system, and therefore the safety of real operations, participants are required to carefully follow several steps to clearly indicate their plan is actually a test. These can be found in the guidance at: http://olympics.airspacesafety.com/downloads

A podcast explaining all the details of File a Flight Plan Day is available at:

www.soundcloud.com/flapspodcast/caa-airspace2

For general information about the airspace restrictions in place during London 2012, including detailed charts, go to www.airspacesafety.com/olympics

Comprehensive guidance on filing a flight plan can be found at www.caa.co.uk/cap694

[rans6andrew]

is there any point? those of us without transponders are still stuffed for the duration!

[Flying John]

I sent my Flightplan - well flightplans. I thought I will do one AM and one for PM. Seems fair enough to fly twice in a day.

So I loaded up the test site and followed the step by step instructions given in the pdf file provided.

I filed both plans and kept copies. I also bought the plans back onto the screen (so you can operate as) and noticed that the olympic special address was missing. I thought silly me must have made an error.

So I typed in the address again (on both) and resubmitted.

Wanting to do it correctly I checked again (using operate fp as) and again the address had gone.

Phoned the help line and was told the system does that !!!.

I never did get an ack or an SMS or any feedback for any of the 7 plans I eventually typed in.

Did anyone else ??

Incidentally, are we allowed to use airfield codes for a VFR flightplan for the olympics, I know we are not allowed normally. Local instructors believe we can, help desk man said we can't.

[John Dean]

I only did one flightplan on AFPEx and got a message back saying my plan had been accepted by Atlas Control and thanking me for taking part in the excercise. The AFPEx system they were using seemed completely separate from the usual system as none of my normal messages or stored flightplans were available.

Normally the system will let you put anything you want in the route box so long as it is in the correct format. After all, it's a message which is read only by humans! The olympic system is different as the FPL is read by machine and essentially has to be in the same format as an IFR plan and IFR plans don't allow the four digit ICOA aerodrome code in the route box.

Another complication is that if you have a departure or destination which doesn't have an ICAO code then the first or last item in the route box must be the lat & long of the airstrip (or a radial and distance from a beacon).

[Chris Thompson]

I have it on good authority that over 800 flight plans were filed on FAFPLD. I know for a fact that many were rejected and many were never seen again. I put in seven typical plans we would get - to and from Popham (which is not in the Olympic Area area but our guys/gals may want to go to and from it so we would have to manage the FPL's anyway). The SkyDemon system appeared to crash on several occasions for the people I was monitoring as the "Popham Tower" AFPEX account. Also SkyDemon cannot be used to file a flight plan that leaves UK airspace (you fall off the end of its world mid-channel going to Le Touquet).

There is a tremendous amount of information to be gathered from this test so well done to all who at least "tried". If you have comments about your own experience PLEASE send then back to the NATS people asap.

I get personally peeved when it appears mandatory to have a mobile phone before going flying now! Even if I have one I have to be in an area where I have reception before going flying! Where does this requirement get stated in the ANO? Whilst I can understand that I might have to have a transponder, I to am one of the people who cannot fit one in my aircraft (no electrics) so cannot fly whilst this whole mess is on!