Say you are flying to Zurich but you’ve never been there. You want to join IFR at some point and file a flight plan with autorouter (or another system). The flight plan contains a joining waypoint which is, in my limited experience, always ignored by ATC. Zurich has about 20 STARs and there are several dozen waypoints around, any one of which could become your joining point. How do you prepare to know their names and be ready when ATC gives you instructions?
Background story: Flying back from LSZL to LSZH on a Z flight plan I had filed joining at ERMUS which I also prepared before the flight. After departure I contacted Zurich Information and they asked me if I would join at DETRI (which is nowhere need ERMUS) and the phrasing suggested strongly that that’s what I should have expected. Note that I had called ATC on the phone before the flight to had received the squawk and joining frequency, as is required in Switzerland, and the joining point was not mentioned. So in the air I had to ask ATC to spell the waypoint name and then at a moment of quite high workload because of clouds and mountains around had to search for it and confirm if I could join there. Because of the bad weather I could not proceed VFR to DETRI and informed ATC I would stay VFR and report when ready to join. Several minutes later I asked for joining IFR and contacted Swiss Radar who gave me clearance to fly direct to KELIP and then follow the KELIP 2G STAR. Here comes the STAR knowledge: I had to search for it as well because it is one I had never used. All this increased my workload and I felt falling “behind the airplane”, so I had to concentrate hard and work methodically in order to catch up. And this is my “home” airport but having no experience coming IFR from the south, it was new for me and it would be even more new information if going to an unfamiliar airport.
My lesson learned is that I have to prepare better for the possible scenarios. STARs, or at least their names, are somewhat possible to prepare or at least shortly review all of them, knowing which direction you are coming from. However, I think that knowing the names of all waypoints around every airport you approach is quite difficult if not impossible. Hence my question.
This is the autorouter suggested route:
LSZL N0184F140 DETRI/N0184F140 IFR Z651 KELIP KELIP2G LSZH
Vladimir wrote:
and the phrasing suggested strongly that that’s what I should have expected
I actually think that Zürich information tried to do you a favour by offering to join at DETRI which is a lot closer to LSZL than ERMUS. But the MEA on Z651 is 14000’, so that is a factor you need to take into consideration. You may have gotten KELIP for the same reason. There could be tactical/strategic reasons why they preferred to bring you in over KELIP rather than ERMUS, but that would require some local knowledge to grasp.
The minimum altitude on the KELIP2G between KELIP and MOSIT is 14000’, so I assume you were capable of that altitude. In that case you could have accepted an IFR clearance to DETRI at 14000’ unless worried about icing. You would probably have gotten that if you explained to Zürich information that you were not able to maintain VMC to DETRI. And there was no reason to wait until you reached DETRI to change rules.
In any event I think your experience is just life as an IFR pilot. You make a plan but you may need to change your plan underway. And yes, that does increase your workload. If you had very good reasons to, you could have insisted on continuing VFR to ERMUS and asked for IFR join when approaching.
When ATC asks for something, or offers you something, you need to evaluate the consequence for you and the reason why ATC asks or offers. They are not always very forthcoming with the reason, but more often than not it will be to your advantage. They will for example often offer shortcuts. Sometimes they need you to avoid an active aerobatic box or parajumping area. My take on that is that I will accept unless there is a good reason to. Good communication with ATC, conveying your point of view and constraints, and understanding the reason for ask for this or that. If there is no real consequence to me, like pointing me to a CB or being worried about fuel, I always accept an instruction assuming that ATC has a good reason to issue that instruction.
I once received a completely different routing in Germany further west than what I had filed departing from LFST going to Malmö, only rejoining my filed route on the Baltic coast.
Having a tablet with Jepp FD makes it easy to look up the waypoint if it is not on your flightplan and does reduce the workload.
It seems to me that you are a little too hung up in transitioning to IFR at a certain point. Just because you filed an IFR transition at a certain point does not mean that you need to wait to reach that point to transition to IFR. ATC can give you an IFR clearance at any point.
Wrt STAR knowledge, it would take me 30 seconds to enter it into my navigator, and another 30 seconds to bring the plate up on my tablet.
The route I got was different: LSZL N0148F120 ERMUS/N0148F120 IFR LSZH, most probably because of the max FL I had provided. ATC was very helpful and did their job perfectly, so I have no complains. Also no complains about the routing system or changes that are understandably needed – I know that I will most probably not fly what I file. A good example is departure from LSZH where the system accepts flight plans for any runway but departures are almost always from 28, so the filed SID is almost never correct. This is not a problem for me.
My question is how to learn from this experience and prepare better for the next flight. To simplify it, say you get a “You are now IFR, direct to FREDK, cleared for KRA 2V”. OK, if you know everything in the area and the names of all the points, I agree that you need max 30 sec to set it up. However, if you don’t, you need the spelling of the point and the STAR and that’s what I want to improve – how do I get prepared for all (plausible) join clearances, so that I can be ready with my setup in 30-60 seconds. Do you have any strategies except, of course, going through all points in the expected joining area and trying to learn them by heart.
Vladimir wrote:
Because of the bad weather I could not proceed VFR to DETRI and informed ATC I would stay VFR
If you were able to (altitude, icing, convectivity), you could have requested IFR to DETRI because you would be unable to maintain VMC. But maybe you were too low for them to allow you to proceed IFR to DETRI?
Vladimir wrote:
My question is how to learn from this experience and prepare better for the next flight. To simplify it, say you get a “You are now IFR, direct to FREDK, cleared for KRA 2V”. OK, if you know everything in the area and the names of all the points, I agree that you need max 30 sec to set it up. However, if you don’t, you need the spelling of the point and the STAR and that’s what I want to improve – how do I get prepared for all (plausible) join clearances, so that I can be ready with my setup in 30-60 seconds.
You cannot be ready for everything, especially when doing a VFR to IFR transition in the vicinity of your destination. Normally you know what the last en-route point is and hence more or less what STAR to expect. The thing that made it complicated for you is that ATC offered a different route to your destination and a more or less immediate IFR transition that you did not expect. And it is perfectly normal you did not expect it. By definition the unexpected cannot be expected.
In these RNAV days it is not complicated to comply with such ATC instructions as long as you understand what the waypoint is. If the waypoint is on your route, it will be in your PLOG, and just scanning through your PLOG there is a good chance you will find the waypoint even if you did not quite get the spelling. Otherwise you need to ask ATC to spell it for you so you can enter it into your navigator, check bearing and distance to make sure they do not point you into a mountain, and activate. Once you are en-route to the first waypoint on the STAR you can take a look at the STAR, check for altitude restrictions and plan for the transition to your expected approach.
If you are unsure you can comply or ant to buy yourself some time, use the magic phrase “standby”.
You cannot possibly learn all STARs and transitions into an airport, so sometimes you just need to accept that you must come up with a new plan.
Vladimir wrote:
if you know everything in the area and the names of all the points, I agree that you need max 30 sec to set it up.
Entering KRA into your navigator’s flightplan, pressing GOTO, then loading the KRA2V arrival does not take long… Pulling up your tablet, finding the KRA2V plate, does not take long either.
There is nothing you can do. First priority is load the DCT. Once heading in the right direction, look up the arrival. Brief it. Load it.
Unfortunately this is single pilot IFR made harder by the VFR to IFR transition. On a full IFR route you will usually get the arrival based on your final waypoint.
No different than the typical Berlin heading 270 vectors to ILS XX. Followed by direct DBabc which isn’t on the iLS or original arrival. Even in that case, first priority is load the waypoint and go to it. Clean up flightplan etc later.
As an additional help if I’m too busy, I ask for a bearing to the waypoint, to at least point the nose in the correct general direction. It also helps find it on the map.
