Peter wrote:
Sure, but what about cockpit workload? Preparation reduces that greatly. Nearly all cockups I have made (plenty, including a few CAS busts) were done by doing ad-hoc stuff.
What I meant is I’ll have all the points in the iPad(s) / Plane systems before even taking brakes off, but might not actually put that in the file plan, and be lazy and don’t put any routing (or minimum, as above)
Peter wrote:
The FAA CPL is much more flying-oriented. Chandelles, lazy eights – lots of aircraft control and understanding of flight principles.
We do lots of that stuff also during the 15 hours of CPL training (but not exactly chandelles and lazy eights as those would drive the flight attendants crazy if performed on the job later on… and honestly I don’t see the purpose they might serve).
Peter wrote:
Sure, but what about cockpit workload? Preparation reduces that greatly.
Of course cockpit workload is lowest when I have a pre-programmed line on my screen to follow. But for a VFR flight, why deviate from a straight line more than absolutely necessary and insert lots of waypoints? The longest VFR flight I have performed in recent years was from Stuttgart to Hamburg, all across Germany. The PLOG (and waypoint list in the GNS430) had exactly 4 entries: EDDS – November ( * ) – Sierra – EDDH. I could have flown to Luxembourg, Prague or Vienna exactly the same way (if the clouds would have permitted to overfly some control zones along the way).
( * ) gone in the meantime, now it would be Echo
If you are supposed to have a fix every 20-30 minutes to keep track of your progression, update your fuel status and ETA… If you are well instrumented, you could rely solely on the data provided by your instrumentation.
what_next wrote:
But for a VFR flight, why deviate from a straight line more than absolutely necessary and insert lots of waypoints?
While you may not need to insert lots of waypoints, you may need to enter waypoints.
Examples:
When I plan my flight on SkyDemon and I need to enter intermediate waypoints, I prefer IFR reporting points, simply because they allow me to copy the flight plan easily to the GNS430 or whatever nav equiment is on board.
Vladimir wrote:
A main question is if a VFR flight plan with IFR waypoints would be accepted. AFAIR, somebody mentioned that a flight plan in Switzerland was rejected because it used IFR waypoints. @Mooney_Driver, do you have any experience with this?
I’ve done this many times and never had a problem. Will find out these days I suppose now that we have to file a plan every time we leave ZRH.
I also asked ATC some times and they said that whenever you deal with ATC they prefer waypoints, however FIS doesn’t seem to have them here and I have had queries about them when communicating with FIS.
Enroute, as well in Germany as well as Austria and Croatia/Slovenia I only used waypoints and everybody appeared happy enough to work them, I even got clearances to waypoints all the time in Croatia and Slovenia in VFR, as well as in Austria and Germany in CAS with the corresponding ATC unit.
Peter wrote:
The FAA CPL is much more flying-oriented. Chandelles, lazy eights – lots of aircraft control and understanding of flight principles.
The reason for that is that the CPL prepares you for the next step in commercial flying… banner towing! 
I think that’s appropriate given that you likely have a little over 200 hrs PIC in a Cessna or whatever and therefore have limited experience in stick and rudder flying.
My GPS and planning waypoints are typically points on the ground that I select based on where I want to go plus safety of flight and aircraft performance (e.g. avoiding turbulence, not hitting a mountain, airspace issues and not flying a million miles from water and people). If there’s a charted waypoint of any kind (or an airport) on that route I might use it. I’m not typically in ATC contact on a cross country so the names are relatively inconsequential.
In Spain you’re expected to leave the route field blank in your VFR FPL.
In fact, if you put some IFR waypoints using DCT your FPL can be rejected, since DCT cannot be used here.
When flying to/from Portugal they expect you to indicate at least the IFR point where you’ll be entering or leaving their FIR, but nothing more.
And in France I suppose that they expect you to introduce some IFR points along your route, because when I have not put any in the FPL, then ATC have asked me for some points when flying.
Over here it is encouraged to use IFR points for VFR planning because they are immediately visible on the radar screen, unlike towns and lakes and rivers and lat/long and VOR/radial/dist. Much simpler, precise and concise communication.
The system accepts such endless directs in VFR flight-plans without problems. You don’t have to report your position specifically there.
You cannot put VRPs into CTRs in the FPL but have to fly them most often so they have to be planned for anyway.
Coolhand wrote:
In Spain you’re expected to leave the route field blank in your VFR FPL.So if you crash anywhere else than on the straight line from your point of departure to your point of arrival, you have time to dry dead and be eaten by the vultures before rescue service will find you. This is either very expensive (looking for a very long time) are very cheap (looking not at all), but not an efficient way of “rescuing” people. Not live ones.
In fact, if you put some IFR waypoints using DCT your FPL can be rejected, since DCT cannot be used here.Again, not very smart. Even airlines fly directs.
Arne wrote:
Again, not very smart. Even airlines fly directs.
I think this refers to the use of the three letters “DCT”. This is not permitted in VFR flight plans anywhere, I think. You are supposed to just put in the points, and it is assumed that you will meander your way VFR from one to the other, more or less direct. Thus, the term “DCT” really doesn’t have any meaning, as opposed to their use in IFR flight plans.
