Skydemon (merged thread)

Although it’s a right royal pain, I use AFPEX for all my VFR flight plans. This means carrying a PC or using remote desktop from iPad, but the feeling of superiority when foreign ATC quibble about not receiving your plan can’t be overstated. The stress created in this situation when you can’t be confident about how your plan was actually filed is very real, and in the middle of some VFR sea crossing is an unwelcome distraction.

And on those occasions where even an AFPEX plan is ‘missing’, the very phrase ‘filed by AFPEX’ quietens them down while they look under their desk or something. And for those hold-outs who still claim non-receipt, the AFPEX helpline will take an interest and even call back with an explanation about which cupboard ATC found the plan under.

But I completely endorse the ‘DOF’ comments above and always file from the hotel on the morning of the flight. Just make sure it’s 1 hour before, because many ATC’s will make you wait otherwise. That’s why I carry an otherwise unneccessary PC: some hotels block VPN’s.

@Aveling: if you have your iPad with you, consider leaving your PC at home and file with AeroPlus. For VFR flight plans it is completely for free and it shows you exactly to which stations the flight plan was addressed. It is my experience that we hardly ever get complaints from VFR flight plans gone “missing” and otherwise telling ATC that you filed via AFTN, will let them look again and find it about “all” the time. And, when filing with the free AeroPlus app, you don’t have to figure out to whom to address :-)

VFR flight plans often just get thrown away.

That surely depends on the implementation by the filing agency. I have some old (but still mostly applicable) notes here

Some agencies hold the (VFR) FP until the day of departure and only then inject it into the AFTN (hopefully addressing it appropriately). That avoids the legendary FP disappearance due to the /DOF parameter being implemented as a nail in the wall, inspected every morning, at the departure ARO

AFPEX is just a dumb terminal into the AFTN so it injects the message right away. I too maintain this as a backup. It always works, but needs a Windows device (or a nontrivial VPN/RDP implementation to a remote Windows machine).

I have in the past investigated the VFR FP loss issue (various threads on it here too) and one agency told me they found it was sometimes the dodgy implementation (basically a disregarding of) the /DOF but more often the FP loss was caused by people using text strings whose length exceeded the software capability (Copperchase etc). VFR pilots tend to file FPs with waypoints such as “Upper Warlingham”

I use EuroFPL for VFR FPs. It works great, even on a phone. In fact it even worked on my Nokia 808 phone, on which no other “modern” website worked. You get 10 free flight plans per month, IIRC.

I just had a look at AFPEX. I note their security certificate expired 83 days ago…

AFPEX is best launched not via a browser. I use a little file containing this text

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<jnlp
  spec="6.0+"
  codebase="https://ts3.flightplanningonline.co.uk:443"
  href="ATS/ats.jnlp">
  <information>
    <title>CADAS ATS Terminal</title>
    <vendor>COMSOFT GmbH</vendor>
    <homepage href="http://www.comsoft.de/"/>
    <description kind="one-line">CADAS ATS Terminal</description>
    <description kind="short">CADAS ATS Terminal</description>
    <description kind="tooltip">CADAS ATS Terminal</description>
    <icon href="ats.gif"/>
  </information>
  <security>
    <all-permissions/>
  </security>
  <resources>
    <java version="1.6+" initial-heap-size="64m" max-heap-size="512m"/>
    <jar href="ATS/ats.jar" main="true"/>
    <jar href="Resources/jh.jar"/>
    <jar href="Resources/jgoodies-common.jar"/>
    <jar href="Resources/jgoodies-forms.jar"/>
    <jar href="Resources/jgoodies-looks.jar"/>
    <jar href="Resources/internaldb.jar"/>
    <jar href="Resources/commons-logging.jar"/>
    <jar href="Resources/commons-codec.jar"/>
    <jar href="Resources/commons-cli.jar"/>
    <jar href="Resources/jcalendar.jar"/>
    <jar href="Resources/http-core.jar "/>
    <jar href="Resources/http-client.jar "/>
    <jar href="Resources/docking-frames-core.jar "/>
    <jar href="Resources/docking-frames-common.jar "/>
  </resources>
  <application-desc>
<argument>-jATS/ats.jnlp</argument>
<argument>-l30</argument>
<argument>https://ts1.flightplanningonline.co.uk/CADAS</argument>
<argument>https://ts2.flightplanningonline.co.uk/CADAS</argument>
<argument>https://ts3.flightplanningonline.co.uk/CADAS</argument>

  </application-desc>
</jnlp>

and name it ats.xjnlp.jnlp

Then a double-click on it launches the AFPEX app. You need to have Java so…

But this is off topic for Skydemon, who use EuroFPL. I wonder how EuroFPL implement /DOF. I will email them.

Peter wrote:

AFPEX is just a dumb terminal into the AFTN so it injects the message right away. I too maintain this as a backup. It always works, but needs a Windows device

Java runs fine on Linux and Mac OSX too. That was whole point of Java – to break the Microsoft monopoly!

Sure, but I don’t think many people managed to get the AFPEX java app working on these.

Also Linux and OSX rule out the main application area which is portable clients. No pilot will be lugging a Mac with him. Some might have a Macbook but the move is towards tablets and phones, if possible.

@Peter, so filing a flight plan on the day of flight is then the best thing to do. I think it is better anyways as on the same day you can quickly check the weather and then as a confirmation just file the flight plan you had prepared already.

Is there a reason for a VFR flight plan not to file at the airport, just before getting in the plane?

The airport is not the authority for it. See the AIP.