VFR flight planning issues

Anders wrote:

Good to learn something new every day. I had no idea that in some countries you could put in the names of visual reporting points in the route.

Does anyone know which countries that allow/require to put in the names of visual reporting points in the route?

These are mostly not VRPs, but plain old village/town/city/other locality names that happen to appear on the 1:500000 aviation map. It’s the most common way to define VFR flight plan routes in Hungary. Actually, FIC computers in Hungary have a database of those names and they can plot such a route without human intervention.

Peter wrote:

Does Europe have any airspace E F G which is mandatory-radio for day VFR?

Yes, of course. TIZs (class F in Hungary, class G in Norway), dropzones (interesting class G airspaces in Hungary), RMZs etc.

Thanks a lot @Hunnicat for the incredibly insightful reference. Man, that was worth its weight in gold. Thanks.

I have to add that flying over Hungary, I was a bit frazzled when I was given a 15 letter village name to report at…
Was rather unnerving trying to:
a) Understand what she just told me to report at
b) Figure out what that was (VRP, Airport, Village, etc.)

Used about 3 resources and 10 seconds to find it…
Like a few of us, I just said, “report uiasfhasuifaef” (or whatever it sounded like) to try to make it seem like I understood…

Thankfully, my civilian chart (non aviation) had the village on there and it looked exactly like it sounded. Otherwise, I would have just waited about 10 minutes and called back and hoped for the best.

The Hungarian controllers are really great in my experience. I’ve never personally had a bad one, and I haven’t had any of my flight plans rejected so far (fingers crossed) even with spurious coordinate sets everywhere.

In the very end, I don’t think that there is too much “new” in here. In summary:

• VFR flight plans and their processing / handling have always been and still are a very “national” subject. Little point in discussing this as a “European” subject. Too many differences.

• Transmission and dissemination of VFR FPLs in the very most countries (exception: the UK) is still a manual process which takes some time. Therefore, always file VFR flightplans one hour in advance. If you can’t, make it 30 or 40 minutes for heaven’s sake. But don’t expect to file, hop in to the aircraft and expect all stations to have a copy of your flightplan.

• Re field 15: generelly speaking: don’t
  use location names or VRP names. Some countries don’t like them. Don’t use coordinates either. Some countries don’t like them. Best way around, as a general plan for “Europe”: use only 5-letter waypoints (or navaids, if they are convenient). I have done so for years and never had a VFR FPL rejected, or
  “disappear”.

• Also: you don’t need to be too specific with the route. If you plan to fly some CTR transition (such as the one through
  Vienna city), there is no need to put all the defining points in there. You can discuss your specific plans with ATC once airborne.
  When preparing the FPL through some flightplanning software, make sure it did put all the boundary EETs in there. If not, add them manually. In general: have a look over the full FPL message on the last screen before the “submit” button. This includes a quick look at the addressing. Some people just seem to plan a flight in say Skydemon and then just quickly hit the “submit FPL button”, without any second look or plausibility checks.

• Always put your cellphone number into field 18 of the FPL. Like this, if the ARO (which you filed the FPL to) needs some
  clarification or further information from you, then they can contact you. In fact, I delete the “filed by KBLIHAEX” note from any FPL prepared by Skydemon etc. before submitting, because I know they will not reach me like that and I don’t want them to try doing so. Telephone is the way to go for any required clarification.

• Since VFR FPLs are so special, it is really not a bad idea, 10 minutes or so after filing, to call the ARO that you sent it to make sure they received and processed it. Saves those “we have no flightplan for you” responses, which are so utterly unnecessary.

I agree 100% with Bosco’s approach and have been doing that for some 17 years, but if you are a VFR flight, ATC still have the right to send you to a VRP and you don’t have the right to insist on an “IFR” waypoint, even if you filed one on your flight plan. Of course most of the time this resolves itself but not always.

I only recently made a discovery in skydemon. 99% of users have IFR waypoints turned off. When they file an FP (say Shoreham to jersey) it will use coordinates.

If you turn them on, and the route KATHY-ORIST SkyDemon will then include those waypoints in the FP.

A friend and I both flew VFR back from a jersey and due to my FP having IFR waypoints I got the route I planned and exited the zone in the right place. Meanwhile he was given standard VFR routing and his coordinates were ignored.

Hunnicat wrote:

KBLIHAEX as I know is not responsible for addressing. They (only) offer/prepare some AFTN addresses. Pilot is (maybe) the responsible person. But which pilot is aware of addressing FPLs according AIP ENR 1.11? They just click “send” and causes sometimes difficulties. I have no problem with FPL from CFSPs if it is correct. I am a member of European ARO working group dealing with VFR FPLs. And I work for ARO since 1997 ;-)

All the applications you mention (SkyDemon, Autorouter etc.) do the addressing and they do it according to the AIPs, although there may of course be mistakes. The pilot need not do any addressing unless for some reason they need to send the flight plan to an additional address.