Plan B for Filing, Activating, and Closing Flight Plans

 

Aviation Weather Center (AWC) Prog Chart

Forty years ago, filing a flight plan was complicated. You wrote the relevant information on a special form, called the flight service, and explained that you wanted to file a flight plan.

In a tedious back and forth, you transmitted the data in the sequence provided by the form, often interrupted by clarification of names and other possibly misunderstood information.

Activation was done after takeoff. You called the flight service using a particular frequency. This often was done under pressure since you wanted to use the radio for something else, like listening to other traffic in the area.

This gradually improved, and you could file the flight plan using a computer. But if you took off immediately afterward and tried to activate the flight plan, the Flight Service didn’t have access to the flight plan yet and hence couldn’t activate it. 

The remedy to that problem was a tedious filing process done via radio, with lots of corrections and back-and-forth discussion, and finally activation.

Closing the flight plan was done just before arriving at the destination, but then under even more pressure since you also wanted to monitor other frequencies. Sometimes it couldn’t be done in the air at all since listening to some other frequency such as the control tower was mandatory. 

In the latter case, you called the Flight Service via phone once on the ground. The latter step sometimes got bungled since other demands came up after landing and you forgot to close the flight plan.

Recent years have added another headache to that process. The Flight Service sometimes does not pick up on the published frequency. Worse yet, many VORs don’t handle voice communication anymore, and there may be no frequency available to activate or close a flight plan in the air.

It’s time for plan B, wouldn’t you say? Here is our solution using the iPad with Garmin Pilot. Similar steps are surely possible with other software, such as ForeFlight.

You prepare the flight plan just as you do now, inserting the departure and destination airports, the approximate time of departure, time en route, and so on.

At the airport, you load and preflight the plane as usual. After starting the engine, you file and activate the flight plan as follows. 

Let's assume that your iPad has cell phone connection. You bring up the flight planning page of the Garmin Pilot and click on "file flight plan." Once that is completed, typically in a few seconds, click on "activate flight plan."

When you have arrived at your destination and have shut down the engine, you go to the Flight Planning page and click on "close flight plan." In a few seconds, that's done, too.

The case where your iPad doesn't have cell phone connection—as is our situation—requires one more step for the filing, activation, and closing of the flight plan: Using your phone, you create a Wi-Fi hotspot and initialize the Wi-Fi connection on your iPad.

We have used this method now on several trips. It is wonderful. Finally, no contact is needed at all with the Flight Service for the flight preparation, the flight itself, and the flight termination. Indeed,

- Flight planning is easily done with AOPA Weather and information supplied by the Garmin Pilot. Here is a checklist for that step that you might find useful.

Origin: 
    NOTAMS
    Wind

Destination:
    NOTAMS
    Wind
    TAF forecasts

Route:
    Winds aloft    
    AIRMETS
    SIGMETS
    AWC Prog Chart
    TAF forecasts 

 - The filing, activation, and closing of flight plans has become a cinch.

- ADS-B supplies in-flight information about weather and airports to the Garmin Pilot.

Isn't it amazing how much simpler and safer flying has become since we started four decades ago!