To all you instrument pilots out there, I wanted to ask a few questions about IFR Flight Logs. The last time I was flying (pax on an airline) I got a quick look at their flight log to see what they put on them. I want to plan some flights on a real flight log. Could you please post a copy of the flight logs you use. Thanks
The airlines and larger fractionals and corporate departments have dispatchers that plan and file the flights for them (and they too use specialized planning software, its not done with a nav log.) The pilots don’t do a lot of the actual fuel/nav/weather planning.
I’ve been using fltplan.com for planning, it is very easy to use. I havent used an actual “flight log” (I call them nav logs) since I was still instructing.
Go to http://www.fltplan.com and register (free). Go to “new flight plan” input the two airport codes and click enter. If it is a relatively busy airport, the next page will list flight plan routings that other users have filed, and also routings from other nearby airports.
Ex: MHT-ORD
Recent IFR Routes used by FltPlan.com users between KMHT - KORD
…Distance Type A/C
CAM SYR J63 EHMAN YXU J547 PMM.PMM4… 740NM C650
CAM SYR J63 EHMAN YXU J547 PMM.PMM4…740NM C650
CAM SYR J63 EHMAN YXU J547 PMM.PMM4…740NM C560
CAM SYR J63 EHMAN YXU J547 PMM.PMM4…740NM PC12
CAM J547 SYR J63 EHMAN YXU J547 PMM.PMM5…741NM B737
More often than not, ATC determines where and when you climb and descend. Even for the relatively low altitudes we fly we can get as many as 6 or 8 different intermediate level-offs. A pretty standard example may be 2,000 initial - 6,000 radar contact - 12,000 center - 16,000 - FL200 - FL240 final. It is extremely rare, unless you’re in a very uncongested area (like I was a few days ago leaving Sydney, Nova Scotia) that you’ll get a climb right up to or even near your cruising altitude. Add that to the fact that most of the time ATC can give you shortcuts direct to another fix up the road or the ever-common deviations around weather. Or the altitude deviations for a better ride. So the plan you file and are cleared for is not often followed exactly and the fuel burn and times will always vary.
Yup! I know about that. I use it all the time. It’s wonderful. (IFR route saves me a lot of time fliping through charts figuring out a route. )
So TOC/TOD are not really that big of a deal. They’re just to help estimate fuel burn. How much control does ATC have when your flying IFR? Is it like the military, fly this hdg, climb and maintain…? Or do they more monitor you and advise you on traffic, etc.?
So ATC can “shorten” your route to help you out (traffic included).
Well the military flies in the same airspace with the same controllers as the rest of us (they just use UHF freqs. We can still hear ATC calling them but we can’t hear the pilots). Unless you’re in a non-radar environment (relatively rare in most of the U.S., even more so in the eastern half of the country) ATC pretty much tells you where to go and what altitude to be at. I may have exaggerated a bit about how much time is spent off-airway, but many times a routing is not a straight line and ATC can clear you direct to another fix along your route, bypassing the little bends along the way. As for the altitudes, using the flightaware tracking is not perfect because the next altitude instruction is often given just before the airplane reaches the original assigned altitude so the airplane doesnt always level-off before continuing.
And on his Aug. 14 flight to KSEA he tried to file ODESS.EPH6 (though not noted on the chart it is for props/turboprops only), and got in place of that vectors on the CHINS5 from the looks of it. Yet when they fly in from Canada, they magically have the JAWBN9 chart onboard…
Why would they assign a STAR which increases controller workload after FLAAK (trying to merge with the GLASR6 traffic) when two parallel STARs have pre-assigned crossing restrictions and established flow for jets?
???
I was referring with the JAWBN9 to your original post about the Hawker 800 pilot.
Sorry. I wasn’t able to post it as a table. This was the only way I knew how to post it. Do you know how to post it not garfed up? It just came out like…
Generally you post screenshots by using the printscreen key on your keyboard. When you do that in Windows it puts on your clipboard a copy of your screen, so if you open up Paint you can just do a paste (under Edit) and it’ll put the copy of your screen on the page. If you do an ALT-Print Screen (I think!) it’ll just do a screenshot of the active window, so if it’s a small window you don’t get all the extra crap you don’t want.