ATC Flight Plan — Page 242, Lesson 246

I want to walk you through Item 19 of the ATC flight plan — the Supplementary Information section. This is where we record all the critical survival, endurance, and crew details that search and rescue would need if things went wrong. Let's take it field by field, exactly as you'd fill it out. First, ENDURANCE. After the letter E followed by a slash, you insert a four-figure group that gives the fuel endurance in hours and minutes. So if you have, say, five hours and thirty minutes of fuel endurance, you'd write E/0530. That's the total time the aircraft can remain airborne with the fuel on board. Next, PERSONS ON BOARD. After P/ you insert the total number of persons — that means passengers and crew combined — when the appropriate ATS authority requires it. If you don't know the exact number at the time of filing, you insert TBN, which stands for "to be notified." So P/150 means 150 souls on board, or P/TBN means you'll update it later. Now we get into the EMERGENCY AND SURVIVAL EQUIPMENT section, which is broken into several sub-items. Let's start with R/ — RADIO. Under R/, you have three indicators: U, V, and E. You cross out U if UHF on frequency 243.0 MHz is not available. You cross out V if VHF on frequency 121.5 MHz is not available. You cross out E if an emergency locator transmitter — ELT — is not available. So if you have all three, you leave U, V, and E untouched. If you don't have UHF, you cross out the U, and so on. Next, S/ — SURVIVAL EQUIPMENT. You cross out all indicators if no survival equipment is carried at all. If you do carry some, you cross out only the specific types you don't have: P for polar, D for desert, M for maritime, J for jungle. So if you're flying over the ocean and you have maritime survival gear but no polar, desert, or jungle equipment, you'd cross out P, D, and J, but leave M. Then J/ — JACKETS, meaning life jackets. You cross out all indicators if no life jackets are carried. If you do carry them, you cross out L if the life jackets are not equipped with lights, and you cross out F if they are not equipped with fluorescein — that's the fluorescent dye marker for visibility in water. You also cross out U or V, or both, as in the R/ section above, to indicate the radio capability of the jackets, if any. So if your life jackets have VHF but not UHF, you'd cross out U. Next, D/ — DINGHIES. This one has several sub-parts. First, you cross out the indicators D and C if no dinghies are carried. If dinghies are carried, you insert the number of dinghies carried, then the total capacity in persons of all dinghies, then you cross out C if the dinghies are not covered — meaning they don't have a canopy or cover — and finally you insert the colour of the dinghies. So it might read D/4, 48, C, yellow — meaning four dinghies, total capacity 48 persons, not covered, and yellow in colour. Then A/ — AIRCRAFT COLOUR AND MARKINGS. You insert the colour of the aircraft and any significant markings. So something like "white with blue and red stripes" or "all white, registration G-ABCD on fuselage." Then N/ — REMARKS. You cross out the indicator N if there are no remarks. If there are remarks, you indicate any other remarks regarding survival equipment. So if you have additional survival gear not covered by the previous fields, you'd note it here. Finally, C/ — PILOT. You insert the name of the pilot in command. That's the person responsible for the flight. So to recap Item 19: you have endurance in hours and minutes, persons on board, radio capability, survival equipment, life jackets with their lights and fluorescein and radio, dinghies with number, capacity, cover, and colour, aircraft colour and markings, any remarks about survival equipment, and the pilot's name. Every single one of these fields is there so that if you go down, search and rescue knows exactly what you have and who to look for.