ATC Flight Plan — Page 215, Lesson 217

I want to walk you through the ATC Flight Plan chapter. We're starting with the practical exercises that show you how to fill out and interpret a real ATC flight plan form. For the exercises that follow, we're going to use the Jeppesen High Altitude Chart E(HI) 4/5, which is the chart approved by the CAA for CPL and ATPL examinations. Keep that in mind — you'll need to be familiar with that specific chart. Let me walk you through Exercise 1. We have a non-scheduled flight from Cambridge, which is EGSC, located at coordinates N5212 E00013, to Munich, EDDM, at N4808 E01144. The route is: we join the upper airways system at LAMBOURNE, which is at N5139 E00006. From there, we follow airway UB3 to DOVER, then UGI to NATTENHEIM, then UB6 all the way to MUNICH. Now for the flight details. Our off-block time is 0920 UTC — that's when we start moving from the parking stand. Airborne time is 0930 UTC, so ten minutes for taxi and take-off. We allow 15 minutes from airborne to join the airways at LAMBOURNE — that's the time we need to climb and navigate from Cambridge to the entry point. The flight is split into two segments with different cruise conditions. From LAMBOURNE to SPRIMONT, our true airspeed, or TAS, is 330 knots, and the wind component is plus 15 knots — that means a tailwind of 15 knots. We cruise at Flight Level 250, which is 25,000 feet on the standard pressure setting. From SPRIMONT to MUNICH, we increase to TAS 350 knots with a plus 20 knot wind component, and we climb to Flight Level 290, or 29,000 feet. The aircraft type is a Boeing 737, identified as B737. The aircraft weight is 45,000 kilograms. The operator is CAMMAIR, and the aircraft identification is G-GRAD — that's the registration. For radio and navigation equipment, we have standard equipment plus UHF radio telephony capability. For secondary surveillance radar, or SSR, we have a transponder with Mode A, which provides 4096 codes for aircraft identification, plus Mode C, which provides altitude reporting. Flight rules are IFR — Instrument Flight Rules. The type of flight is non-scheduled air transport. Our alternate airport is Stuttgart, EDDS. For ATC purposes, we need to provide the elapsed time to the BRUSSELS FIR boundary — that's the time from take-off until we cross into the Brussels Flight Information Region. Now for the supplementary information section — this is critical for search and rescue purposes. We have sufficient fuel for 2½ hours of flight. We're carrying 119 passengers plus 5 crew members. We have an ELBA — that's an Emergency Location Beacon, also known as an ELT or Emergency Locator Transmitter. Life jackets are available, and they're equipped with emergency lights and UHF capability — so survivors can communicate on UHF frequencies. We carry four covered life rafts, called dinghies, each with an individual capacity of 32 persons. The dinghies are coloured yellow — that's important for visual search. The aircraft itself is coloured white with red markings. No supplementary equipment is carried beyond what I've listed. That figure shows you the specimen ATC flight plan form where all this information would be entered. The subsequent figures — 12.2 through 12.7 — show you how to handle specific situations like direct routings, leaving and rejoining airways, changes of speed and level, and then the completed exercise forms.