ATC Flight Plan — Page 206, Lesson 212

I want to walk you through the ATC Flight Plan chapter. This is a critical document you'll file before every IFR flight, and it's governed by strict international rules. Let's start with the reference documents. This chapter has two annexes you need to study carefully because they're a common source of examination questions. Annex 1 is a copy of Part II, Chapter 8 of Doc 4444 — that's the ICAO Procedures for Air Navigation Services, Air Traffic Management. It covers the rules for ATC flight plans. Annex 2 is an extract of Appendix 2 of the same document, and it gives you the INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE COMPLETION OF THE FLIGHT PLAN FORM. These are your step-by-step rules for filling out every single box on the form. Now, look at the specimen flight plan form. In the UK and many other states, this form is called a CA48. I want you to refer to Figure 12.1 alongside Annex 2 as we go through it. The numbered items on the specimen form correspond directly to the instructions in Annex 2. Let me give you an example of how this works. Take Item 7 on the form: AIRCRAFT IDENTIFICATION. The instructions at Annex 2 state that the aircraft identification should not exceed 7 characters. It can be either the registration markings of the aircraft — so something like G-BNAC — or it can be the ICAO designator for the operating agency, followed by the flight number. In our specimen, we have BAW805. BAW is the ICAO three-letter designator for British Airways, and 805 is the flight number. That's 7 characters total. The items you can readily understand from the instructions are Items 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 16, 18, and 19. Item 15, which is ROUTE, is more complex and we'll discuss that separately later. Now let me decode the specimen flight plan for you. The aircraft identification is BAW805. The radio-telephony identification, which is what you actually say on the radio, is "Speedbird 805" — Speedbird being British Airways' callsign. This is an IFR Scheduled flight. The aircraft type is a Boeing 737, and because of its maximum take-off mass, it creates a Medium wake turbulence category. That's important for separation standards. The aircraft has a serviceable Standard communication, navigation, and approach aid equipment for the route. That means it's equipped with the basic VHF comms, VOR, DME, ILS, and so on — the standard fit for the route it's flying. It also has a serviceable SSR transponder with 4096 codes and Mode C. SSR stands for Secondary Surveillance Radar. 4096 codes means it can squawk any of the 4096 available discrete transponder codes. Mode C means it can report pressure altitude automatically to ATC. The departure airfield is EIDW, which is the ICAO code for Dublin Airport. The estimated off-block time is 1100 UTC. Off-block time means the time you expect to start pushing back from the stand or taxiing out of the parking position. The first cruising speed is 430 knots True Airspeed, written as N0430. The N stands for knots, and 0430 means 430. The first cruising level is Flight Level 290, written as F290. That's 29,000 feet on the standard pressure setting of 1013.25 hPa. So in one quick scan of the flight plan, ATC knows who you are, what you're flying, what equipment you have, where you're starting from, when you're leaving, and what your initial cruise speed and altitude will be. That's the core of the ATC flight plan.