Rules of the Air — Page 111, Lesson 177

Let's pick up right where the rules of the air leave off — the flight plan. This is the formal document that tells Air Traffic Services exactly what you intend to do, and the rules here are precise, so let's go through them carefully. First, the submission. A flight plan shall be submitted before departure to an ATS reporting office — that's your flight planning section, the operations room, ATC, or a Flight Information Service office. Alternatively, if you're already airborne, you transmit it to the appropriate ATS unit or an air-ground control radio station. There's one exception: if arrangements have already been made for the submission of repetitive flight plans — that's a standing plan you file for a route you fly regularly — then you don't need to file each time. Now the timing. Unless the ATS authority says otherwise, a flight plan for a controlled flight must be submitted at least 60 minutes before departure. There are additional rules for flights entering an Oceanic Control Area — that's the OCA — but the key figure here is that 60-minute lead time. If you're submitting in flight instead, the timing is different: you must submit it at a time that ensures the appropriate ATS unit receives it at least 10 minutes before the aircraft is estimated to reach either the intended point of entry into a control area or advisory area, or the point of crossing an airway or advisory route. So in flight, it's a 10-minute receipt buffer; on the ground, it's 60 minutes. Now, what goes in the flight plan? The ATS authority decides which of these items are relevant, and note — these are not the field numbers you'd see on the actual form, just the content. Here's the full list: aircraft identification; flight rules and type of flight; number and type of aircraft and wake category; equipment; departure aerodrome; estimated off blocks time — that's the EOBT; cruising speed or speeds, expressed as TAS or Mach number; cruising level or levels; the route to be followed; destination aerodrome and estimated elapsed time — the EET; alternate aerodrome; fuel endurance; total number of persons on board, including dead bodies — that's the POB; emergency and survival equipment; and other information. Finally, changes. With the exception of inadvertent deviation — meaning an unintentional drift off your planned path — all changes to a flight plan submitted for IFR flight, or for a VFR flight operated as a controlled flight, must be reported as soon as practicable to the appropriate air traffic services unit. For other VFR flights — those not operated as controlled — significant changes to the flight plan must also be reported as soon as practicable to the appropriate ATS unit. And there's a critical note here: if your fuel endurance or your total number of people on board is incorrect at the time of departure, that constitutes a significant change and must be reported. So even though those two items might seem like minor details, getting them wrong at departure triggers a mandatory report. That's the rule — keep it in mind.