IFR Flight Planning with Garmin Pilot and the iPad

The vast majority of my IFR experience is in big airplanes at high altitude and long before GPS navigation became so common. I'd plan a flight with an IFR High chart and choose routing to most likely result in a "Cleared as filed" from clearance delivery. After takeoff, I'd request direct whenever possible to remove the kinks in the routing. When I bought my first RV, I used the same tactic with VFR sectionals and IFR Low charts.

My RV-7 is G3X equipped with a WAAS GNS400, I've got an iPad with Garmin Pilot, and while the transition from my paper chart days to now is proving to be exciting, it's also a challenge. The purpose of this post is to poll the forum about how you do it in the modern air traffic control environment.

My initial, trial workflow is:

1. Use the AirNav "Aviation Fuel Plan a Flight with Fuel Stops" to try and save some bucks.
2. Build the flight segments in GP by entering the departure and destination airports for each leg and direct routing.
3. Use the graphic flight plan editing feature to rubber-band the routes onto airways.
4. File each of the flight plans with GP prior to departure from home base. One possible glitch is that GP doesn't show the airways between waypoints on the flight plan form filed with ATC.
5. Expect (hope?) to hear "Cleared as filed" more often than "Standby for a full-route clearance."
6. Once airborne, be looking for direct routing.

If anyone has comments/suggestions about how to do this better, I'd appreciate hearing them, like if in your experience ATC is now prone to accepting more direct routing, with maybe a few intermediate waypoints that don't remain on airways?

Thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge with a dinosaur.

Tosh

Copycat

Your approach to flight planning and filing is exactly what I do.
AirNav if I am going to need a fuel stop. (Although now with GP sometimes I will just visually look for the cheep fuel on the map).
Use rubberbanding to move a direct line to nearest airways.
File the airways.
In-flight ask for direct.

[email protected] said:

Your approach to flight planning and filing is exactly what I do.
AirNav if I am going to need a fuel stop. (Although now with GP sometimes I will just visually look for the cheep fuel on the map).
Use rubberbanding to move a direct line to nearest airways.
File the airways.
In-flight ask for direct.

Click to expand...

Thank you, Bill.

For clarification, the fact that the flight plan form filed with ATC by GP does not show the airway designations between waypoints makes no difference in how ATC handles issuing the clearance?

Same process here, in fact I have never filed direct in fear of not getting it and have to deal with a lengthy clearence which would probably take me two or three times of asking "repeat please"

Tango Mike said:

For clarification, the fact that the flight plan form filed with ATC by GP does not show the airway designations between waypoints makes no difference in how ATC handles issuing the clearance?

Click to expand...

You can get the airways filed in Garmin Pilot, but it's not really intuitive; gotta be on the Flight Plan page and find the airway entry/exit points... Pg 40 in the GP Android user guide 'splains it. Once that's done, import to the Trip Planning page, hit the file button.

I've been using Garmin Pilot for a bit over a year now; initially I wasn't very thrilled with it, but they've made a bunch of improvements to it and just keeps getting better. Last weekend I used it for a 4 leg trip from Houston to Detroit and back and was just blown away by just how useful it is and how quick and easy it was to whip out and file an IFR flight plan. Enter the start/end points, rubber band to VORs or intersections, add in the airways, import to the Trip Planner, hit the "file" button. All done in maybe 4-5 minutes. Then hear the magic words "cleared as filed..."

Remember the old days of doing this with paper charts, a paper flight log and a calculator? Yeah, me too. I like this new stuff better!

Add me to the list for this method - direct point to point and rubberband to airways. I have NEVER been given a clearance other than as filed and often ATC is the one that offers direct, or, at the very least cuts some corners. There have been a handful of times when I've asked for direct when able and not received it, but they have been few and far between and usually in areas like the DC SFRA, which I expect.

And yes, jbDC9, I remember the 'old days' (really not that long ago in the grand scheme)... Being a new military pilot planing for an IFR training mission and pouring over enroute charts and plates with my paper, pencil, and E6-B; changing my mind a billion times, etc. My oh my, how quick, easy, and ACCURATE it is with today's technology. I always say, I'm very glad to have learned before TAA, but I DO NOT want to go back

Checking your flight plan once filed

Don't know if you guys have seen this yet as I just recently finished my Instrument Rating but if you go to flightaware.com after filing your flight plan (as long as withing 2 hours of departure?) and put your tail number in you can see what routing ATC has assigned to you before you ever pick up your clearance.

Andy

e-mail/text

If you check the box on Duats, they will e-mail or text you any routing changes as well

Availability of routing changes on FlightAware

andyrv said:

Don't know if you guys have seen this yet as I just recently finished my Instrument Rating but if you go to flightaware.com after filing your flight plan (as long as withing 2 hours of departure?) and put your tail number in you can see what routing ATC has assigned to you before you ever pick up your clearance.

Andy

Click to expand...

Garmin Pilot files the flight plan 1 hour prior to proposed departure, so you'd have to check after that. I wonder how long it typically takes for the system to process it and make any changes?

Adding Airways to a flight plan

jbDC9 said:

You can get the airways filed in Garmin Pilot, but it's not really intuitive; gotta be on the Flight Plan page and find the airway entry/exit points... Pg 40 in the GP Android user guide 'splains it. Once that's done, import to the Trip Planning page, hit the file button.

I've been using Garmin Pilot for a bit over a year now; initially I wasn't very thrilled with it, but they've made a bunch of improvements to it and just keeps getting better. Last weekend I used it for a 4 leg trip from Houston to Detroit and back and was just blown away by just how useful it is and how quick and easy it was to whip out and file an IFR flight plan. Enter the start/end points, rubber band to VORs or intersections, add in the airways, import to the Trip Planner, hit the "file" button. All done in maybe 4-5 minutes. Then hear the magic words "cleared as filed..."

Remember the old days of doing this with paper charts, a paper flight log and a calculator? Yeah, me too. I like this new stuff better!

Click to expand...

Speaking of old days, yes. My first year in college I carried a slide rule, and was delighted to see my first handheld calculator until I learned we couldn't bring them to class. I entered USAF pilot training in 1964 and spent many an hour with charts spread out all over the BOQ floor, spinning the E6B, using a enroute plotter for mag heading and distance, reciting "East is least..." all the while terrified that I was going to screw something up.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I've searched the Help file for the iPad version of GP and discovered the "Actions Menu" with the "Load Airway" option. Pretty cool.

[email protected] said:

If you check the box on Duats, they will e-mail or text you any routing changes as well

Click to expand...

Is this on the "My Duat" page, or a selection in Garmin Pilot?

There's a "new" look on Duat with a page that allows adding a "request" item from a list to a list of current requests, one of which is "Flight Plan Status." I tried selecting that to see if it would set the request up to be automatic, but it wouldn't let me complete it without having an active flight plan on file.

Adding

jbDC9 said:

You can get the airways filed in Garmin Pilot, but it's not really intuitive; gotta be on the Flight Plan page and find the airway entry/exit points... Pg 40 in the GP Android user guide 'splains it. Once that's done, import to the Trip Planning page, hit the file button.

I've been using Garmin Pilot for a bit over a year now; initially I wasn't very thrilled with it, but they've made a bunch of improvements to it and just keeps getting better. Last weekend I used it for a 4 leg trip from Houston to Detroit and back and was just blown away by just how useful it is and how quick and easy it was to whip out and file an IFR flight plan. Enter the start/end points, rubber band to VORs or intersections, add in the airways, import to the Trip Planner, hit the "file" button. All done in maybe 4-5 minutes. Then hear the magic words "cleared as filed..."

Remember the old days of doing this with paper charts, a paper flight log and a calculator? Yeah, me too. I like this new stuff better!

Click to expand...

John,

I'm finding the add-airways function a little labor-intensive.

I zoom in to read the airway designation, then use a combination of zoom out and back in to track the airway as far as it goes while still keeping me close to my desired average course. Once I've identified the exit point, I can load the airway and go on to the next portion of the route. I'm a rookie at it, but even so, I can't imagine completing the whole process in 4-5 minutes.

It would be much faster to pick only VORs for waypoints, but that raises the question of whether filing that routing would be more likely to trigger a clearance significantly different than the one filed.

I did receive a note from an RV pilot who flies regularly up and down the east coast, and according to him, he never bothers filing airways unless the New York area is part of his itinerary.

I'm going to keep working with it in preparation for a trip to western NY from Texas next month, and the experience should be invaluable in terms of updating my flight planning method for the digital age.

I hope . . .

Tosh

Tango Mike said:

It would be much faster to pick only VORs for waypoints, but that raises the question of whether filing that routing would be more likely to trigger a clearance significantly different than the one filed.

Click to expand...

You know, now that you mention it, on my last flight plan of that trip I was in a bit of a rush so I did the start/end points and rubber band to the enroute VORs... but forgot to do the zoom in trick to read/add the airways, so I ended up filing VOR to VOR. End result? "Cleared as filed". Maybe ATC isn't as picky about that as we think they are? Or it could be that this was just a Missouri to Texas trip... in the NE corridor they might have other ideas.

jbDC9 said:

You know, now that you mention it, on my last flight plan of that trip I was in a bit of a rush so I did the start/end points and rubber band to the enroute VORs... but forgot to do the zoom in trick to read/add the airways, so I ended up filing VOR to VOR. End result? "Cleared as filed". Maybe ATC isn't as picky about that as we think they are? Or it could be that this was just a Missouri to Texas trip... in the NE corridor they might have other ideas.

Click to expand...

I never add airways always VOR to VOR. Have never had a clearance other than what I filed and have never had airways read as part of the clearance - except back in the day when I included them. This is not to say what is technically the correct flight plan submition method, only what I do and how it works well for me.

60av8tor said:

I never add airways always VOR to VOR. Have never had a clearance other than what I filed and have never had airways read as part of the clearance - except back in the day when I included them. This is not to say what is technically the correct flight plan submition method, only what I do and how it works well for me.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Jon, and I'm beginning to believe that defining the route without airway designations will work fine most of the time. I've heard from other pilots who use this same procedure. From a practical standpoint, with no MEA considerations like in the past to satisfy the requirement to receive a reliable VOR course signal from ahead or behind, ATC simply needs to have a predictable route.

To file departure direct to destination is certainly predictable, but I've been told that it can create a problem with the different sectors you will encounter without some established waypoints interspersed along the route. As you say, it may not be technically correct for filing, but in the real world it provides ATC with what they need.

I've been out of cross-country flying for a while now, long enough that the whole issue of being "off airways" has faded into the past. Based on all the replies to this thread (which I mistakenly started in the wrong forum--sorry, DR!), for this first trip with the G3X/G400/iPad/Garmin Pilot combo I'm going to try rubber-banding to some of the VORs closest to my direct route and see what happens.

Tosh

Tango Mike said:

I've heard from other pilots who use this same procedure. From a practical standpoint, with no MEA considerations like in the past to satisfy the requirement to receive a reliable VOR course signal from ahead or behind, ATC simply needs to have a predictable route.

Click to expand...

I should clarify - I still follow airways, MEAs, etc when travelling VOR-VOR, just don't put them into the route of flight on the plan. Now I guess you can split hairs and say that technically, if my clearance comes back as filed and as filed is K123 - VOR - VOR - VOR - K456 vs K123 - VOR - V123 - VOR - V456 - VOR - K456, I can fly off airway in between those VORs. I do not do this, however. In my part of the country (and my normal roaming distance) VOR to VOR almost always ends up overlaying airways. The rare times it does not, a slight turn at some intersection gets me back on course direct to the VOR again. Even some flights I have planned that appear to add a lot more distance due to airway routing, only add a few minutes.

In the end, it all comes out in the wash when you file /G because, as I said, I will almost always get direct at some point. I don't want to confuse the discussion, but also did not want to give the impression that I am off airway without being given direct by ATC. AIM 5-1-8 b is a pretty straight forward read about this subject.

one excerpt:

"Increasing use of self-contained airborne navigational systems which do not rely on the VOR/VORTAC/TACAN system has resulted in pilot requests for direct routes which exceed NAVAID service volume limits. These direct route requests will be approved only in a radar environment, with approval based on pilot responsibility for navigation on the authorized direct route. Radar flight following will be provided by ATC for ATC purposes."

Tango Mike said:

1. Use the AirNav "Aviation Fuel Plan a Flight with Fuel Stops" to try and save some bucks.
2. Build the flight segments in GP by entering the departure and destination airports for each leg and direct routing.
3. Use the graphic flight plan editing feature to rubber-band the routes onto airways.
4. File each of the flight plans with GP prior to departure from home base. One possible glitch is that GP doesn't show the airways between waypoints on the flight plan form filed with ATC.
5. Expect (hope?) to hear "Cleared as filed" more often than "Standby for a full-route clearance."
6. Once airborne, be looking for direct routing.

If anyone has comments/suggestions about how to do this better, I'd appreciate hearing them, like if in your experience ATC is now prone to accepting more direct routing, with maybe a few intermediate waypoints that don't remain on airways?

Tosh

Click to expand...

I have tried using Airnav for plan flight with fuel stops but do not like it much for planning fuel stops. There is a better way.
1: Go to Skyvector. http://skyvector.com/
2: click "flight plan"in top left corner.
3: enter starting airport and click "add" button.
4: enter ending airport and click "add" button.
map should display route with magenta line.
5: hover over "fuel prices" at top of page and click "show AVGas prices".
6: look at your route and about where you wish to stop for fuel. fuel prices will display right on the map beside all airports.

Fltplan is great for planning an IFR route and finding what might be accepted by ATC. Use Fltplan to plan a route and then look for:
Recent FltPlan.com User Routes between...
The 5 Most Recent Planned ATC Routes between...
Pretty easy to see what is getting approved.

For a short hop I do commonly I find I get rerouted onto airways when I file direct. There is an intersection midway along my route I used to file for. I would occasionally get it but rarely when I filed my typical 10,000. Then I realized the intersection was on a STAR for the nearby class B, and you guessed it, 10,000 was the altitude on the STAR for that intersection. I started filing for 8,000 on that intersection and got cleared as filed almost every time.

60av8tor said:

I should clarify - I still follow airways, MEAs, etc when travelling VOR-VOR, just don't put them into the route of flight on the plan. Now I guess you can split hairs and say that technically, if my clearance comes back as filed and as filed is K123 - VOR - VOR - VOR - K456 vs K123 - VOR - V123 - VOR - V456 - VOR - K456, I can fly off airway in between those VORs. I do not do this, however. In my part of the country (and my normal roaming distance) VOR to VOR almost always ends up overlaying airways. The rare times it does not, a slight turn at some intersection gets me back on course direct to the VOR again. Even some flights I have planned that appear to add a lot more distance due to airway routing, only add a few minutes.

In the end, it all comes out in the wash when you file /G because, as I said, I will almost always get direct at some point. I don't want to confuse the discussion, but also did not want to give the impression that I am off airway without being given direct by ATC. AIM 5-1-8 b is a pretty straight forward read about this subject.

one excerpt:

"Increasing use of self-contained airborne navigational systems which do not rely on the VOR/VORTAC/TACAN system has resulted in pilot requests for direct routes which exceed NAVAID service volume limits. These direct route requests will be approved only in a radar environment, with approval based on pilot responsibility for navigation on the authorized direct route. Radar flight following will be provided by ATC for ATC purposes."

Click to expand...

I appreciate the qualification and agree with your approach.

Without more current experience filing flight plans and flying trips, my original issue had to do with whether I needed to file the way I always did in what seems like a century ago, and which never strayed off airways.

Barring the availability of published departures, my first waypoint would always be the nearest VOR or intersection that established me on an airway, and I'd stay on it until it quit or veered off in a direction I didn't want to go. In the event that two airways shared a segment, I looked for the one that progressed the farthest along my intended route. That might involve passing over a number of VORs that never get entered on the flight plan but certainly exist in the route filed, will be cleared for, and flown.

The objective of my original post was to ask whether listing every VOR from departure to destination with direct routing in between and not including specific airway routing in the flight plan would be more likely to prevent a "cleared as filed."

As with most topics, forum members expressed varying opinions and passed along the lessons learned from different experiences.

Based on this discussion, I think I'll rubber band a direct route from departure to destination to include every VOR that keeps me on airways, with the exception of small jinks at intersections.

My main reason for choosing this approach is to avoid the relatively labor-intensive process of loading airways. Determining the airway designations I want and the entry and exit points requires multiple zoom ins and outs. Not only that, but touching the screen to zoom frequently triggers an unintended rubber band alteration that I have to cancel.

I hate to say this, and it may be the dinosaur in me being resurrected from DNA extracted from a mosquito encased in amber, but spreading out a paper chart to see more than a few miles of airway routing before loading them into Garmin Pilot would be easier. I'd know which airway I want and the entry and exit points without any zooming.

SkyVector rubber-band function work on the iPad?

Based on replies to this original thread, I've been looking at the contribution of AirNav, SkyVector, and Fltplan to the subject task.

As for planning fuel stops, unlike one reply, I think I'll prefer AirNav to SkyVector because the former picks a number of potential stops for me rather that my having to search for them manually. I may change my mind after gaining some practical experience, but so far that's the case.

Fltplan is very helpful for checking stored routes that have been successful. I thought I had a good route from my home base HYI to ORK to the northeast, but Fltplan had a number of stored plans that departed almost due north. I thought, "Heck no, I won't go that way," but it turned out the difference in length was one whole nautical mile. Well, duh . . .

SkyVector is a great tool that helps with the issue of inserting airways into the routing with Garmin Pilot and having to zoom in and out and back to read the airway designations, especially if you do that on the Trip Planning page with the map relegated to the bottom half of the screen.

Identifying the airway designations and entry/exit points with SkyVector in advance on a computer is especially friendly because of the increased screen real estate. With the routing noted on paper, you can begin to trip plan in Garmin Pilot with a departure and destination, enter the first waypoint that establishes you on an airway, load an airway from that point to the exit point you determined in SkyVector, and repeat to destination.

To eliminate the computer from the process, I tried it with the iPad through Safari online SkyVector to see if using the whole iPad screen would be easier. It would be, except for one problem: I couldn't get the rubber-band feature of SkyVector to work on the iPad. I don't know if it's something I've doing wrong, or a limitation of some kind.

If anyone has run into this problem, and especially if you've solved it, I'd be grateful for knowing about it.

Tosh

Garmin pilot lags the competition

I want to switch to garmin pilot and use the new connects ADSB, but garmin pilot doesn't load instrument approaches into the flight plan. Seems like basic functionality now a days. I messaged garmin support and they only responded that pilot doesn't support.

I sure hope that garmin adds this so more like me make the leap to garmin pilot and connects.

Approach chart

Bugsy said:

I want to switch to garmin pilot and use the new connects ADSB, but garmin pilot doesn't load instrument approaches into the flight plan. Seems like basic functionality now a days. I messaged garmin support and they only responded that pilot doesn't support.

I sure hope that garmin adds this so more like me make the leap to garmin pilot and connects.

Click to expand...

I use Garmin Pilot every flight. Adding the approach I guess would give some situational awareness but I have to have the approach in the certified GPS so I use the Garmin Pilot to display the approach chart. By the time I am in the terminal area I am focused on the approach chart not the map.

Cheers