IFR Flight Planning with Garmin Pilot and the iPad

[Tango Mike]

Originally Posted by bill@fusion4.net

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

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.

[Tango Mike]

Originally Posted by jbDC9

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!

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

[jbDC9]

Originally Posted by Tango Mike

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.

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.

[60av8tor]

Originally Posted by jbDC9

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.

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.

[Tango Mike]

Originally Posted by 60av8tor

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.

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

[60av8tor]

Originally Posted by Tango Mike

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.

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."

[FORANE]

Originally Posted by Tango Mike

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

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.

[Tango Mike]

Originally Posted by 60av8tor

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."

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.

[Tango Mike]

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

[Bugsy]

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.