? on CAPF 104

[ande.boyer]

Grettings All,

I wanted to ping the group on a point of disagreement I've discovered on the CAPF 104 "Mission Flight Plan/Briefing Form"

Specifically, the "Destination Airport" and "Estimated Time Enroute" boxes..   Despite it saying airport, I've seen some people insist that this means search grid.  And the time enroute box is asking for the time  you estimate it will take to get from the airport to the assigned search grid.  Now, I think it  makes more sense that the destination airport box should have an airport name/identifier in it (call me crazy).  If you're coming back to the airport you're leaving from, then the origination and destination airport is the same.  Also, the estimated time in enroute is the time between takeoff and landing....not takeoff and grid entry.

So, does anyone know of any "in writing" documentation as to  how to fill this thing out?  If the best you can do is "well, in my wing we..." please don't bother....while taht may be good information, I'm not going to win an argument using it.  Since there's no instructions on the back of the form or on a third page, you'd think taht since the right side of the 104 is just a FAA flight plan, it would be the same...

Ande Out

[ctrossen]

You are correct. Destination airport is just that - the place where the aircraft is expected to end up at the end of the sortie (and that's also why there's a spot for an alternate airport right below). And yes, Estimated Time Enroute is the estimation of how long the entire sortie will take to complete - add that time to the actual time of departure (which we in Wisconsin further clarify as Engine start time) to find the Estimated Time of Arrival. If the aircrew blows past that by, say, 30 minutes, without a report in or extension of the ETA, then the air ops branch and IC had better be scrambling to find that aircraft.

(And good places to start looking, surprisingly enough, are the "Destination Airport" and "Alternate Airport")

The place to put your grid (or other assignment) is in the Search Area/Route box. What we tend to do is also put that in our Route of Flight (for example, MWC - ORD148A/C - MWC). That way it's blatantly obvious where you're going and how you're getting there.


Unfortunately, there is no good official description of exactly how to fill out the form. The only "official" source is no longer official - CAPR 60-4, Vol I, Pt I. There is, however, a really good CAPF 104 Powerpoint floating out there on one of the wing websites. I *thought* it was Arizona Wing, but a quick look there didn't turn it up. Do some searching, though... we presented that at a SAREX a couple of years ago.


Hope it helps,