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Started by Flying Pig, August 18, 2009, 04:17:38 PM

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Flying Pig

Re: counterdrug screening
« Reply #29 on: Today at 10:16:45 AM » 

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Quote from: PHall on Today at 09:55:41 AM
Quote from: Auxpilot on Today at 07:47:56 AM
Quote from: PHall on Yesterday at 07:48:14 PM
Quote from: Auxpilot on Yesterday at 01:40:32 PM
Quote from: Flying Pig on August 16, 2009, 05:22:36 PM
I dont understand how you would even file a flight plan.  Your flight plan is with your mission manager.  Often you dont have a "destination" you are just going out and trolling hills and valleys. 
That would be like me filing a flight plan for an surveillence mission.  When I take off, I have no idea where Im going.  I just check in on the radio and stay in contact with ATC whenever possible.


Here is how I do it:

I chose waypoints from navaids (ex: XYZ 240 radial - 24 NM), airports, or anything else that the FAA will accept in a flight plan to make a box around the area that I am searching. In the remarks section I tell the briefer that I will be operating in that box. If you fail to return, that is where they (we) will look for you.


Or you could do it the way we did it when I was flying low-level routes/airdrop in the Air Force.

File IFR to the Entry Point for the Route, cancel IFR at that point, pick up your new IFR clearance at the exit point when you're done.


That would not meet the regs and if you went down during the search phase you would never be able to file the second IFR.

Given that the FRO does not have to look for you because you are supposed to have a vfr on file, you would be out of luck if you went down.


Well, when you don't return at your scheduled RTB time and the FAA varifies that you never picked up your clearance to return from the Area back to the airport they'll have a pretty good clue where to start looking.


The reg does not say that you are to file a flight plan for part of the mission so your method would not work in this situation.

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Hold on now...... we were actually having an informative discussion about real topics, not the latest ribbon colors and were being polite about it, and it got locked. ??? 

So if we want to keep it going.  At any rate, my concern is, filing a flight plane when your mission may encompass an entire county with no actual destination.  On the "Route of Flight" portion if you put in fixes to make a box, would ATC interpret that to mean you are flying in a circle?

Thom

I think the Mod's concern was Topic Drift, not that it wasn't a worthy topic of its own.  Lots of Forum Mods are getting more strict about this recently, since it helps with future indexing and research to have each discrete topic of discussion in its own thread.

Anyway, remember that on a VFR Flight Plan, as opposed to the strict IFR plans, you can pretty much put whatever you want for the route.  In fact, you don't have to use designators or bearings, you can literally file:

Follow the Miss. River North to the Red River Landing then West to the first railroad tracks then along the tracks NW to the little Pink House then direct AEX.

It may not be all that informative, but it is legal. (AFAICT)

I think the earlier poster's idea (in the locked thread) about bounding your search area as well as possible with Designators, landmarks, Point Bearing Distance, etc. is the best approach.  You just want to provide a place for SAR to start looking if you come up overdue.  If the best you can do is: Somewhere in Broward County, then that's what you give them, only hopefully in a more 'aviation map-friendly' form of description.

Thom Hamilton

Flying Pig

Learn somethin' new everyday.

TXCAP

A technique we've used flying low level route surveys in Texas is to file a VFR flight plan using the string of turn coordinates marking the search area between the departure and destination airports along with a short explanation in the remarks section.  When we open that flight plan with FSS we give them a quick explanation and tell them we'll call back with an hourly position report (typically these are 3.0 - 3.5 hour flights). 

Once an hour we call back to FSS give them a position report and a weather PIREP and get an updated altimeter setting.  If we were to go overdue it narrows down the area to start searching.  It has worked well with FSS in this area, mostly Fort Worth FSS.