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As of 29th of June, US pilots flying IFR using RNAV segments (SIDs, airways, or STARs) will have to file IFR flight plan. Many websites already posted about that, including the excellent Ask A CFI, AOPA and the FAA itself.

Europe has been using such flight plans for years, even for VFR. Compared to the FAA template, the ICAO flight plan might seem complex, but don’t worry, you’ll get use to it. The post from Paul on Ask A CFI is really useful. Paul even created an 11 minutes video explaining how to fill the ICAO Flight Plan form (nice to discover your voice, Paul…).

Many has been said and published about it, and I don’t want to enter the argument. What I offer you today is a simple but useful resource: my own version of the ICAO Flight Plan, in the form of a Microsoft Excel workseet. The main advantage of it over the PDF form you can find on the web is that you can save it !

I used this form many times, and asked the services to whom I sent it if it was good. The answer was always positive, so I’m quite sure the US staff will appreciate it as well. Feel free to download it and use it to print empty copies, or filled ones.

Click here to download the ICAO Flight Plan for Microsoft Excel. For technical reasons, it’s stored in my briefing website, www.easymetar.com. This document contains some special characters, used for the arrows, which might look strange, depending which version of Excel you use. Depending of your printer, you could have to adjust the cells size a bit, to make it fit in a single page.

I offer it “as is”, without any kind of warranty or liability. If you have problems with it, or suggestions to improve it, let me know. I hope this will make your transition to ICAO flight plan easier, and your flight planning better, even if you fly outside US.

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Category: Flying Tips, Pilots Talk
Tags: Excel FPL ICAO ICAO Flight Plan

I can no longer speak french - my mother thongue - with ATC on radio. Not only because I now live in Germany, but also because of new ICAO rules. A lot has already been said on that (check by aviatrix or askacfi.com), and I won’t list all the details again.

FOCA generously gave me a Level 4 in English, but nothing in french, because I’ve never underwent any examination. No comment on that, nor on the fact that it’s not even possible yet to attend such an examination.

My two cents on this topic are more about what the standard language of aviation is. French readers are allowed to express their indignation in comments. Even if each country publishes AIP in its own language(s), when you start flying internationally you simply have to be able to use english. As a swiss pilot I got used to it rather quickly: I can’t understand swiss-german (german is something else… but out of scope).

Not only publications are in english, but most of the terminology can hardly be translated, mostly because it is not daily language, but something very specific. On at least one particular occasion, flying IFR in France, I switched from french to english, simply because I could not understand what the controller asked for ! When he started using standard english phraseology, everything became cristal clear.

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Category: Speaker's Corner
Tags: english french ICAO language level 4

Oscar and Mike work together at the reception desk of a Hotel in Quebec, and have to wear a Uniform. They also play Golf together, with their friends Charlie and Victor. As all golfers they often get a Whiskey after a game. Since last November, they project to join a worldwide golfing trip with games planes in famous places including Lima, Sierra Nevada, India, and the Delta of the Nile. They heard Echo about it from a Yankee guest of the hotel.

Travelling with their clubs is not easy, because they weigh 5 more Kilo than what airlines allow for, non-speaking of gettin them throug X-ray check. Do you feel this post is meaningless ? Just like if Juliett and Romeo were dancing Foxtrott and Tango before leaving in an Alfa-Romeo instead of killing themselves.

At this point, pilots probably not longer thing I’m crazy, but other readers probably think a french Zulu cracked my password and posted some crap in memory of his “Papa“. If you’re not a pilot but understood what this post is about, let me tell you Bravo ! If you’re still confused, here comes the explanation…

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Category: Pilots Talk
Tags: alphabet code-words ICAO spelling