Approach, could you read back the arrival waypoints…we cant seem to find that arrival. The request got my attention because it came from the aircraft somewhere ahead of me in the soup of a thick overcast, headed to the same airport. The controller had just warned of a pending change to my arrival plans by changing those of the flight ahead of me. Taking that change as a cue, it was easy to turn to the last plastic-protector page in my little IFR folder-where Id already inserted the appropriate page. It was less luck than experience, which had tutored me on the likelihood of a traffic conflict with another airports arrivals.
A savvy CFII taught me preparationwas my best hedge against unhappy surprises when flying IFR, regardless of the weather. In reality, any cross-country flying demands a level of preparation consistent with the trip ahead. The simple fact is consistency in what you do and how you do it in any flight planning effort both minimizes en route surprises and ensures youve covered all the bases. The trick? Each flight is different, its weather is different, and you have to be flexible enough in your planning to ensure all the bases are covered. Consistency and flexibility? Arent those two concepts in conflict? The quick answeris no. For the longer answer, read on.
Finding Your Sweet Spot
Consistent preparation doesnt mean investing the same amountfor each flight. After all, preparing for an IFR flight you know willbe mostly in low IMC with thunderstorms or icing is a lot differentthan flying the same route in severe clear.
Further, as we stressed in these pages in the past, theres equally littlebenefit from spending all your IMC time letting George fly. Holding therating and maintaining currency by the light of the sun means littlewhen we find George just broke or the VMC forecast we were counting on just deteriorated into IMC.
Theres certainly benefit from practicing all the procedures for which your aircraft is equipped to fly on those occasions the need occurs. Theres benefit every flight, however, from fully preparing and planning for the trip ahead-VMCas well as IMC-but particularly when in the clag.
Approached as an organized mission, an IMC trip need not be stressful or surprising. Instead, it should be a series of accomplishments culminating in a safe arrival and the all-time best trip description: uneventful. Such outcomes happen by dint of effort-planning more than anything, and never solely by accident.
1. Start Early
To me, flight planning is a multilayered, multi-tasked process, nota linear, follow-the-lines journey from Point A to whatever comeslast. So I start the process with a careful examination of weatherprognoses a day or two ahead of the planned trip, for the time of the trip, and the couple of days that follow.
Long-range forecasts, of course, are notoriously unreliable. In our view, taking as gospel anything beyond 48 hours is a waste of time. But within that 48 hours, its time to be looking at prog charts, including those projecting the position and movement of fronts and pressure systems.
Doing so gives us several clues about the conditions well face. Forexample, if a low is projected to lie on our route, it could bring with itlow ceilings and rain. High pressure usually translates into clear skies. Regardless, do you know which way around them will result in the highest groundspeed?
2. Go Beyond The TAF/METAR
Pilots often forget flight planning involves more than just the weather. We also should know about facility outages, planned TFRs, Notams on runway/taxiway closures and other details often buried well below the weather data in a computerized briefing. Such information may help you decide to make or avoid an interim stop and anticipate possible deviations from your plan.
We like to plug all the basic stuff-departure, destination and time of day-into a Duat session or similar, a couple of days ahead of our departure, then peruse the results, knowing we wont fly that brief, but knowing also it gives us a heads-up on what to expect. During our early pre-briefs, we can ignore things like Pireps or winds aloft-theyll definitely change by game day-which affords us more time to check the facility-related details. That way, on the day of the flight, we can spend more time considering the weather and use the knowledge we gained earlier to simply confirm our understanding of whats open and whats not.
3. What About The Aircraft?
Briefing for a flight also includes the aircraft-assure yourself allthe necessary and available equipment functions at a level that willsupport the flight; en route and in the clag is no place to learnthe VOR head with the ILS isnt working or that other equipment problems plague your panel. For example, is the GPS databasecurrent? Has anyone done a VOR check lately? Is it using oil, are allthe lights working or might the tires need air (or replacement)?
If its an airplane you regularly fly-via a club, partnership oroutright ownership-there should be some kind of squawk sheet youand its other pilots use to keep track of its readiness. Go to theairport if you have to, or get on the phone and check with the otherpilots, but find out whats working, whats broken and whats iffy.
Finally, brief yourself. Are you rested, healthy, emotionally fit?Affirmative answers here further advance your odds of an uneventfulflight.
4. Take Time To Plan For Real
When you know likely conditions, airport and airspace status, lay inyour Plan A and organize your trip paperwork around it. Make sureyou have the appropriate en route charts-current ones, of course-and pull any approach plates, DPs or arrivals applicable to your departure and arrival airports.
Once finished with Plan A, look at some Plan B scenarios-maybealternate airports, an alternate route for weather and develop en routeoptions in case of fuel problems or any other plan-disrupting event. For example, do you know where the cheapest fuel is along your route? is it available 24/7, or only during daylight hours?
By detailed planning-putting together Plans A and B, plus whateverother alternate plans you think you might need-youre already thinking ahead. The beauty of having backup plans means when the time comes-and it will-youve already made the decision on what to do and where to go. All you have to do is punch in the identifier and tell ATC.
Meanwhile, executing your Plan B can also mean additional changesto your ETA, your rental car or the reason for the trip. Knowing inadvance what youll do and when youll do it helps reduce your stressand fatigue while instilling confidence.
5. Plan Each Phase
While its easy to envision a flight as one long, unbroken event, in reality many different phases come together to make a complete trip:pre-departure, departure, transition to en route, en route, transition,arrival/approach.
Fly each phase as they come, as individualsegments tied together producing a single trip. Dealing with each phase or segment as a standalone event helps break up any possiblemonotony and provides a natural decision point on the next phase.
What does this mean? Its rather simple, actually: As you depart and start an en route climb, take time to check conditions for thenext phase-and then decide to either continue and fly it, or makea new decision. As you level at altitude, you should already knowwhether conditions ahead remain conducive to continuing your trip.
If they dont, thats why we have the backup plans identified above,right?
6. Update Your Plans
Once the trip begins, tap all available resources as often as youneed-Flight Service, Pireps, any in-flight weather data you mayuse, even ATC. You cant have too much information or too manyeyes and ears working for you-and remember to listen to all thevoices, not just the ones in your head.
Resist complicating things, whether its your idea or ATCs-thesimpler a solution, the better. If that means declining a change-or requesting something different-when that alteration complicates your job just so its easier on the controller, so be it. And remember: As long as the weathers decent, using the phrase cancel IFR opens up a whole range of opportunities when ATC wont cooperate.
We wont hesitate to question a change we dont like. But our ideal is also to offer the controller an alternative idea-a different altitude, for example, or a diversion in a different direction that also boosts our groundspeed thanks to a tailwind. Of course, it helps to tell ATC why yours is a better approach. And if weve done a proper job with our planning, well have a home-run-quality response ready when ATC throws us a curve.
7. Stay Alert and Engaged
On longer trips, away from busy airspace, we usually get a directrouting. The word boring pretty much was defined to include two orthree-hour legs on the same heading and at the same altitude without any weather challenges to keep us interested and engaged.
Thats when we can forget things, like changing tanks, or checkingin on a new frequency.
One way we combat boredom is with a portable music player, hooked up to our audio panel and playing our favorite tunes throughthe headset. You may have your own routine or solution.
Fatigue can be another issue, especially at altitude in an unpressurized cabin. Thats when the oxygen bottle comes out-were noticeably perkier at the end of a long flight when weve used the O2 bottle. Thats important when getting on the ground at the end of a long flight means a complicated arrival, to-minimums approach orbusy airspace. Or all three.
Monitor Flight Watch whenever possible; you may just hear usefulinformation about conditions ahead-and more quickly than waiting on the system to route a Pirep to a controller. Similarly, whenever you know the next ATC frequency, monitor it, if possible, well ahead of the handoff, to give yourself a leg up on conditions andprocesses ahead.
In particular, monitor a non-towered destinations CTAF well in advance. While ATC may be able to tell you theres observed traffic in the pattern, thats not as helpful as listening in yourself. Youll confirm the runway used, learn whether others are flying practice approaches, even get an idea of how many aircraft are ahead of you.
Other Tips
If youre like most of us, youll fly a 9.5 score some days, a 5.9 others- but striving for a solid 10 every time is the only way to go.
Once safe and sound and on the ground, score your performanceand make a note in a logbook or other record. List any areas ofweakness or poorer performance to work on in the near future. Andgive yourself an arm-breaking back-pat on those days when yourbest description of the flight is our favorite: Uneventful.
A version of this article orginally appeared in the September 2012 issue of Aviation Safety magazine.
