Your IFR planning workflow?

[c.b.powell]

I'm always interested in hearing how other people do things, as this can often be a very good way of learning. I'm curious to hear what other pilots here do for their IFR planning process (either on PilotEdge or in the real world).

For what it's worth, I'll share my workflow. I do these same steps whether in the sim or in a real plane, as I believe in training like you play.

* Check the weather at the start and destination airports using aviationweather.gov, make note if an alternate will be needed.
* Note winds aloft, think ahead to their effects. (Potentially redundant since fltplan.com does this for you.)
* Weight & balance calculation; landing distance calculation.
* Check NOTAMs at http://www.notams.jcs.mil
* Check TFRs at tfr.faa.gov
* Check RAIM at raimprediction.net
* Figure out the departure procedure
* Come up with a flight plan using the IFR sectional
* Enter flight plan into fltplan.com (Yes, I use this even for sim flights, it works great)
* Print flight plan
* Highlight route and freqs on sectional for quick-ref (using 'erasable' highlighter)
* File flight plan (either with FAA or PE)
* Pull or tab plates; brief departure procedure; confirm runway lengths.

I'm particularly interested in hearing what weather sources and graphics people find most valuable, and handy things I omitted.

Chris

[Daddy O]

I used to use skyvector.com to set up my flight plan, print maps and approach charts, ILS charts, etc (Although I have several <out of date> maps of the area.) But with different focus flights every night I was spending a ton on printing charts, so now I just have one of the old spare laptops next to my simulator so I can grap whatever departure procedure they throw at me. I used to do the whole written flight plan, all neatly laid out and such, but anymore I just highlight my intended path with a yellow marker and pull my headings and frequencies off the map as I go. If I am flying IFR I don;t always get to fly my carefully laid out flight plan anyhow and center sometimes has me deviate or use a different approach to another runway that I had not planned for.

My weight and balance consists of setting the plane for max weight. I always fly heavy.

[Keith Smith]

Great topic, Chris, I will definitely post mine when I get back from my trip.

[David Carman]

I am one of those that does it differently for the sim versus real life. I know this isn't taking maximum advantage of the sim and maybe negatively impacting my real life flying but I can't motivate myself to do full-on planning for a little hop around the virtual sky.

For PE I usually check the weather and the departure and arrival airport to have an idea what to expect, I don't really care about minimums, if I go missed, hey that's good practice too Then use skyvector and charts from airnav to figure out the likely route I'll get from ATC, and file that. Then jump in the plane and go! I use a second monitor to pull up charts, etc. I don't think I could fly without a second monitor anymore.

Real life, I don't have my IFR rating, I'm still working on it, so take this with a grain of salt.

I check the weather online (aviationweather.gov usually), make sure it's above minimums, no icing, thunderstorms, figure out an alternate if necessary, etc.
Use airnav and skyvector to figure out a likely route and procedures. I take a little more diligence to also figure out likely alternate routes I might get from ATC so I'm not totally scrambling if I get re-routed. I don't highlight anything on my charts for in the plane. I used to and I realized it doesn't help me that much for IFR.
I get winds aloft from aviationweather.gov and do my fuel planning.
I check NOTAMs online briefly just to see if there's major navaid outages or approach issues at either airport. If so, I got back to the drawing board on routes.
Once at the plane, I call a briefer (shocking I know) to get a standard weather briefing, NOTAMs, TFRs, etc. and file my flight plan.
Jump in the plane and go! I don't do weight and balance anymore for each flight unless I have more than one passenger. I've flown enough 172s to know that with just me and a passenger (or instructor) I can have full fuel and room to spare and no CG issues.

[Daddy O]

I never check weather, but I actually prefer really crappy weather when flying on PE. I love being able to navigate blind all the way from point to point. The uglier the weather the better. Here in Az we have 350 days a year of blue skies, and when it does rain it is usually monsoons that even the jumbo jets avoid, so I never get to practice in anything but great weather. Crappy weather is hard to find here in AZ, other than really, really hot days that drive the air density altitude way up.

Choosing California for PE was a good move. They really get some interesting weather, especially up around San Fran.

[Keith Smith]

My sim planning is vastly simplified over my real world planning. Applying real world planning to my sim flight doesn't generally affect my real world IFR proficiency and stick and rudder skills (which is what I'm using the sim for), that's why I skip most of it. That, and the consequences of not planning the flight properly don't really apply in the sim (busting a TFR, RAIM prediction, etc).

My real world IFR planning flow is thus:
- determine suitability of the destination (NOTAMS, runway length, surface, weather, suitability of instrument approaches, etc)
- determine straight-line weather conditions if flown direct (ie, don't bother with the detailed route planning if the weather is a trainwreck)
- utilize aviationweather.gov for the prog charts, icing, winds/temps aloft, airmet/sigmets, check for convective activity
- if weather is anything other than spectacular, utilize RUC Soundings data to analyze temperature/dewpoint spread, lapse rates, cloud thickness, etc
- thanks to Brian Ratledge for helping with this one not long ago (he's a weather nut), check the forecasters' notes/discussions to see the reasoning behind their forecast, determine an overall trend, and to see their confidence level in the forecast that has been published. I only do this if the weather is looking marginal (ie, convective activity or icing potential enroute. I am thrilled to shoot approaches in IMC, but icing and thunderstorms are not to be fiddled with). We recently spent about 1hr 15mins on the flight planning and weather analysis for a flight from Elkin, NC to Lincoln Park, NJ
- work out non-radar route to be flown (I still don't completely trust my GPS to be reliable, although it's been great of late)
- work out desired arrival fix (either to begin a STAR or a feeder for an instrument approach)
- work out departure fix (either end of a SID, or known exit gate for the area)
- link up the departure fix and arrival fix using the shortest airways, or VOR-VOR routing if airways are very inconvenient for certain segments.
- use DUATS Flight Planner to test the route between 3k and 11k to work out the fastest trip based on winds aloft.

- receive and read full briefing from DUATs, checking specifically for NOTAMS, TFR's (tfr.faa.gov is not a legal briefing source..if you can believe it), navaid outages, airport/runway closures, double check enroute TAFs and destination TAFS, check PIREPS.

- file from DUATS
- when flightaware.com alerts me of the route I'm "likely" to get, I return to DUATS and enter the route into the flight planner and print the nav log (I will skip this step and print the nav log in the previous step if I am filing a TEC route or a route that I've received in the past). Note: the 'likely' route in flightaware is wrong from time to time, and ATC clears me for something else at the last minute.
- print/buy the approach plates for the destination airport. Have departure airport approach plates ready at time of departure if departure airport is not VFR.

[c.b.powell]

My real world IFR planning flow is thus:
<snip>

Keith, I really like this workflow. In particular, I didn't realize earlier that the FAA's very own TFR site was, in fact, not authoritative...but it indeed says that at the bottom, and I boggle at the reasons why. Grrr. (As a side note, I'm glad that relying on this the way I have been didn't bite me in the butt in the real world. I'd hate to bust a TFR even after "doing the right thing.")

Your post encouraged me to re-investigate DUATS, which I'd largely dismissed from my workflow in favor of fltplan.com. There's something to be said for DUATS' simplicity and lack of commercialistic 'noise'. I leaned on the full route briefing a lot more when I was getting my Private, but I gravitated away from it after that. I think I'll put it back into my workflow. (Christ, it's long, though.)

I confess I'm a stranger to RUC soundings but I'll investigate them more. At first glance most of the data represented there were straightforward, but I didn't pick up on any indication of cloud thickness. Clearly I have some learning to do.

Chris

[Keith Smith]

Chris,

I have to thank you for starting a discussion like this here, it's greatly appreciated. I've corrected some critical typos in my original post, the alerts and 'likely route' messages are NOT from skyvector.com (in case ppl start wondering how to file from skyvector!), it was from flightaware.com, which I use heavily.

fltplan.com, as much as I've tried to like it, and I know it has some really nice functionality, is just such a train wreck on the eyes! It is not POSSIBLE for there to be more noise on that screen. The cleanliness and speed of DUATS is really hard to beat. I also like that you can file well in advance of your flight, and then if you change your mind (as I did the night before my Atlanta flight), you can edit/cancel the plans before they're ever sent to the originating FSS. You can also store routes, store profiles, etc.

I should also clarify one critical point...I do NOT real the DUATS briefing word for word. It's likely that the magnetic variation would change by several degrees at my destination before I would finish reading that thing. Here's what I ACTUALLY do...I skim each and every section to see if it applies. If the weather is great, I won't read every single enroute TAF (lately, I've been doing 400-600nm flights, so the number of enroute TAFs is enormous). Similarly, I don't wade through the notams for every airport that falls along my route of flight (which is what DUATs gives you).

I WILL check for navaid outages, notams at the departure, destination, or alternate(s). TFRs are spelled out at the very top of the briefing, if there are any. Laughably, when this happens, I usually go read about the TFR over on tfr.faa.gov (the non-legal briefing source), simply because they're easier to locate and read than the DUAT version.

If I'm shooting approaches (either for practice, or because it's IMC), I'll search the FDC notams closely for changes to procedures. You'd be surprised how often something has changed.

Realistically, in awesome weather, the DUATS briefing review takes a couple of minutes. If it's IMC, it'll be 2-3x as long.

The goal, of course, is to find a flow that isn't so long that it ends up taking longer to plan and brief a flight than the flight itself...otherwise, you'll eventually tire of that and start taking shortcuts, some of which perhaps SHOULD be in the flow. I fight the sense of complacency that sometimes sets in when hitting 'page down' during the review of the DUATS route briefing. I force myself to look for those key sections.

Lastly, when I think I'm done, I press CTRL-F and search for the origin, destination, and alternate airport identifiers. That way, I can see if I missed anything specifically related to the airports in question. In fact, that's the method I use to scan the FDC notams, which are otherwise, completely unreadable.

I'll make another post about RUC Soundings. That's a life changing site right there.

[David Carman]

As I mentioned, I usually call a briefer for my NOTAM/TFR/Official weather info for a lot of the reasons you just mentioned Keith. I used to use DUATS, however I fell into the trap of complacency you mentioned and just scroll through all that information because it's so indigestible. I use aviationweather.gov weather for planning purposes, but then for my official weather and NOTAM/TFRs I call a briefer because they digest all that information for me, and then present what is most applicable or likely to impact my flight, in an easy to understand way. Granted, in the amount of time I spend on hold I could probably do just as thorough a job of reading the DUATS printout, but that's not the point

Also, I call a briefer as a bit of a CYA move. All the calls are recorded, and this way if I bust a TFR, and the briefer didn't tell me about it, I'm off the hook, where-as if I get DUATS, and skim over something, or misunderstand something with a TFR, it's my ass.

[Keith Smith]

Hi Chris,

I gotta make this quick, but RUC Soundings are worth learning. My weather knowledge was/is my weakest link, so I've spent time and energy trying to get better at understanding the tools I can use to make better decisions regarding weather. Scott Dennstaedt has a site called www.avwxworkshops.com. That's where I picked up some great material on reading and understanding RUC Soundings.

They're invaluable for determining bases, tops, icing levels, temps at all alts, cloud types (based on the temp/dp spread), and a whole lot more that I haven't fully grasped yet

I bought one of his workshops, I think it was just under $100 at the time. Looking at this site (in the premium section), I think it's down to $59 now. He later added two workshops specifically on icing. I suspect I'll be buying them before next fall to be ready for winter 2011.