Something I Learned Yesterday . . .

[BonanzaDude]

. . . was when doing a flight on PE make sure you have the time to properly plan and execute the flight plan that was given to you before departing. I had about 90 minutes and I decided to fly some pax from KVGT to KONT in my Milviz Beech 55 (Prepar3D). I filed what skyvector had given me for the route KVGT OASYS V394 GARDY KONT and was really expecting that when I call CLNC DEL. What I got was completely different: KVGT NOTWN4.LAS GFS HEC ZIGGY.ZIGGY5 KONT. He then corrected the SID to RTTRN2.LAS and I completely missed it (I verified the route change this morning from the ATC tapes available on the website). My mistake was hearing right turn and not realizing there was a RTTRN2 SID for KVGT. What I thought was that he cleared me right turn to LAS. After taxiing to RWY 12 and looking at the SID (what I thought was still NOTWN4.LAS), I should have contacted ATC and verified that I was using the correct SID. That alone would have minimized my confusion on departure.

I did find a website to get a better idea of your flight plan if it's an unusual departure and arrival: www.fltplan.com. When I logged in and used the DEP and ARR airports it showed the exact flight plan that was given to me with both SID's based on winds at the departure time. That will create less confusion in the future so that I can plan better.

I apologize to ATC (I recognized Peter's voice) and others that had to listen to me babble my way though my departure. I plan to do the flight tonight as I logged off and stopped my flight after my mistake and decided I didn't have time to fly it correctly.

John

[Kyle.Sanders]

A bit off subject (because you received an internal preferred routing), but you can check the FAA preferred route database for your flights.

I usually just enter the 3 letter airport code of the departure and arrival airport and have it search just for that data. I then manually parse through the data to find the correct route for my aircraft type, airport direction ops, etc...

http://www.fly.faa.gov/rmt/nfdc_preferr ... tabase.jsp

[Ryan B]

I do the same, Kyle.

[BonanzaDude]

Maybe I'm missing something but I put in several DEP's and ARR's into the site including the route I flew last night and it came back with nothing. Only time it worked was with ORD to JFK or BOS. I'm guessing there are others that work, just checked a few.

John

[Ryan B]

You're probably not missing anything.... it only works for certain airports.... and I've noticed east coast ones usually don't work. Most of the socal ones do work though.

[Peter Grey]

That route database is extremely limited. It has all the TEC routes and some routes for airliners, but nothing for GA flights outside the TEC system.

[BonanzaDude]

I must be cursed. The same flight was going good tonight. I asked LA CTR for 5 minutes away from the cockpit, I come back and call that I had returned and my flight crashed.

Thanks for your help.

John