Starting November 15, 2012, ICAO will support an updated ICAO Flight Plan.

The changes to the flight plan allow you to specify items like longer registrations, different types of equipment, and new rules for submitting and amending the plan.

Some highlights:

• Flight plans are not to be submitted more than 120 hours (5 days) before departure.
• Updated Equipment codes such as:
• “A” for GBAS landing system
• “M1″ for an Inmarsat phone
• “Y” for a VHF radio with 8.33Khz spacing
• The letter “S” for equipment code no longer includes the ADF as “standard” equipment. The new list is: VHF Radio, ILS, and VOR capabilities. Previously if you used S, you will need to use “S/F” to indicate that you have the standard equipment plus ADF capabilities.

The rest of the changes are mostly “behind the scenes” that the ATS/FSS unit use as part of the flight plan. The official change document can be found from ICAO directly.

Southern Ontario (in Canada) has been dealing with record temperatures for over a week now. We are in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record. These high temperatures will affect your flight planning.

SIgmets are a way of letting pilots know of dangerous flying conditions in a particular area. The danger could be thunderstorms, hail, a tornado, or even a radio active cloud! They are issued by Environment Canada and is disseminated to pilots over the radio by Flight Service Stations and ATC.
I’ve heard a sigmet broadcast over 126.7Mhz by London FSS one time. I wanted to play you an example but can’t seem to find a clip anywhere online. It went something like this:
“All stations, all stations, all stations, this is London Radio: Sigmet Alpha One. Valid 1200Z to 1600Z Within an area bounded by Simcoe VOR, Musoka Airport, and CFB Bordon, Severe Thunderstom moving west at 10KTs. Sigmet will up dated as storm conditions change”.
You can also look up sigmets online at on AWWS.
Here is an active sigmet for the Praries:

SIGMET A1 VALID 241040/241440 CWEG-
WTN 30 NM OF LN /5614N11914W/50 E FORT ST JOHN – /5535N11936W/35 NW
GRANDE PRAIRIE – /5453N11822W/25 SE GRANDE PRAIRIE.
OCNL SEV LLWS FCST BLO 5 HND AGL DUE TO STG WLY LLJ AT 35 KT.
AREA QS. LTL CHG EXPD NEXT 4 HRS THEN SFC WNDS WILL BECM WLY AND LLWS
WILL SLOLY DMSH.
END/GFA32/YG/CMAC-W

This is a sigmet for severe low level windshear below 500′ due to a steady westerly low level jet blowing at 35Kts. The area is quasi stationary and little change is expected in the next 4 hours where windows will become westerly and the low level windshear will slowly diminish.
Because Sigmets are such an important tool, I felt that it was important to be able to display such notices on a map, especially for flight planning purposes. This is why in an upcoming version of World Flight Planner we’ve decided to include sigmets on the map and as warnings if your filed plan if you pass through an area identified by a sigmet.

The above sigmet is indicated on the map as a red/yellow hashed area. Clicking on the area will bring up a pop-up with the Sigmet information.

Pireps, or Pilot Reports, are a good way to disseminate timely and important information to other pilots and controllers.
A Pirep is used by pilots to let other pilots know of conditions that may not have been forecast or expected. For example, a pilot of a 747 might report turbulence so that air planes behind him can avoid it.
Another good use of pireps are at uncontrolled or unmanned airports. A pilot might submit a report letting other pilots know of the weather conditions at the airport.
Lets take a look at a sample pirep:

UACN10 CYTS 170016
YZ
UA /OV CYTS 179010 /TM 0016 /FLDURD /TP SW4 /IC LGT-MDT MXD 035-072

The first line contains header information. “UA” means “Pilot Report” in WMO speak. CN is for “Canada” and “10″ is the priority. The higher the number, the lower the priority. Sometimes you will see “UACN01″ which is the highest priority for urgent pireps.
“CYTS” is the station that recorded the pirep, and “170016″ is the Date (17th of the month) and time (00:16UTC) the pirep was entered into the system.
The second line contains the Flight Information Region (FIR) that this pirep belongs to. This gives a way for Nav Canada to disseminate the pireps to the proper areas in Canada. There is no point in getting pireps for Vancouver in Toronto.
The last line is the meat and potatoes of the message. It contains all the important information that the pilot reported.
“UA” means “Normal Pilot Report”. A “UUA” would mean “Urgent Pilot Report”.
“/OV” Is the location of the report, I can only assume it means “over”. There are essentially three ways to input information:
- A Navaid, Airport, or Fix,

- A latitude or longitude,

- Or a position from a navaid (as is the case in this example)

You would read “CYTS 179010″ as “10 miles bearing 179° from CYTS”. Or in laymen terms: “10 miles south of the Timmins airport”.
“/TM” Is the time of the report by the pilot
“/FL” is the Flight Level or Altitude of the aircraft. In this case it was “during descent”.
“/TP” is the aircraft type. This is important. For example if a Cessna 172 reports icing, the controller is not going to relay that to a pilot of a 747.
“/IC” Is the amount of icing: Light, Moderate, or Severe.
“/RM” (not in the example) Is a free form field for the pilot to put anything else they want. It’s the remarks section.
Here is another one for you to figure out!

UACN10 CYVP 171314
UL
UA /OV CYVP /TM 1314 /FLDURD /TP BE10 /TB LGT-MDT /RM
GND VISBL 1300FT ASL
RWY VISL 1.3NM FINAL RWY 07

More information about the Pirep can be found in the MANOBS at Environment Canada.
As part of World Flight Planner’s next release, you will be able to view all the filed pireps along your route, or browse them on a map!

Each little blue icon is a pilot report. When you click on it, the raw report opens up in a bubble for you to read.