14 November 2011
Nearly 800 flight plans were filed by pilots as part of the File a Flight Plan Day practice on Saturday 12 November 2011, providing excellent data and feedback for both pilots and organisers, reports the CAA. The Airspace & Safety Initiative (ASI) event encouraged GA pilots to file a test flight plan to familiarise themselves with the process and learn what they need to do next year to continue flying during the Olympics with the minimum of disruption.
At a special facility set up at NATS’ Corporate and Training Centre at Swanwick, nine RAF personnel processed 788 flight plans during the four hour practice. Next summer Atlas Control, the RAF’s air traffic service for the Restricted Zone, will be staffed by 50 controllers and 50 air traffic assistants.
Dawn Lindsey, from the CAA’s Directorate of Airspace Policy, said, “The response from pilots was excellent and I’d like to thank everyone for their efforts and feedback. Some people were so eager to participate that we had 12 flight plans submitted before the test even started!
“We learned some really valuable lessons around the RAF flight plan processing system, the automated flight planning systems currently available such as SkyDemon Light and some common flight plan errors that we can work on.”
All 788 flight plans received will now be analysed and full feedback will be provided later this year. Atlas Control and NATS will work with SkyDemon to further improve the interface between the systems and more educational material on successful flight planning will be published through ASI.
Jonathan Smith, NATS’ Infringement Lead, also took part in the day, both as a pilot filing a plan and observing the team at Swanwick. He said, “It was very reassuring to see a small, dedicated and enthusiastic team of our colleagues from the RAF operationally evaluate the concept and systems we need to safely deliver the aviation security aspects of the Olympics.
“In addition to using AFPEX to file a plan many GA pilots took advantage of some clever functionality added to the SkyDemon Light product to automate the process of completing a flight plan. Atlas Control and NATS will be working with SkyDemon to refine the tool and the CAA will be instrumental in providing the feedback from the day. Together we will provide the systems and educational material that is required for GA to file a successful flight plan as simply as possible to enable them to keep flying during the summer of 2012.”
Plans are already being developed to repeat the exercise again in 2012 to enable even more pilots to prepare for the Government’s airspace restrictions and help keep disruption to a minimum.
If you didn’t get the chance to join in and are unsure about how to file a flight plan, FLYER has put a simple guide tutorial together which you can find on our Facebook site. <a href=”http://www.flyer.co.uk”>Click here for more</a>
