VFR Flight planning with VATSIM
VFR flight planning can sometimes be much less involved than IFR flight planning, depending on a couple aspects.
First step in preparing a VFR flight plan you need to understand a couple things. First thing you need to ask yourself, the airport I am going to depart from VMC( Visual Metrological Conditions) also the same for the airport I am arriving at. Weather plays a key role in VFR flying. Now if you ever find yourself flying and the weather changes you may change your flight plan from VFR to IFR as long as you communicate with ATC. Consult an airspace / weather minimums chart for the specific VFR weather minimums for the airspace you are flying within. Weather minimums are usually expressed in clearance from clouds and visibility. At no time may a VFR aircraft fly into a cloud for any reason. You may go below, above or beside the cloud. Let’ s look at some of the weather limitations for the United States. When flying VFR below 10,000ft AMSL visibility must be at least 3sm, or if you are fling VFR above 10,000ft AMSL visibility must be at least 5sm. You must stay 500ft below, 1,000ft above, and 2,000ft aside, any clouds. Now since there are no instruments in your aircraft that tells you this information you will have to use sound judgments to abide by these rules. VFR operations are the basic procedures used by all pilots. It is expected that pilots will operate utilizing VFR procedures until they have sufficient knowledge and expertise in the use of instruments only techniques.
VFR refers to a minimum weather condition that must be present in order to operate under visual conditions. In the United States, those weather conditions vary depending on the type of airspace involved and pertain to visibility requirements and distance to be kept away from clouds: Class........ Flight Visibility..... Distance from Clouds
Class B..... 3 statute miles..... clear of clouds Class C..... 3 statute miles..... 500’ below / 1000’ above / 2000’ laterally Class D..... 3 statute miles..... 500’ below / 1000’ above / 2000’ laterally Class E..... less than 10,000’ MSL.............. 3 statute miles..... 500’ below / 1000’ above / 2000’ laterally
Class E..... at or above 10,000’ MSL.............. 5 statute miles..... 1000’ below / 1000’ above / 1 statute mile laterally.
Don’ t forget to plan proper fuel to use. A nice little tool to use for fuel planning you can find at http:// fuelplanner. com /. This will help you to plan accordingly. Declaring a fuel emergency in VATSIM is really an admission of poor flight planning and should be avoided. Next we will select a runway to use. It is very important to make sure the length of the runway will support your aircraft. Another key fact in selecting the runway has to do with wind direction. You always want to take off into the wind. This will provide your aircraft with more lift and a shorter takeoff roll out. Now that we are ready to taxi to the numbers and takeoff we need to contact the controller, or use 122.8 unicom to state our intentions, and our squawk code on our transponder should be set to 1200. This will let the controller know that we are a VFR aircraft. VFR flights should contact controllers when in their airspace near airports, especially when departing or planning to land. VFR flights should contact approach controllers between 20-30 NM from their airspace and state intentions. Towered airports without approach controllers should be contacted about 20 NM out. Class B airspace requires a specific permission / clearance to enter while Class C / D airport only require that radio communications are established. Class E and G airports do not have controllers so no controller contact is required. The communication component can be met by tuning the COM radio to 122.8 which is the UNICOM frequency( in the United States). This channel is used for pilots to announce traffic movements“ in the blind”, meaning that pilots are not expected to reply to UNICOM broadcasts, the broadcasts are intended to be informative and because of its use over a wide geographical area, there are certain conventions that should be followed: