OnCourse Software

I think the subject has been touched on before in various discussions but I haven't found the definitive all-in-one answer.

Could somebody guide me through the procedures in PFE for departing and arriving at untowered airports using an IFR flight plan. In one thread it is suggested that you can't, but the commands appear to exist in PFE. However I'm not clear what to do, in what order. I can't find much in the manuals on this.

Many thanks,

John

Tune in FSS (in most cases 122.2 MHz) and request to open the flight plan (hotkey #0). After takeoff request center frequency (hotkoy #4), tune in the given frequency and call center (hotkey #0 again). For arriving center will vector you the departure airport. It's very simple.

Regards
Wolfgang

Thanks Wolfgang, that sounds nice and simple. I will try that.

Best wishes,

John

Not much luck at the first attempt - landing at an untowered airport (FNUE, Luena, Angola).

As on previous attempts, Centre (123.4) told me to expect vectors for a runway and pointed me approximately in the right direction for base.

Told me relative position of airport and to report it in sight.

I reported it in sight (key 8). This just got the response "Golf Mike 745" (that was my callsign). My voice replied (automatically) "Golf Mike 745 Roger". And that was it!

An automatic reply usually indicates a hand-off so I manually tuned to Multicom (118.1) and attempted to use the keys:
3 - turning base
4 - turning final
5 - clear of the runway
but nothing happened at all. I had to land unannounced.

I even tried retuning to Center, and using key 8 again but exactly the same happened.

What have I missed?

John

Sorry to "bump" this one but I'm still struggling with un-towered airports.

Back to basics:

Starting at an untowered field IFR I'm doing the following:

• 6 at runway to announce take-off
• After take off tune to FSS and request to open IFR flight plan (0), this is granted. (Or I could do this on the ground).
• Then tune to Departure or Centre and make contact (0). The response to this is an acknowledgement, including a squawk code.

But . . . from then on I receive no hand-offs at all. I can manually return to Departure, Centre or Approach (at destination) and make contact again but whoever responds just repeats the same message and squawk code. I get no vectors for landing, runway information or ATS and cannot contact tower at the destination airport, tuning and using the 1 key does nothing.

So somewhere along this process I think I am missing something essential to the flight but cannot figure out quite what.

Any help appreciated.

John