Sport Pilot Talk

ShawnM wrote:I’m with Tim and like knowing someone is at the other end of my push to talk button if the need arises.

Another way to do this is to monitor 121.5, as required by FDC NOTAM “when capable”.

Someone is virtually always on “the other end” if you mash that button. Downside is they won’t immediately know your position, and under stress it can be difficult to articulate your position quickly while dealing with the emergency.

FastEddieB wrote:

ShawnM wrote:I’m with Tim and like knowing someone is at the other end of my push to talk button if the need arises.

Another way to do this is to monitor 121.5, as required by FDC NOTAM “when capable”.

Someone is virtually always on “the other end” if you mash that button. Downside is they won’t immediately know your position, and under stress it can be difficult to articulate your position quickly while dealing with the emergency.

Yup, my new Garmin GTR-200 radio has two soft touch buttons on the face and they are user programmable for 5 different functions and "EMR" is one of them and with the simple push of a button I'm on the emergency frequency 121.5.

FastEddieB wrote:

ShawnM wrote:I’m with Tim and like knowing someone is at the other end of my push to talk button if the need arises.

Another way to do this is to monitor 121.5, as required by FDC NOTAM “when capable”.

Someone is virtually always on “the other end” if you mash that button. Downside is they won’t immediately know your position, and under stress it can be difficult to articulate your position quickly while dealing with the emergency.

You can do that while using flight following on your active frequency. I would prefer to push the button and say "I'm going down" without trying to tell someone where.

The changes don't really affect me, since I have filed a flight plan exactly never since flight school.

With ELTs, PLBs, ADS-B, flight following, etc...can anybody explain to me the value of having a VFR flight plan? Maybe crossing a big desert or flying across Alaska it might make sense, but mainly it just seems like the purpose is to find your mangled body a couple of hours earlier. I can't remember an incident where somebody's life was saved because they filed a flight plan. I'm genuinely curious what the perceived value is.

The point is, you want someone to come looking for you sooner rather than later. They need a method to know you're flying and where you might be. As long as you have some method that does that, I don't think it really matters that much how you do it. I wouldn't want to be hurt and unable to move and nobody even knew I went flying, much less where.

Most of you probably already know this, but the Flight Service web site has an interactive ICAO flight plan form that is pretty simple to use. It's under the Flight Planning and Briefing tab. Just click on the looking glass icons to bring up a drop down box for several of the fields, then put a check in the appropriate items to populate the field in question. You can save your flight plans as favorites. Of course, you will need to create an account there if you don't already have one.

https://www.1800wxbrief.com/Website/das ... AEB8138688

TimTaylor wrote:Most of you probably already know this, but the Flight Service web site has an interactive ICAO flight plan form that is pretty simple to use. It's under the Flight Planning and Briefing tab. Just click on the looking glass icons to bring up a drop down box for several of the fields, then put a check in the appropriate items to populate the field in question. You can save your flight plans as favorites. Of course, you will need to create an account there if you don't already have one.

https://www.1800wxbrief.com/Website/das ... AEB8138688

It's pretty handy. I use it a lot to get weather but recently just for sh*ts and giggles I used it to file a flight plan(of course right before they changed the format). You can set it up to send you a text to activate and close the flight plan. Easy peasy.