Quote:
Originally Posted by livinthedream89
Hello all,
Thank you for all the replies. We made it to the Canaries yesterday! Making the Atlantic crossing was definitely an adventure including scraping ice off the plane and getting deiced in Goose Bay, a change from Keflavik to Reykjavik due to weather and of course my first oceanic crossing.
Question for anyone who has crossed before and may know the answer!
First of all, we are not HF equipped, so we knew we had to avoid Shanwick's airspace.
We contracted with Universal to do flight planning and handling for us. Going from Reykjavik to Vigo Spain, they filed us on the T9 route through Shanwick's oceanic airspace (from 51N9W to 45N9W). I thought this was strange, and brought it to the attention of the captain. He said the T9 route was VHF capable.
Well passing into Shanwick's airspace we were told to contact Shannon radio. When we did they gave me an HF freq and no VHF. I told them we needed a VHF freq, and after a few minutes they came back and said "ATC advises that you must be HF equipped to fly through Shanwick's oceanic airspace. They will make a log entry." After conversing with the captain we made mention to the radio operator that we thought the T route was VHF capable. She came back with ATCs response of "All of Shanwick's airspace requires HF radio."
As soon as we landed in Spain we called Universal and they said they understood the T route was VHF capable.
So....
1- What the heck does a log entry mean?!
2- I'm sure some of you are wondering why we kept going through it when I brought it to the Captain's attention. This was my first time in Europe and I trusted Universal. Did I make a mistake in trusting a company that exclusively does this kind of planning?
Thanks for any answers, and go easy on me, I want to know how we can improve so this doesn't happen again on the way back.
Welcome to the other side of 30W!!
Companies such as Colt, Universal and Arinc are pretty spot on with their info and procedures so it's hard to not trust them.
Please refer to this article about the T routes through Shanwick.
http://flightservicebureau.org/the-t...-tango-routes/
HF is required in Shanwick airspace.
As for a log entry, I think they will note what happened with the tail number. Shouldn't be anything more than note taking.
Have fun over there!