As promised in one of the latest recordings I’m publishing my little VFR excel sheet. The purpose is to give VATSIM / IVAO etc students (like me) some kind of framework with which to assemble standard phrases which can be used in VFR situations (no IFR included here).
Basically you fill out a couple of fields at the top of the sheet, like origin, destination, preferred altitude etc and then the sheet generates phrases to be used in situations with towered or non-towered airfields.
Of course it’s neither complete nor perfect, so I’d love for more experienced pilots to help out and advise on how to make this better. Readbacks aren’t included here, because we don’t know exactly in advance what controllers will say.
Download can be found here:
Love to hear thoughts, especially constructive criticism.
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thanks for your advice.
i don’t really understand point number one - are you talking about the fact that i am using excel here? if so, in fact i didn’t create the sheet with microsoft stuff, but with onlyoffice (open source and free). there’s plenty of other options out there which do not require a paid license, like libreoffice, openoffce, whatever.
all your other points are valid and welcome, but they are of general nature and do not directly relate to the idea to create a framework to help people assemble useful standard phrases for simulator scenarios with VATSIM or similar online networks, which the sheet tries to do. some kind of starting point. to clarify my hope here: do you have any comments on the idea itself? is this a useful approach, do the phrases work, is there a better way?
Guess it’s Microsoft being microsoft. When I open the sheet on Windows 11 I get a message that this sheet can’t be opened with the free version of excel and that I need to upgrade my O365 license.
as to the usefulness - I think the format might be useful, however I think to get this “right” is a complicated.
In many cases for example at a towered airport there are local differences usually explained in ATIS - for example what information is required on initial contact; what assumptions should be made, etc. Typically the busier the airport the less communication is expected. General rule of thumb is to use the least words to convey accurately exactly what is needed. Callsigns are usually abbreviated as well after initial contact if no similar callsigns on the same frequency.
So to take some examples from your sheet:
“ready for takeoff” would more likely be “ tower cessna 12345 charlie at bravo ready for departure 27 departing to the ne” [note that info would have been conveyed when contacting ground]
when contacting inbound there are usually local rules published in sectionals (albeit I’m dating myself). for example, approaching kcdw from the west one reports at Boonton reservoir:
Caldwell tower, Cessna 12345 charlie 3 point 5 boonton inbound with kilo full stop.
Reply: 45 Charlie, caldwell squawk 1234
45 charlie, caldwell radar contact, report downwind
Here’s the actual guide I use:
awesome, thank you. i think i get it. yes, it might be a more complicated to include variable requirements depending on the airports. i’ll think about that.
yes, that one is also very helpful. i’ve actually used it partly to compile the phrases in the sheet. thanks!