It’s easy to become a little bit complacent about briefing
an approach plate. We look at the big
ticket items, so to speak – the altitudes, fixes, missed approach procedures,
etc. But it is all too easy to let a
little item slip through the cracks.
This came to mind recently when I was working in the G1000 sim with a
customer who was planning a vacation to the Pacific Northwest area and wanted
to rent a plane while out there. I was looking at the available procedures for
Renton (RNT) and saw this in the notes.
“When local altimeter setting not received, use
Seattle-Tacoma Intl altimeter setting.”
It’s a note that is present on many approach plates. But how many of us would take the time to
find the frequency for ATIS at the Seattle airport? I’d wager most of us don’t, and as you can
see, it is clearly not provided on the approach plate. Yes,
you could use your GPS to find the information, but there is actually a far
easier way to get the information, and it involves the now-ubiquitous
iPad.
The example detailed here utilizes an iPad2 and the very
popular ForeFlight application. From the
Map page, with IFR enroute low chart type selected, you can clearly see the
Seattle airport (SEA), to the west of Renton (RNT).
If you put your finger on the SEA airport symbol,
ForeFlight brings up a dialog box that looks like this.
We don’t want to add KSEA to the route, but we would like
to get the frequency for its weather information. Selecting the “>” symbol to the right
of the airport accomplishes this. The
first page displayed is the METAR, which has the altimeter setting.
But you can also get the ATIS frequency by selecting the
“Info” tab at the bottom of the dialog box.
So now you have the SEA altimeter setting and can proceed
to your destination at Renton.
ForeFlight gives a convenient way to get the information, but you could
have also included it in your briefing of the approach plate.
