All the crews intended to operate within Santa Maria OCA should note if their aircraft have the following equipment and have a properly filled flight plan:

  • HF Radio (H in Field 10a, if operating outside VHF radio range)
  • ADS-C (D2 in Field 10b if with FANS 1/A capabilities)
  • CPDLC (J2 to J7 in Field 10a if with FANS 1/A capabilities)
  • REG/XXXXX (Field 18)
  • SEL/XXXX (Field 18)

 

To improve the safety and efficiency in service provision, from 45N013W to 2218N04000W, along Santa Maria’s East and South FIR boundaries, all operators shall flight plan to enter and leave the LPPO FIR through the designated FIR boundary points.

With the exception of the recommendation to make use of the existing designated boundary waypoints, within Santa Maria FIR, all flights which generally route in an eastbound or westbound direction should normally be flight planned so that specified ten degrees of longitude (20°W, 30°W, 40°W etc.) are crossed at whole degrees of latitude; and all generally northbound or southbound flights should normally be flight planned so that specified parallels of latitude spaced at five degree intervals (25°N, 30°N, 35°N etc.) are crossed at whole degrees of longitude.

 

NAT OTS Messages:

Day Tracks within Santa Maria FIR, whenever implemented, will be included in the Shanwick OTS message, while Night Tracks, whenever implemented, will be included in the Gander OTS message.

The current NAT Tracks are available here: http://jetvision.de/nattracks.shtml

For flights conducted along one of the Organized Tracks from the entry point into the NAT Flight Information Regions to the exit point, the Organized Track shall be defined in the Flight Plan by the abbreviation “NAT” followed by the code letter assigned to the track.

For flights conducted along one of the Organized Tracks from the entry point into the NAT flight Information Regions to the exit point, the estimated time of arrival only over the first Oceanic FIR boundary shall be specified in the item 18 of the Flight Plan (e.g. EET/LPPO0045). For turbo-jet aircraft operating in the OTS the Mach number planned to be used shall be specified in the item 15 of the Flight Plan.