Thursday, December 17, 2009 - 22:13:02Z

Pireps - A Pilots Best Friend

Pireps, or Pilot Reports, are a good way to disseminate timely and important information to other pilots and controllers.

A Pirep is used by pilots to let other pilots know of conditions that may not have been forecast or expected. For example, a pilot of a 747 might report turbulence so that air planes behind him can avoid it.

Another good use of pireps are at uncontrolled or unmanned airports. A pilot might submit a report letting other pilots know of the weather conditions at the airport.

Lets take a look at a sample pirep:

UACN10 CYTS 170016
YZ
UA /OV CYTS 179010 /TM 0016 /FLDURD /TP SW4 /IC LGT-MDT MXD 035-072

The first line contains header information. "UA" means "Pilot Report" in WMO speak. CN is for "Canada" and "10" is the priority. The higher the number, the lower the priority. Sometimes you will see "UACN01" which is the highest priority for urgent pireps.

"CYTS" is the station that recorded the pirep, and "170016" is the Date (17th of the month) and time (00:16UTC) the pirep was entered into the system.

The second line contains the Flight Information Region (FIR) that this pirep belongs to. This gives a way for Nav Canada to disseminate the pireps to the proper areas in Canada. There is no point in getting pireps for Vancouver in Toronto.

The last line is the meat and potatoes of the message. It contains all the important information that the pilot reported.

"UA" means "Normal Pilot Report". A "UUA" would mean "Urgent Pilot Report".

"/OV" Is the location of the report, I can only assume it means "over". There are essentially three ways to input information:

- A Navaid, Airport, or Fix,
- A latitude or longitude,
- Or a position from a navaid (as is the case in this example)

You would read "CYTS 179010" as "10 miles bearing 179° from CYTS". Or in laymen terms: "10 miles south of the Timmins airport".

"/TM" Is the time of the report by the pilot

"/FL" is the Flight Level or Altitude of the aircraft. In this case it was "during descent".

"/TP" is the aircraft type. This is important. For example if a Cessna 172 reports icing, the controller is not going to relay that to a pilot of a 747.

"/IC" Is the amount of icing: Light, Moderate, or Severe.

"/RM" (not in the example) Is a free form field for the pilot to put anything else they want. It's the remarks section.

Here is another one for you to figure out!

UACN10 CYVP 171314
UL
UA /OV CYVP /TM 1314 /FLDURD /TP BE10 /TB LGT-MDT /RM GND VISBL 1300FT ASL RWY VISL 1.3NM FINAL RWY 07

More information about the Pirep can be found in the MANOBS at Environment Canada.

As part of World Flight Planner's next release, you will be able to view all the filed pireps along your route, or browse them on a map!

Each little blue icon is a pilot report. When you click on it, the raw report opens up in a bubble for you to read.

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