Fly with John Thywissen, CFI, CFII, IGI

The Equipment Type Suffix is Dead; Now What Do I File for a GA Aircraft?

We will say farewell to the FAA domestic flight plan and its single-letter equipment type suffix sometime in 2016 2017 2018 August 2019. The ICAO flight plan format has changed this to a much more detailed description of an aircraft’s capabilities.

Instead of trying to jam all of the information about an aircraft’s transponder, communication, and navigation equipment into a single letter, this is now broken into several lists of letters and numbers. This is a nice change; however, it’s a bit complex. I’ll try to guide you through it.

Equipment (Block 10)

The equipment block (block 10) of the ICAO form is a list of letters/numbers that describe your comm/nav equipment, a slash, and more letters/numbers that describe your transponder and ADS equipment.

For a basic airplane with VHF radios, VOR/ILS nav, and a mode C transponder, the equipment block would be simply “S/C”.

The AIM lists a whole slew of possibilities, but assuming your comm system is normal VHF, here is what is relevant to you.

In the tables below, I have stripped out codes for equipment that non-corporate GA aircraft usually don’t have. In particular, I’ve left out airline-style, military, satellite comm, obsolete, and rare equipment. I have also stripped out codes that require a FAA Letter of Authorization.

Comm

Nav

Transponder

Transponder and ADS codes go after the slash.

ADS

Only if you have ADS, add one or two of these to the transponder code:

Other (Block 18): PBN NAV SUR CODE

Ugh. This block has become a catch-all for a bunch of things, most of which don’t apply to GA, but clutters up the AIM for us. Here’s what you really care about.

“PBN/”: GPS

You will get better routing if you let ATC know what your GPS is approved for. Look in your POH, GPS Pilot’s Guide, or look up your GPS in the FAA’s GPS approval table, and add these PBN codes to block 18. If you add any PBN codes, add “R” to block 10.

I left out all DME-DME RNAV equipment.

Remember, for GPS-based navigation:

• Non-WAAS GPS navs require a RAIM prediction as part of preflight planning.
• Procedures (approaches, DPs, and STARs) must be loaded from the database.
• The database must be current (or you must check that the waypoints/procedures are unchanged).

“NAV/”: WAAS

If you add any NAV codes, add “Z” to block 10.

If your GPS uses WAAS, add NAV/SBAS to block 18.

“NAV/”: No RNAV SIDs, STARs, etc.

To control whether you get assigned RNAV SIDs, STARs, or routes, add “NAV/RNV” codes to block 10. Use “D1” to request RNAV SIDs, “A1” to request RNAV STARs, “E2” to request RNAV routes (T-routes and Q-routes). If you add any NAV codes, add “Z” to block 10.

“SUR/” and “CODE/”: ADS-B

If you have an FAA-approved (FAR 91.227) ADS-B out equipment, add SUR/A2 to block 18.

With ADS-B out, you need to add CODE/A12345 to block 18, where the A12345 is your “Mode S Code (hex)”. You can look up your Mode S code at the FAA Aircraft Registry Web site.

Examples

Here are a few common scenarios. Check your aircraft’s POH (probably the supplements chapter) and avionics’ pilot’s guides for your aircraft’s capabilities.