Filing a FAA flight plan and not sure what to put in the aircraft type box? Lets go through some common examples and how to find out what what to put for your aircraft.
Old FAA Flight Plan (Form 7233-1)
Aircraft type is section 3 in the old (being phased out in 2017) FAA flight plan form:
New International (and valid for Domestic) ICAO Flight Plan (Form 7233-4)
The new ICAO flight plan form is the ‘preferred’ format, and should be your only option as the FAA phased out the old form in 2017. It says ‘international’ at the top, but this form is good for both international and domestic flight plans, The aircraft type is part of section 9 in the new ICAO form:
Searchable ICAO Aircraft Type Designators
The FAA guidance (FAA ICAO Flight Planning Interface Reference Guide) says the aircraft type must be “an approved type designator consistent with ICAO Doc. 8643”. You can find the full searchable list of ICAO compliant designators at http://www.icao.int/anb/ais/8643/index.cfm:
And if you are flying something that is not listed (maybe a home built experimental), you can
insert the characters ZZZZ and enter the aircraft type in the remarks section 11 (or other information section 18 on an international ICAO flight plan).
So lets go through some relatively common examples of aircraft and their ICAO type designators:
- Robinson R22 (all models) = R22
- Robinson R44 (all models) = R44
- Schweizer 300 = H269
- Enstrom F28 = EN28
- Guimbal Cabri G2 = G2CA
- AS350 or H125 = AS50
- EC130 or H130 = EC30
- Bell 206 (JetRanger & LongRanger) = B06
- Bell 407 = B407
More Information
- FAA ICAO Flight Planning Quick Reference
- FAA Flight Planning Information
- Searchable List of ICAO Compliant Designators
- OLD FAA Domestic-only Flight Plan Form 7233-1
- NEW ICAO International (and Domestic) Flight Plan Form 7233-4
- AIM 5−1−4. Flight Plan − VFR Flights
- Filing ICAO Flight Plans in ForeFlight (YouTube video)
- Flight Services (1-800-WX-BRIEF or 1-800-992-7433)
