Hello again Bob, I have come across another paragraph in the AIP which complicates things further. You said that in the event that the destination has no TAF, then an alternate would have to be planned based on the lowest safe altitude of the last leg being in VFR conditions.

However, ENR 1.1 57.1.3 states that "when an aerodrome forecast is not available or is "provisional" the pilot in command must make provision for a suitable alternate that has a firm forecast. This suggests that in the case of port pirie an alternate would have to be planned no matter how clear the area forecast indicated the weather to be. Do you agree?

And going one step further, it even suggests that if the flight was a good old simple VFR flight in a C172, an alternate MUST ALWAYS be planned unless the destination has a TAF...(the vast majority of VFR flights would therefore need to plan for an alternate)

What is your opinion on this?

Thanks again

Actually I didn't say that you would have to plan on the LSALT + 500 and 8km vis. I said that it seems reasonable to make that assumption. I agree that the AIP does not specifically mention it. The requirements for planning IFR to an aerodrome without an instrument approach procedure is the only special case mentioned in the AIP. Since the advent of GPS approaches as the only approach available, there are an increasing number of aerodromes now which have an instrument approach [GPS only], but no TAF.

I think this is a case of the AIP not keeping up with the changes. I'll check it out with some of my contacts in CASA and let you know what they say.

Bob