if I wanted to file a string of directs, I’d just use Skydemon to assemble the route graphically, and not bother with an autorouting tool.
That, however, won’t get you a validated route.
Also, IME, assembling routes manually (without the intimate knowledge of the standard route documents which I believe you have) has not been practical for a number of years. I last did it c. 2006 (a crappy flight simmer route generator which was all there was back then, was down) and it took me an hour in a hotel in Prague to get a route which would be accepted.
But then I might be misunderstanding you.
The router discussed here does an absolutely massive amount of work behind the scenes, running thousands of routes through the Eurocontrol database and then iteratively submitting the already very close final result for validation.
If ATC totally (or almost totally) disregard the filed route as it passes through each ATCO’s sector, that would certainly be a novel approach to life. I haven’t heard that before.
Not sure if this helps but ALT2F is a STAR not a waypoint.
Yes but the problem is it is in the VFR part of the flight plan, and the VFR portion is not supposed to contain any airways or SIDs or STARs; at least that was my reading of your typical ENR 1.10 section.
Speaking of Skyvector charts, they contain some very obsolete data due to the use of old American TPCs. Some corrections have been made, but some errors remain uncorrected – for example, LKHK is still listed as military even though it’s been in civil operation for over 10 years. A better alternative may be to use openaip.net charts.
Funnily enough, openaip.net commits the exact same error for EBBT, though I do not know since how long the military left there.
Speaking of Skyvector charts, they contain some very obsolete data due to the use of old American TPCs. Some corrections have been made, but some errors remain uncorrected
It seems to be the case for airports, next to my home base ESFJ is still listed even though it’s been shut down for 10 years. The runway isn’t available either due to buildings. The CTRs and TMAs seem to be updated much better.
Edit: ESFJ is listed on openaip.net as well.
Yes – the U.S. DAFIF agency published very similar looking charts. The public access got closed in 2006 because they got threatened by (mostly) the European CAAs.
UK routings
There are specific issues in the UK, because the IFR sectors have their own “flight plan filters” which are confidential and not disclosed to Eurocontrol. So you can file flight plans which validate but they will be rejected by say London Control when they get them from Eurocontrol.
The “street knowledge” is to not file anything below about FL100. That’s the simple approach, and is especially valid anywhere near the London TMA where I think specific crossing levels do exist around FL100/110.
You can fly lower in other places e.g. Shoreham EGKA to Lydd EGMD or to Le Touquet LFAT can be done at FL070. Those flights will be largely in Class G anyway, due to climb/descent.
There are rare instances where one can go even lower e.g. the Q41 airway from Bournemouth EGHH to Jersey EGJJ (via ORTAC).
But general Eurocontrol flying around the UK need a minimum level set to FL100, as a starting point.
Might be handy for new visitors to have a link on the Euroga homepage to the autorouter website?
I’ve created a route EGNM → EGKA, departure time 2014-03-28 11:00Z.
It gives me this GRAMET:
Ogimet gives me quite a different GRAMET for the same route:
Since the Autorouter and the Ogimet Gramets use the same GFS source, I would expect the pictures to be more or less similar,
but the Autorouter GRAMET does not display the TCU clouds on the 2nd part of the route.
Checking the actual Sat24 images there are FL150 clouds in the London area:
Today, because of the DCT discussion I had my autorouter flightplan EDFZ to EDXW (Sylt) checked on Aeroplus’ FPL app and it didn’t get the validation with the following remark
CFMU VALIDATION ERRORS
INVALID DCT OSDIK .. OSN. DCT ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CROSS THE BORDER BETWEEN EDGGDCT AND EDWWCTA (EDED401A)
