Why is the underlying Eurocontrol IFR routing framework designed like this? And who benefits from the design.
That is the wrong question and there is no answer to it 
It’s how the Eurocrats work. Lots of parties involved, all with their national history and preferences, trying to find a solution that incorporates all peculiarities. IFPS is a massive technological answer to a problem that shouldn’t really exist in the first place. Same for 8.33kHz, it was politically easier to require thousands of radios to be replaced at the owner’s expense than remove unnecessary jobs (frequency managers in every country) and lay out the frequency use centrally at the Brussels level.
I wonder – is there an export facility on autorouter and an equivalent import facility in EuroFPL? Copying and pasting is easy enough with the pc at home but a PITA on a phone in a hotel bedroom.
I tried to make it very easy. You just open the route, choose the format you like, click on it and your tablet/phone will offer you to put it in the clipboard. You should then be able to paste it to EuroFPL. We’re in talks with the main players to offer a more direct integration in the future.
What does puzzle me is why there are so many level changes generated in the routes. I manually removed some of them before filing and it validated just as well.
Do you have an example? We should not generate level changes for no reason. Either we believe the current level is not allowed (which could be wrong) or the aircraft model tells us it performs better higher up / lower down and we take the opportunity to change the level because the optimization goal is shortest time usually. Internally we do penalize level changes because you don’t want to climb/descent 5 times in order to gain 2 minutes but how we penalize them is adjustable by metrics. We have to further tune those metrics or even let users override them. That is part of the ongoing evolution and all feedback is welcome. It’s the very first version product with lots to come in the future…
Regarding filing, we do have the agreements with Eurocontrol and SITA/IATA to file and even implemented the functionality but it is a delicate business and we decided to not offer it at this time. For Z/Y flight plans, they have to addressed to additional stations and the way this is done is very messy and requires putting information from 40 AIPs into software and constantly maintain it. Also, it needs to be well tested and robust because as a pilot you do not want any nasty surprises. This is why we think you’re better off using your AIS, EuroFPL or RocketRoute at this point. We realize that pilots want an integrated solution and it’s on our roadmap. Integrated could also mean that there is a direct interface to send a flight plan to another provider.
That is the wrong question and there is no answer to it
Copy that. Clearly my initial understanding was embarrasingly naive.
So I guess what you guys are building isn’t so much a routing engine per se, but rather a Eurocracy discombobulator! (jeez, without the EU we’d all be getting laid a lot more )
There is an official word called comitology. Read up the article, it will tell you all you need to know about the EU. I have always been of the opinion that when people do not have enough “real” problems (lions trying to eat you, starvation, etc.), they start creating artificial problems. The EU is mankind’s finest achievement in that area.
I would also recommend purchasing the entire DVD set of Yes Minister.
For Z/Y flight plans, they have to addressed to additional stations and the way this is done is very messy and requires putting information from 40 AIPs into software and constantly maintain it
Very true. In fact, not only the AIPs have to monitored, but of course also NOTAMs, AICs, etc. As just one example, recently, I came across this one:
1A4646LI 08/07/2013 15:54
RACS A)BRINDISI MILANO ROMA FIR
B)08 JUL 2013 15:54 C)PERM
E)REF AIP ENR 1.11-1 ‘ADDRESSING OF FLIGHT PLAN MESSAGES’
ADD THE FOLLOWING:
AFTN ADDRESS ‘LIIRZEZX’ SHALL BE ADDED TO THE RECIPIENTS DISTRIBUTION
LIST PRESCRIBED BY ICAO DOC 4444 ATM501 FOR:
- VFR FPL AND ASSOCIATED MESSAGES, AND/OR
- MIXED FLIGHT RULES FPL (Y OR Z) AND ASSOCIATED MESSAGES,
IF THE WHOLE IFR PART OF THE FLIGHT IS PLANNED OUTSIDE ITALIAN FIR. RMK: IN CASE OF A FLIGHT THROUGH INTERMEDIATE STOPS, THE FLIGHT PLANS FOR EACH SUBSEQUENT STAGE OF FLIGHT SHALL BE ADDRESSED SOLELY TO THE ARO ASSOCIATED TO THE SUBSEQUENT DEPARTURE AD OR
TO THE JURISDICTIONAL ARO-CBO ACCORDING TO RESPONSIBILITY AREAS PUBLISHED IN AIP GEN 3.1-9
Q)LIXX/QXXCS/IV/BO /E /000/999/4339N01139E546
It’s definitely an effort. Also puts the fees of services like RR into perspective, at least a bit.
BTW, (@ all) in your experience, how well does RR actually do with the addressing bit? Personally, in the last three years, nobody ever called me to say “you should have addressed you flightplan also to XY…” But I guess a lot of stuff just remains in the background and never comes back to the pilot…
BTW, (@ all) how well does RR do with the addressing bit?
Quite well in my experience. I did have a very unpleasant experience in Egypt where I burnt precious avgas in full sun on the tarmac, only to hear that the tower doesn’t know about any flight plan I might have filed. That costed me an hour. Eventually I managed to get the Egyptian AIP and sent it to RocketRoute who promptly corrected the addressing. The next time it worked.
I dislike the fact that this flight plan addressing business is still black magic. I’m thinking about collecting the information in a wiki format and make it publicly available for every vendor to use and participate. It really doesn’t make sense for every company to collect the information, it’s a really stupid job. Those that have it consider it to be proprietary knowledge because it cost them money but I think everybody would be better off if it was free. Same goes for the airspace data taken from the AIPs.
I think Rocket Route has about the only good autorouting engine — sorry Achim, you’re getting there, but you need to get rid of those strings of kludgy DCTs :)
Just to add, I’ve had a little discussion with Achim offline and I think I’ve misunderstood a couple of things. Just a little fix/workaround, and it’ll be beating RR hands down.
IFPS is a massive technological answer to a problem that shouldn’t really exist in the first place.
A bit harsh. I started flying IFR before IFPS/CFMU. Slots in the UK existed then and were much more frequently applied and restrictive when applied. I find slots rare these days — I didn’t even get a CTOT flying IFR into EDNY last Wednesday.
The problem is really the plethora of planning route restrictions that are not enforced in flight, leading to unnecessary complexity. The individual ANSPs are responsible for many of these. A bit of rationalisation and integration of ATM provision would help, but then people start accusing the EU of overreaching… ;)
bq. What does puzzle me is why there are so many level changes generated in the routes. I manually removed some of them before filing and it validated just as well.
Do you have an example?
This is what autorouter generated for my flight last Saturday from Memmingen EDJA to Cambridge EGSC:-
EDJA LUPOL4A LUPOL/N0122F070 Z79 SUDEN/N0125F090 DCT TGO/N0129F110 DCT LAMGO/N0136F140 DCT BADLI DCT GEBDA DCT RMS DCT IDARO DCT LULAT/N0130F110 Z104 TIPUT DCT SOPOK DCT REMBA M624 GILOM/N0131F120 BUB/N0133F130 NIK/N0138F150 L179 HELEN COA SASKI/N0142F170 GILTI DCT JACKO DCT ABBOT/N0132F140 ABBOT1E EGSC
Not counting altitudes imposed by the SID, there are 8 level changes. When I filed it (using RR) I removed all level changes after GILOM, as they were getting higher than I wanted to be with a forecast headwind. In fact I was quickly asked what level I wanted, chose FL110 as it was just ‘on top’ and stayed there throughout.
The aircraft model selected in autorouter was the TB20
I appreciate that the software is a work-in-progress (and v1 already provides a very usable tool). But some user capability to accept (or not) level changes would help IMO, as I might have been completely happy with the higher levels if there had been a tailwind that day.
The problem is really the plethora of planning route restrictions that are not enforced in flight, leading to unnecessary complexity. The individual ANSPs are responsible for many of these. A bit of rationalisation and integration of ATM provision would help, but then people start accusing the EU of overreaching… ;)
Indeed, and Europe is still suffering from the Chicago convention of 1944…..
