Frankfurt is a big pain in the a... The best flight I ever had in Frankfurt TMA was on 17. April 2010, enroute from Hassfurt to Coventry. I had the choice of levels between FL060 and 090 and every routing I'd like. We should have more ash clouds.
So in using rocketroute, should I really care about the specific route or just focus on altitude and a reasonable route, get airborne and sort it out?
You need to get something close enough to the route that you want to fly to get it in the right ATC sectors. So filing a route over Belgium and then asking for a direct route over the Netherlands is unlikely to be successful. Filing an airways route with lots of little twiddles in Germany is fine, because 99% of the time the controller will just clear you to a point downroute.
And I assume at FL150 to 250 I should be out of the way enough to get good flexibility.
You need to get something close enough to the route that you want to fly to get it in the right ATC sectors. So filing a route over Belgium and then asking for a direct route over the Netherlands is unlikely to be successful.
Yes and depending on the countries involved, the planned crossover point will have to be flown to even if it's not convenient. However, if you ask nicely, ATC can pick up the phone and call their colleagues in the neighboring country to coordinate a more direct route. I have experienced that several times between France and Germany which is difficult route wise as France has relatively few airways and does not allow filing DCTs.
And I assume at FL150 to 250 I should be out of the way enough to get good flexibility.
In reality, it doesn't matter, you are always going to be way below airliners where there is almost no traffic. Stay above the TMAs and you are most likely going to fly (almost) direct.
Is there a way to force the Rocketroute Autoroute function to generate a route via a certain waypoint?
Rocketroute tries to always find the shortest route. However, in some cases I want a route via a certain point, in order to avoid flying over large stretches over water.
ask them at [email protected]. They are very quick and helpful..
A achima wrote, sometimes ATC can sort it out in the air, but don’t rely on it.
Recently, Belgium got me to Monchengladbach via L179 instead of the detour via L607 LNO. The route was open (weekend) but it has a restriction that it cannot be filed for Monchengladbach as destination, which makes some sense given the MEA and the descent required. I asked as soon as I was in contact with Brussels and they sorted it out… Saved at least 15 minutes given the runway in use.
I could have tried the old “file elsewhere and divert to your real destination” trick but on that occasion felt it wasn’t clever, given three ATC units in short succession…
Is there a way to force the Rocketroute Autoroute function to generate a route via a certain waypoint?
No.
AFAICS, yes.
In the route section, open the tab “advanced” and then enter a must-fly-over waypoint in the line “waypoint 1”. For some reason, it does not always work, though (i.e. sometimes, RR ignores it).
It is indeed very useful. RR’s route engine unfortunately is not “geographically clever”. For example, routes from Northern Germany to say Deauville will have one cross the Channel twice – for no reason! (I know that in reality one will 99% not fly that route but one never knows and one day, ATC will say “that’s what you filed Sir”…)
Another one is from Germany to say Palanga in Lithuania. That one will unnecessarily take one through Russian airspace (with all that it entails…permits, airway fees, etc)…
Wow Bosco. Talk about blindness. I have changed the Min and Max FL loads and never paid attention to those fields.
I stand fully corrected.
Constraining the search in this way may of course make it unsolvable.
