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Eurocontrol IFR flight plan validation expanded to exclude Yo-Yo and sharp turn angle profiles

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NM system identification and rejection of flight plans containing Yo-Yo and sharp turn angle profiles
A basic requirement for effective Air Traffic Flow Management is having predictability on both the capacity and the demand side. Analyses have shown that so-called “yo-yo profiles” and “sharp-turn angle profiles” (Turn) in flight plans are almost never flown.
Yo-Yo and Turn profiles occur in flight plans for various reasons incl. wind component optimization, software limitations/bugs, airspace structure issues, compliance with airspace restrictions, company route maintenance limitations, avoidance of ATFM regulations, etc. Flight plan adherence is a joint responsibility of both pilots and air traffic controllers.

I don’t see anything there affecting GA but it could trigger the spurious rejection of flight plans such as this which contain with a “sharp point”. One obvious workaround would be to modify them to create an extra waypoint near the “point”, to round it off a bit, and that waypoint could be specified with GPS coordinates or with the VOR-relative notation. Or fly the point under VFR, which Eurocontrol ignores.

Eurocontrol already checks for plausible climb and cruise profiles but there is a considerably leeway on that – see e.g. here. I can’t find the thread now but I did some tests to probe the margins and they seem to be plus or minus 1.5x, relative to some performance model which they run and which is secret. The relevance of this is with destinations where the filed ETA must be within some PPR time slot e.g. Aero EDNY (who cancel your flight plan otherwise) or potentially some of the Fraport-controlled Greek airports.

I would have hoped that the Java programmers at Eurocontrol would have better things to spend their time on

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Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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