Many of you regular flyers to France will know that for a long time we had an online flight preparation weather, notams etc and planning filing flight plan site called Olivia.
This has now basically morphed or is morphing into Sofia briefing with access to much better information. The latest update includes amongst other updates the ability to receive CTOTs by email (actually it says couriel I am assuming email).
(Translation below)
NEW VERSION OF SOFIA-BRIEFING!
For flight plans:
Creation of the RVR field
Ability to enter significant two-letter points
Taking into account alphanumeric characters entered in the RMK box from a smartphone / tablet (e.g.: telephone number)
Choice to receive information relating to SLOTs by email
Update of the flight map by specializing the display of the take-off time (CTOT display in the flight thumbnail)
Better visibility of the reason for rejecting a flight plan.
IMO using Sofia needs a little patience for a first timer but gets easier and better the more you use it. I have not investigated the full range of services as of yet. But if you are thinking of flying to or over France it might be worth taking a look.
Is Sofia for France only?
I did a search and didn’t find anything.
There were long standing issues with Olivia e.g. on a flight plan at least one end had to be in France otherwise the FP would disappear.
I just tested it on a LFMD-LIRZ and EGLL-LIRZ flights and it recovers NOTAMS (in english) and can provide weather forecast (METAR-TAF), then gives an easy access to TEMSI/WINTEM maps is available (=if day of the flight is current). What SFIA cannot do is filing a FPL with a departure outside France, but you can still have NOTAM and weather.
I tested it also and managed to get NOTAMs, TAF and METAR for ENVA so it seems to work for that part outside France. I still prefer www.ippc.no.
In the notes it says that only FPLs with a departure airport in France can be filed.
It doesn’t say that the arrivals airport needs to be in France.
@gallois, you wrote that in Sofia, one can get the list of AIP SUPs along a route.
I can’t get it, I only have the whole list that I must go through every time.
How do you do that ?
Isn’t this the same thing that you can get as Route PIB within Pre-Flight Briefing at ead.eurocontrol.int?
@Jujupilote if you enter your route on Sofia and go to Notams you will see a “étroite route” or something like that. You can set this up for margins either side of the route.
You can then get just the Notams within the Nm either side of that route that you have set. You can choose between just a list of Notams or a detailed list. In either you will see the list of SUP AIPs along that route. Each has a number. If you choose the list and see any Notams that affect you or don’t as is more likely, you can tick each of the boxes of any Notams you are interested in and then press detailed. You will then get details of all the Notams you have ticked.
However, many SUP AIP notams are as clear as mud, in that the areas concerned are often given in things like latitude and longitude so you are better off noting the number and going to the SUP AIP list and clicking on that number. You usually get a map of the area affected by the SUP AIP and much more accessible information.
I’m sorry but this is one of those things which is easier to demonstrate than to write descriptions of without writing a book.
@Jujupilote I tried to upload the French version of this in my previous post but I think the file was too big so here is the English publication.
DSNA_plaquette_sofia_briefing_EN_pdf
For some reason the file is half the size.
When they pop-up in your Sofia NOTAMs (based on your route), you can copy / paste the SUP AIP in Google and get the whole PDF (with maps and detailed activation, restrictions etc.) very quickly.
It’s also very easy to display the zones directly on SDVFR (and double tap them to have more info, and see the PDF).
