Trying to understand flight planning in Europe. Specifically, lateral routings.
I’ve been reading about FRA, the European AUP/UUP published daily, the RAD document, combined with the validation tool.
So far, it’s a slow but steady learning curve. But one thing about a recent flight plan got me confused. I had initially planned “[…] HON UL612 XAMAB […]”, but the system recommended that I simply fly DCT between HON and XAMAB. That part confuses me though. That airspace EGTT is labeled as “No FRA”. So why is the system allowing and validating me to fly DCT between HON and XAMAB? I would think that, since it’s No FRA airspace, that wouldn’t be allowed.
Any thoughts from anyone familiar with Eurocontrol flight planning procedures?
For the UK there is a vital document called Standard Route Document, or SRD for short, which is an excel spreadsheet. It is found in the NATS NATS UK | Digital Datasets
If you search for XAMAB you’ll find in line 251 …UL612 HON DCT XAMAB
So while FRA isn’t used in EGTT directs can be used according to the SRD.
If I can’t get a route with eurofpl, I just let PFPX find a route.
Alternatively I look up the SID endpoints and STAR starting points of the airports I’d like to fly from and to and build a route between those two waypoints on skyvector.com.
For most flights within Europe, eurofpl provides NM Proposed Routes.
The errors are due to Danger/Restricted Areas that are active due to military activity. You can largely ignore these at VATSIM, if you don’t want to navigate aroud them (can be tricky).
Unfortunately it doesn’t work this way. Eurocontrol assumes that your have a dispatch office behind you, so it’s up to you. Otherwise they would probably charge you for the service!!!
There are different implementations of FRA depending on the state, but generally it means a removal of the ATS network. Obviously in EGTT the ATS network is still firmly in place, that doesn’t mean that certain direct routings can’t be flight planned though.
Trying to plan an IFPS compliant flight manually is a huge stab in the dark and not an easy task at all. You really need flight planning software that has access to the latest AIRAC, RAD, SUP, AUP/UUP, UK-SRD etc…
It used to be the case that HON DCT XAMAB could only be flight planned at night, but it’s now available 05:01 - 23:00 provided certain restrictions are met. The applicable RAD restriction is EG5298:
Night Time DCT Route.
2.To provide fuel saving benefit for traffic via HON and SITET outside of the night time DCT.
3.The DCT is not available to traffic departing MANCHESTER_GROUP/ MIDLANDLANDS_GROUP) and EGCN NM, except at night (00:01…06:00 (23:01…05:00) at HON).
)!
