Implementing airspace structure - some ESE file questions

[Ervins Reinverts]

These days I am working on EVRR sectorfile to implement some changes to get it ready when the next AIRAC will come into effect on November 18 + doing quite a lot not-AIRAC-related stuff to simply improve it. And at some point I decided that it would be nice to also implement the correct EVRR airspace structure, as today we use somewhat simplified model of it. First, the schematics of how it is made in real life:

 

 

As you see, we only have two types of airspace here - cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] C and cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] G, or simplified - controlled and uncontrolled.

 

As it is implemented until now, we haven't defined any lower boundaries - all the controlled airspace goes down to the ground, like TMA, and the FIR+UIR+CTA+UTA (we have no vertical separation in the airspace controller-wise; There are two "upper" sectors - EVRR which includes entire airspace and EVRR_E which is part of it; both stretches from the ground up to FL600 - yes I know its different than in the picture, but it is how it was defined up to now).

 

I looked at that image, then through the ESE file, thought a bit and figured out that actually I have to make just a very little changes to conduct a test on how this thing works. What I did, is simply impose the vertical limits for the both big sectors, at this time leaving TMAs as they are as I first want to test the concept. Here is how the sector definitions look after the change:

 

;
; EVRR_E_CTR sector, only to be online along with EVRR_CTR
;
SECTOR:EVRR_E:9500:46000
OWNER:RE:RC:EN
BORDER:EVRA_APP_EYVL:EVRR_EYVL_EAST:EVRR_UMMV:EVRR_ULOL:EVRR_EETT_EAST:EVRA_APP_EETT:SCL_RA_RC_W
DEPAPT:EVRA:EVKA:EVDA:EVTA:EVAD:EVRS:EVRC:EVPA:EVGA
ARRAPT:EVRA:EVKA:EVDA:EVTA:EVAD:EVRS:EVRC:EVPA:EVGA
;
; EVRR_CTR sector ("west")
;
SECTOR:EVRR:9500:46000
OWNER:RC:RE:EN
BORDER:EYVL_EVRR_DED:EVRR_EYVL_WEST:SCL_RA_RC_W:EVRR_EETT_WEST:EVRR_EEKE:EVRR_EETT_WEST2:EVRR_ESAA:EVRR_ESMM
DEPAPT:EVRA:EVLA:EVVA:EVKA:EVDA:EVTA:EVAD:EVRS:EVRC:EVPA:EVGA
ARRAPT:EVRA:EVLA:EVVA:EVKA:EVDA:EVTA:EVAD:EVRS:EVRC:EVPA:EVGA

 

As you see, now they have vertical constraints as in the above image. So, time to test it and I asked one of our pilots to fire up his good old F16 and took the EVRR_CTR.

 

Test 1: I asked my test pilot to file a flightplan between two airports in the area that is not in any TMA, CTR or ATZ (in the image, in area where the arrow from FIR comes down) and asked him to file a FL080 for the flight. In this test everything happened as I was expecting - his tag was showing up as "Non concerned" (here and further will use terminology from http://www.euroscope.hu/mediawiki/index.php?title=Sectors_And_Aircraft_States ). And while he was enroute I asked him to briefly climb above FL095; as soon as he did it, the tag immediately changed to "Coordinated". So the behaviour was absolutely as I was expecting. I was happy and we moved on to next test.

 

Test 2: I asked my test pilot to file another flight plan between those two airports, this time with a FL of 110. And from this point things didn't went exactly as I was expecting them to be. The tag still appeared as "Non concerned" and remained so until he was climbing to FL095 and changed to "Coordinated" as soon as he crossed it, the same as in test 1 (I intentionally didn't [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume him to see what happens to tag). One thing that did work, was the 122.800 indication when he started descent, so at least the upcoming switch to unicom was recognized by ES. As such I could declare the test as partial success (or partial failure depending on how you look at it). I was expecting the tag to be "Notified" or even "Coordinated" while he was still on the ground.

 

Test 3: For the third test I asked him to file a flight plan from one of those "outside" airfields to Riga which is in its respective CTR and TMA, i.e. in controlled airspace; for this flight I asked for FL080 again. I would be expecting him to show as "Notified" and later "Coordinated" as he approached the Riga TMA. But it again showed up as "Non concerned" and even more, he remained as such even when he entered the Riga TMA! Now here I feel a bit lost. I haven't touched the TMA part in the ESE file at all.

 

So after those tests it looks like the only thing that matters here is the altitude. Right now as I am writing this long post, I am sitting online as EVRR_CTR with that modified sectorfile and I see that for the transit flights through our FIR, while they are far away they nicely show up as Notified and when they close up, as Coordinated (and yes, they all are well above that FL095 thing).

 

Someone will certainly want to ask me to show the sector definition for the TMA, so here it goes (called EVRA_APP - I intend to rename it as well but not tonight - getting somewhat sleepy and afraid to mess things up ):

 

 

SECTOR:EVRA_APP:0:28500
OWNER:RA
BORDER:SCL_RA_RC_E:EVRA_APP_EETT:SCL_RA_RC_W:EVRA_APP_EYVL
DEPAPT:EVRA:EVTA:EVAD:EVRS:EVRC:EVPA:EVGA
ARRAPT:EVRA:EVTA:EVAD:EVRS:EVRC:EVPA:EVGA

 

And yes, in ESE file it is listed before the two big sectors.

 

So what are others thoughts on this? Is this behaviour expected? I more tend to think I am missing something very basic and would appreciate a pointer to what it might be.

Probably there is some error elsewhere which didn't show up until I raised the lower limit of airspace or something else.

[Todor Atanasov 878664]

OK, next time you are doing the tests open the trajectory in order to see the altitude and see where the flight is above FL95. Also you have to set PEL and XFL in order to have a level constrains.

[Juha Holopainen]

For test 3, I [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume you were still logged in as EVRR_CTR (with id "RC"?). The problem would then be that the Riga TMA sector would not be controlled by you as it only has "RA" listed in the OWNER line. You don't show the other CTR/TMA sector definition but I'd guess the problem is the same. For test 2, the route may have been too short, with ES estimating that the aircraft would never climb above FL95 before starting its descent (with the F16's performance it's no problem but ES doesn't know that). Following Todor's suggestion of checking the predicted trajectory altitudes will let you know if this is the case.

[Ervins Reinverts]

Thanks for the hint, it is solved now. If trajectory prediction is good, the aircraft state is as one would expected. Run several tests in different alt/FL combinations with different departure/arrival airports and it works like a charm, given the trajectory goes as needed (for some routes it was predicting zero altitudes along the routes and that caused the confusion).

As for the RA (Riga Approach) as the only owner of the sector - I had to leave it there since ES will automatically [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign the owners that are "above" it. Should I put the Centers in there, I get the problem I had back when I was starting the work on sector file: viewtopic.php?f=71&t=48707 i.e. if APP comes online, the lower sectors get highlighted as well. But it works well without it, so I am happy.