Routes

[nebojsa milosavljevic]

Just wondering.When flight planning in Europe i always have my flight plans validated with CFMU. There are many airspace restrictions in Europe which makes flight planning a challenge sometimes vs North America and that is understandable with so many counties in Europe.

1. Do controllers on VATSIM care weather a flight plan is CFMU validated or not. If not that would make flight planning a lot easier.

2. NAT. My understanding is that, in real world there is no FL/change once you are on a NAT unless it is a random route,and it does not interfere with the NAT"s. Usually the fl/change happens at the end of the track.

Are this procedure's also so-posed to be used on VATSIM .

 

Thanks,Nebojsa

[Andreas Fuchs]

Hi there,

 

for your European flights (and also for other regions) I highly recommend using https://vroute.net/ . It is a freeware route database that contains routes for a looooot of city-pairs. These routes are regularly validated with the CFMU - all available routes should therefore be valid.

 

Regarding NATs: you can change levels while flying a NAT, yes. When there's no ATC control, check your TCAS, maybe even one of the online status clients (Qutescoop, VatSpy, Accomeap etc.) to check for other pilots in the area and then change level. When ATC is active over the Ocean, ask for a clearance to change level.

[nebojsa milosavljevic]

Thank you for a fast reply. I will look into the flight planning. As for the NAT, Should we be allowing step climbs in the tracks weather ATC is there or not.

If it is not allowed in the real world, personally i don't think it should be done online also weather ATC is there or not,otherwise what is the point....but that's me.

 

nebojsa

[Andreas Fuchs]

It IS allowed in the real world. You just need a clearance for it.

[nebojsa milosavljevic]

Hmmmm,things you learn. Thank you.

 

nebojsa

[Simon Kelsey]

Just to add a little to Andreas' explanation: level changes have never been 'prohibited' in NAT airspace, BUT historically has been much more difficult to obtain a clearance to do so because of the procedural nature of the airspace -- your path along the track will have been cleared based on a particular level and so climbing or descending whilst on the track would necessitate a further check for conflicts ahead at the new level, unlike under a radar service where the controller can see exactly where everybody is and make more short-term tactical decisions. Clearly the more level changes that take place the more complex this situation becomes. As a result, the general advice for pilots has always been 'you're welcome to ask, but don't count on getting a climb' (and therefore from a fuel planning point of view, it is wise to expect that you might well get stuck at an uneconomical level).

 

This may well be changing now with the advent of ADS-B and other means of more accurately tracking aircraft over the Atlantic.

[nebojsa milosavljevic]

Thank you.

 

nebojsa

[Andreas Fuchs]

This may well be changing now with the advent of ADS-B and other means of more accurately tracking aircraft over the Atlantic.

Exactly, with ADS-C this will be much less of a case. Even now and in the past few years it was not really an issue to quickly determine whether a climb would be okay or not, because the Atlantic traffic mainly processed by computers that warn controllers of potential conflicts. Actually, our Oceanic Tool looks strikingly similar to the real one used in Shanwick.

[Trent Hopkinson]

This is a good docomeentary to see regarding the ATC side of Oceanic control over the NAT airspace.

 

Around 15 - 20 minutes in, is a section dealing with what ATC have to do to co-ordinate a change of flight level or speed on the NAT.

 

with aircraft close to minimum Procedural separation, even a change of Mach 0.80 to Mach 0.81 can require co-ordination between multiple controllers if the change of speed will manifest in a closure to minimum separation in nearly an hour's time at the sector boundary. Or require aircraft entering procedural from Radar Control to slow down.

 

[nebojsa milosavljevic]

Thanks.Interesting video.

 

nebojsa