Flight Planning in South America

[Howard Brennan 980082]

I use a freeware flight planning tool called "vroute" which is used extensively around the world.

If you are unaware of it but interested look here:- www.vroute.net

There is a facility for submitting new plans for approval by the Moderator and when approved the plan is added to the data base for others to use.

There are thousands of plans but not so many for South America. I wonder whether those people responsible for ATC in South America would have a look at it and if thought appropriate consider adding some plans for their area of responsibility ?

I recently submitted one for SECU to SEQU which was approved by the Moderator and since has been added to the data base but I am not an expert but many of you are.

I feel such an addition by your experts would encourage many more to fly over your wonderful countries.

This suggestion is offered with best intentions. I have no connection with vroute.

Howard

[Jesus Betancourt 810723]

Hello Howard,

 

Many thanks for your post, I will convey it to our Divsion Director in order he takes some steps on this matter, it will be very helpfull to Pilots intending to fly in our skies.

 

Hugs

 

Jesus Betancourt

VATSA1

[Howard Brennan 980082]

Hi Jesus

That is just the kind of response I was hoping to get. Thank you and I hope your Divisional Director

agrees its worth doing. Sids/Stars we can get from charts but routes are another matter and are not so easy to get, that is why so many of us use vroute.net but it needs more South American routes.

Many thanks.

Howard

[Sergio Cousens 936764]

Hi Howard

We are evaluating alternatives to get through this issue.

One of these is vroute. But we have others in sight.

 

Early October we should have things clear and I will let you know.

 

Thanks for your interest.

[Howard Brennan 980082]

Hi Sergio

Thanks for the response. Much appreciated.

Best wishes

Howard

[Javier Osorio 853563]

Hi Howard,

 

I’m totally agree with you suggestion, it would be an excellent idea that some peoples made a route of their country so that we can have more flight plans that we can use it around the south America.

 

The think it’s that no every body use the v-route. So probably this people are not interesting in made the contribution. I think the first step would be to find the captains who are using this program, and we can coordinate to create the route and update all the information.

 

We can make a poll asking to the people who use the v route and star to work from there!

 

Best Regard

 

 

Javier Osorio

VATSUR8

DIRECTOR RRPP

[Howard Brennan 980082]

Hi Javier

Sorry for the delay in my reply but I did not receive the usual promt from this forum.

As you know VRoute is Vatsim and they have now teamed up with Navigraph so are building a powerful tool for flight planning. If you haven't yet read the latest update look for vroute news bulletin 06/2007.

For those who are not familiar with vroute its a wonderful route planner which is free to download at

 

http://www.vroute.net/

 

Hope this helps

best regards

Howard

[Sergio Cousens 936764]

Hello Howard.

We are having a delay concerning the planner we are going to use.

We have in sight only two right now, and they are vroute and vatroutes.

 

The only thing wich makes me worried about vroute is that anyone can upload a route, and administrators that have to approve them are usually from other countries, and probably do not know in detail the routes for South America.

 

I want to test the vatroute system befor making a final decision.

 

If you have more information about one or the other, please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

[Michal Rok]

Sergio,

 

Unlike systems with central administration, all vroute users can submit corrections to the database. The moderators simply have to judge who is right, in case Mr A submitted a route and Mr B says it's bad quality and proposes a different one. The general impression from other places in the world is that with sufficient number users, the quality is pretty high and at the same time you are not relying on your own spare time to manage the database.

 

 

regards,

 

Michal Rok

vroute.net author

[Sergio Cousens 936764]

Hello Michal.

I understand your point, and in fact we haven't decided to forget about Vroute. I think it is a great possibility for us. Would it be possible somehow to count with a south american person as a moderator for south american routes? Or in the other hand, could we trust 100% that only correct routes will be approved?

 

If you think that we should have a deeper and technical conversation, please email me.

Thank you very much!

[Michal Rok]

There's no such thing as a 100% correct route, as different people might have different opinions. The system can and actually does check many aspects, but even as a moderator in my home country I can frequently make a mistake. So instead of thinking that moderators are infinitely wise and pilots are generally stupid (both statements are definitely not true), I take "the wikipedia way" and allow anyone to submit corrections. So when I as a pilot spot a bad route, I submit a correction and it's quickly approved and published.

 

There is an internal rating system which makes sure that people who submit bad routes are quickly excluded, and those who do a lot of good stuff are recognized and their personal rating is taken into account in approval process.

 

I'm open to allowing moderators who only work for certain areas of the world, however this opens up the problem of who approves intercontinental routes

 

 

Michal

[Howard Brennan 980082]

Sergio

I hope you manage to decide what is right for your country.

If it helps you I can say I have 345 hours online flying with Vatsim in the last 12 months and have used Vroute for most of my flying. Only once was my downloaded plan rejected and that was from Warsaw Poland EPWA to Birmingham England EGBB. I have about 20 flights over South America with no rejections.

One big advantage I have used, is the scenery section which details departure & arrival airport scenery either payware or freeware that is suitable for download with a click of the mouse.All sceneries have proved to be excellent.

I have also tried VATroute and found on a number of occasions no flight plan for my route, of course this will improve gradually.

Finally the link up between Vroute and Navigraph is a significant move that merits examination in your decisions for what is best for your countries.

With best wishes

Howard

[Sergio Cousens 936764]

There is an internal rating system which makes sure that people who submit bad routes are quickly excluded, and those who do a lot of good stuff are recognized and their personal rating is taken into account in approval process.

 

That is a very good point!

BTW, is there any way that we can export Vroute routes for South America to an XML or TXT?

Thank you Michal.

And thanks to Howard too!

[Michal Rok]

For justified cases, there's an XML interface for searching routes and for fetching details of selected ones. But there's no such thing as a general "export a region" feature and I don't plan to provide something like that.

 

 

Michal