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Absurd new Tariffs at Rocket Route ...

Sure, when it’s about global usage, I understand. But for Europeans filing by phone is an alternative. How many pilots need global functionality?

But for Europeans filing by phone is an alternative

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Alexis, those poor UK citizens don’t have the luxury of a 24/7 free of charge AIS phone service like we have in Germany.

Ah, I see – that’s why the answer sounded so frustrated ;-)

achimha wrote:

Alexis, those poor UK citizens don’t have the luxury of a 24/7 free of charge AIS phone service like we have in Germany.
Unfortunately the AIS/ARO can’t do the routing for you. You’ll have to come up with that yourself.

(Btw: doesn’t every country in Europe except the UK have a H24 ARO? I thought it was an ICAO requirement, so I wonder how the UK got away with it.)

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Philippe_Meridian wrote:

Even after having exchanged mails with them, I still fail to understand the logic of their move.

My guess would be that RR have lost lots of “low end” customers to Autorouter (and services using Autorouter such as Garmin pilot). Most of those customers were likely not using much of the extra services that RR offers so they were in effect subsiding more demanding customers.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

doesn’t every country in Europe except the UK have a H24 ARO? I thought it was an ICAO requirement, so I wonder how the UK got away with it.

Most airports in the UK have an ARO. Not all, not the small ones, and that was a fun debate I recall from years ago. Why not all? A good Q. Perhaps an ARO is required to provide specific services under ICAO e.g.

  • file flight plans (all details supplied by the pilot) which implies an AFTN connection
  • provide wx info

I am sure someone can look this up.

But for sure developing Eurocontrol-validated IFR routes, or telling VFR pilots how to avoid CAS, is not an ARO requirement

The German service, which is a fantastic job creation/protection scheme, is available only for flights “ending/starting in Germany + exceptional help to their customer base” (to quote one German user). So it is like the French Olivia except that Olivia does no route development and (notwithstanding some rare reports) doesn’t work for flights wholly outside France.

I doubt any other European country offers IFR route development on a phone call.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Airborne_Again wrote:

Unfortunately the AIS/ARO can’t do the routing for you. You’ll have to come up with that yourself.

German AIS does actually. They use tools such as “autorouter” In general they are very helpful but that is most likely partly due to them being keen on justifying their existance. I am sure that one day this service will end.

A (no longer flying) friend of mine felt too old for all this modern stuff and did not accept that after 30 years he suddenly had to come up with “CFMU” routes for his IFR. So he sent faxes to German AIS saying “I want to fly to Calvi next Tuesday, please create a flight plan”. And they would do exactly that.

Last Edited by achimha at 05 Jul 10:59

However we do have a problem of what backup to use for the Autorouter.

Log in at the website of any European aviation authority of your choice and use their web interface to file flight plans? Many of them have some kind of route generating facility now as well (the german DFS calls it “route proposal”).

EDDS - Stuttgart

ref. Jason’s post, it will be interesting to see Foreflight in Europe, their product is incredibly good for the US… Having said that Garmin Pilot is getting better and better, it’s basically free when combined with Garmin avionics (or it will when they extend their pilot packs to Europe), it’s now even kind of useful for VFR (although it also has some surprising holes, like missing the text part of the Aerodrome AIP in the UK, no info on airspace frequency, and unhelpful Class A depiction in their vertical profile; all reasons why I’m still very happy to renew my Skydemon license at £89).

EGTF, LFTF
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