Maybe they’re not satisfied with the message routing, leaving them without the right information when those flies popup and using a lot of bandwidth.
Currently, Netherlands are still accepting VFR flight plans only via email or fax. The Autorouter does not do this “on principle” according to a recent post in Germany.
Just grateful that for most of my flight I just call the German "Deutsche Flugsicherung’ and give them my VFR flight plan details via telephone – they sort out where and how the plan is sent…..
Thinking of this, Peter, how about creating an archive of phone numbers on your airfields website where VFR flight plans can be filed / closed via phone?
Hmmm… interesting and obviously possible.
However, I wonder how much of this goes on.
Anyone flying internationally into say France, VFR, will know the “magic number” (which I forgot a few times myself, landing in places with an empty tower 
) and my guess would be most people flying routinely VFR will not be using the Autorouter at all. And non international flights do not need a flight plan, in most of Europe.
VFR pilots in Europe are using EasyVFR or Skydemon and these use Rocketroute and EuroFPL, respectively, to file flight plans, and these two agencies must be dealing with this issue transparently (most likely by using email instead of AFTN, for NL, though fax is still entirely possible if the destination fax facility actually exists).
Steve6443 wrote:
Just grateful that for most of my flight I just call the German "Deutsche Flugsicherung’ and give them my VFR flight plan details via telephone – they sort out where and how the plan is sent…..
Well, that’s what I do for Dutch VFR. I phone Amsterdam ARO. They oblige and file it over the phone.
Peter wrote:
Hmmm… interesting and obviously possible.However, I wonder how much of this goes on.
Anyone flying internationally into say France, VFR, will know the “magic number”
The point is encouraging people that don’t to actually start doing it. As such, I think an easy reference of such magic numbers would be very good. The same for “IFR departure or arrival into a VFR field”. How to pick up your clearance (on the ground? in the air?) is country-dependent. PPL/IR did a PDF with per-country advice, but it is sometimes not concrete enough. Such as for the UK it says to call the “nearest ATC unit” which let me a bit in a lurch, since I didn’t know how to find “the nearest ATC unit”.
Peter wrote:
VFR pilots in Europe are using EasyVFR or Skydemon and these use Rocketroute and EuroFPL, respectively, to file flight plans, and these two agencies must be dealing with this issue transparently
I believe at least one of the two has setup an electronic connection to the Dutch FPL system, actually.
lionel wrote:
I believe at least one of the two has setup an electronic connection to the Dutch FPL system, actually.
I thought such a setup was called AFTN but perhaps that would be too easy!
Airborne_Again wrote:
I thought such a setup was called AFTN but perhaps that would be too easy!
Yeah, they have a connection different from AFTN from what I understand.
That is correct. RocketRoute file electronically with the Dutch LVNL.
EasyVFR uses RocketRoute to handle our flight plans.
I’ve no idea how SD/EuroFPL handle it.
For a long time the Dutch ARO did insist on faxes. I believe flight plans filed with the ARO still are required to be submitted via fax rather than AFTN.
