DCT JSY035032
That is an old hack, described e.g. here (under Miscellaneous tips – I wrote that stuff more than 10 years ago) and here where it is used to beat the French 10nm DCT limit 
I believe waypoints specified using lat/long are not checked either.
But a route like ORTAC DCT JSY DCT MINQI DCT SAM (i.e. using VOR but not using the VORrrrddd notation) should still get checked for validity.
Once upon a time I asked on an ATC forum (on a horribly aggressive and mostly unmoderated UK site) whether ATC in Europe ever see one’s route if it is specified using the lat/long or VORrrrddd, and nobody seemed to know… More recently it’s been suggested that an ATCO sees only the entry and exit points of his sector and just sees your filed route as a straight line between them.
I have no idea if any of this is true but, if any of it is, it does sound like really crappy software, and they can hardly blame pilots for filing routes through P areas ever since Eurocontrol prevented the great unwashed working out valid routes using anything other than software tools which Eurocontrol then spent a lot of their time blocking…
Peter wrote:
hat is an old hack, described e.g. here (under Miscellaneous tips – I wrote that stuff more than 10 years ago) and here where it is used to beat the French 10nm DCT limit
It is indeed an old hack but you can get the same result (ie flying through a P area) when you file a load of en-route DCT 5 letters waypoints to 5 letters waypoints.
Now regarding the software, the FDPS (flight plan data processing system) is indeed old.
I work in a terminal area where we don’t control en-route aircraft. So the waypoints from the en-route phase are not relevant for us (and are not printed on our paper strip). Only the IAF is printed for arriving flights or the SID for departure.
This is what a french en-route paper strip looks like :
There is more than entry and exit point in France, but I don’t know how lat/long or VORrrrddd would show up.
Peter wrote:to beat the French 10nm DCT limit
This 10 nm limit is FIR dependant. I think some FIR already set this limit to 0. At some point, if there is too much abuse (ie pilots filing non-flyable route) I think they are going to set this limit to 0 everywhere.
Anyway, a Pilot is reponsible of it’s planned route. You can’t blame eurocontrol or anyone else for that 
.
That’s why when I fly IFR, I always file airways and let ATC work for me to get the direct while flying (which is what airliners do as well).
One issue with that is shown on my EuroGA link above – getting back to the UK off the (useless number of) airways which tend to run the wrong way
Hence the multi-DCT hack. One could file the airway route all the way out to Lydd or all the way out to Bournemouth, but I can see two problems:
The 10nm limit seems to operate in N France. The Q I have is: why have it when ATC apparently can give a DVL DCT EGKA (with some coordination with London Control). Why set the system up to frustrate pilots, and then let them know the frustration was just for no reason? I come back to my point about having to be able to fly any filed route.
I suspect there are two political camps involved. One is the airspace planners, and the other is ATC who have to work it
We are digressing from the original topic but it’s a great discussion
Peter wrote:
One is the airspace planners, and the other is ATC who have to work it
Hammer, meet nail…
Peter wrote:
Hence the multi-DCT hack. One could file the airway route all the way out to Lydd or all the way out to Bournemouth, but I can see two problems:you need to be able to fly everything you file (in terms of fuel etc)
you are not entitled to any shortcuts (and indeed sometimes you don’t get any)
I am certainly not familiar with low level IFR out of the UK but I often have to file 20-30% over great circle to get a plan in the system. You never fly it and in practice always get a lot of directs. The downside for those paying route charges is you may actually enter some countries and get charged when you didn’t need to and this is based on the filed route and not the actual route flown.
Peter wrote:
I believe waypoints specified using lat/long are not checked either.
They are fully checked (converted to lat/lon, then tested for airspace insideness etc, i.e. all RAD rules evaluated on them). It’s just that France (unlike for example the UK) can’t seem to be bothered to feed the prohibited areas into CACD.
Guillaume wrote:
This 10 nm limit is FIR dependant. I think some FIR already set this limit to 0.
This is pretty unlikely. There is political pressure to reduce CO_2 emissions by reducing flight distance. Eurocontrol periodically publishes the RAD KPI. If it went up due to the knee jerk reaction of an ANSP, it would have political implications.
But in practice the opposite is happening, there’s some pressure to move to free route airspace. Hungary has done it radically and abolished all airways, but many other FIRs have already implemented it partially, be it night time only, upper airspace only…
tomjnx wrote:
But in practice the opposite is happening, there’s some pressure to move to free route airspace. Hungary has done it radically and abolished all airways, but many other FIRs have already implemented it partially, be it night time only, upper airspace only…
Maastricht seems to use almost-free route airspace in the upper airspace now. Even Eurocontrol routes are accepted with very long east-west legs.
tomjnx wrote:
Guillaume wrote:
This 10 nm limit is FIR dependant. I think some FIR already set this limit to 0.
This is pretty unlikely.
I just checked and I do confirm that the max direct lenght is FIR dependant.
LFEE FIR (Reims) is 0 nm (restriction LFEE1A).
LFFF FIR (Paris) is 10 nm (restriction LFFF1A).
LFRR FIR (Brest) is 50 nm (restriction LFRR1A).
I’m not an en-route controller, but I guess that the main factor which prevents free route airspace is the military activity.
Airways are designed in such a way that they avoid as possible military areas.
Maastricht has software that are much more advanced than the one we have.
I’ve a friend who works there and they have military areas as well. So it cannot be a fully free route airspace.
Guillaume wrote:
Maastricht has software that are much more advanced than the one we have.
I’ve a friend who works there and they have military areas as well. So it cannot be a fully free route airspace.
Sweden has military areas as well and so does Hungary for sure, yet they have free flight airspace (Sweden above FL 285, Hungary all levels). This can be handled with a properly set up ATC system. Sweden has had an integrated civil-military ATC system for more than 40 years. Airspace is reserved for military use on a tactical basis as military aircraft are actually using it and civil aircraft are separated from military aircraft tactically.
I would have thought that by now all countries in Europe operate the same way.
Most military airspace is unused most of the time. There is nobody in it. But the military guards it tightly because they know if they stop guarding it they will lose it. I’ve had loads of cases where one is avoiding big wx and ends up in a military area, and ATC put on a lot of pressure to make you fly into some CB. The worst one I had was in France a while ago, near Bordeaux, FL190. It was obvious nobody was going to be flying where I was but they made a huge fuss – “the military commander is getting very upset”. In the end I just told them I was not going to get killed to please him.
The lack of co-operation between civilian and military airspace planners is what drives this situation.
