VFR flight planning issues

AFAIK all ACKs for VFR FPs are “faked”.

Airborne_Again wrote:

Autorouter doesn’t do pure VFR. SkyDemon does. I’ll be back with a test.

It seems that in some cases SkyDemon correctly addresses the flight plan, in other cases it just sends the flight plan to the departure ARO — apparently in the hope that they will process and redistribute it. How that will work when the departure airport doesn’t have an ARO of its own, I don’t know… The SkyDemon user manual doesn’t discuss flight plan addressing.

If tried a few routes, notably:

Biggin Hill — Oostend: Correct addressing according to the UK and Belgian AIPs.
Copenhagen/Roskilde — Malmö/Sturup: Addressed to EKRKZPZX only.

It seems that in some cases SkyDemon correctly addresses the flight plan, in other cases it just sends the flight plan to the departure ARO — apparently in the hope that they will process and redistribute it.

That is AFAIK IAW the AIPs. Some want one, some want the other.

Years ago, all electronically filed VFR FPs would be sent to the departure ARO. That’s what Homebriefing did (and maybe still does). That’s the default ICAO position. There were many problems with that.

Peter wrote:

That is AFAIK IAW the AIPs. Some want one, some want the other.

Years ago, all electronically filed VFR FPs would be sent to the departure ARO. That’s what Homebriefing did (and maybe still does). That’s the default ICAO position. There were many problems with that.

Sure, but EKRKZPZX is not the ARO address given in AIP-Denmark.

Can you post the flight plans?

A common approach is to file it to as many addresses as you could possibly find, even non existent ones (like airport code + ZTZX), hoping that the right ones will be among them. I don’t like this approach, it just adds to the general messiness of VFR flight plans and is a reason so many plans get unnoticed among all the spam.

We tried to improve the situation by openly documenting our addressing rules and letting others comment/contribute. I think that is better than everybody having his own semi-correct and non transparent set of rules: https://www.autorouter.aero/wiki/flight-plan-addressing/fpal-document-list/

PS: SkyDemon relies on EuroFPL which is responsible for figuring out the distribution addresses as well as filing the plan.

achimha wrote:

Can you post the flight plans?

I didn’t save them, but the routes were DCT and the level either VFR or A025.

A common approach is to file it to as many addresses as you could possibly find, even non existent ones (like airport code + ZTZX), hoping that the right ones will be among them. I don’t like this approach, it just adds to the general messiness of VFR flight plans and is a reason so many plans get unnoticed among all the spam.

SkyDemon doesn’t seem to do that, though.

PS: SkyDemon relies on EuroFPL which is responsible for figuring out the distribution addresses as well as filing the plan.

In any case SkyDemon lets you check and add to the addressing before the flight plan is filed.

A little late response due to some travel (flying) in Africa. AeroPlus Flight Plan also used their own VFR addressing engine based on what is provided in the AIPs in the ENR 1.11 section. The flight plan is then filed using the AFTN gateway that also EuroFPL is using, but addressed as specified in our own rules database. If for example, you depart from EHLE to an airfield in the UK, then the flight plan is delivered to ARO Schiphol in accordance with the AIP of The Netherlands. On the return flight, we fully auto address as there is no ARO office in the UK to deliver the flight plan to. This playlist explains how we approach VFR addressing: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-vK592zR06f5kvDqdFI9mNMx1q_1_lV7

That being said, it doesn’t always go perfectly well with VFR addressing.

For our African flying adventures, we use our own addressing engine to deliver flight plans throughout Africa digitally through AFTN messages and that has not seen a problem once, except in South Sudan.

This thread is very informational. About a month ago I flew from Germany to southern France through Switzerland. We submitted our FPL directly from SkyDemon (shortly before T/O, yes, 15-20’). While the AFISO at Freiburg had no problem finding and activating it, and ATC in Basel seemed to see it as well to clear us through their TMA, Switzerland ATCs could not see it when we got there, and France ATC had the FPL but did not receive the DEP message (they might have received it before the actual FPL so it was discarded?). The day before we had followed a similar procedure (with a little more time ahead, submission probably 30-40’ before T/O) from Sweden to Germany and had no issues whatsoever. Don’t know if it’s a country thing or just the too short time.
Peter wrote:

VFR pilots should ideally make use of IFR waypoints/navaids (e.g. ORTAC, KONAN, KOK, MAK, etc)

This is the recommendation from the Swedish ARO people and from the controllers in our tower, makes life so much easier for them. I always try to use IFR points along the route (at VFR altitudes), even if I don’t fly exactly on top of them in E or G airspace.
Peter wrote:

but they come up against [thread on VRPs].

In Sweden mandatory and recommended VRPs are not the same color on maps and VAC charts. This is matched in SkyDemon for example, no excuse. Neither are usable as turning points in a FPL submitted to the Swedish FPC though, but I certainly plan my departures and arrivals with them in mind.
Town-names cannot be used either, because the typical radar maps do not show any geography, only the contours of the country and FIRs, airports, IFR points and airways, and little triangles moving around with their label in tow. Controllers here have no use for town names, well they may know where towns are more or less, but certainly not villages.
172driver wrote:

This is the Vienna VFR transit route, so far, so good. But why would anyone write all these points into a FPL?

Because you cannot write “Vienna VFR transit route” as a valid route, and the DCT from entry to exit point is quite far from the actual route. These routes don’t have a V205 or M736 name like an airway.
That’s actually where an abreviated FPL on the radio shines “transit through Chambery TMA from November Whisky to Whisky Golf via the northern VFR route”. Done, 3s.
Hunnicat wrote:

If there is any kind of problem (route etc) all ATS units (mostly AROs) have time to write to originator and make some corrections

If there was any feedback sent to SkyDemon or whoever they use to send the FPL into the system, it never came back to us. Not by email, not by phone, not by anything, we checked. We received an ACK email about 3s after pushing the send button, obviously an automated answer.
When submitting manually to the Swedish FPC, I always include my cell number even though that field is optional. When the FPL gets approved (never after 3s, there is always somebody on the other side of the screen) I get the ACK by SMS, and if there is a problem they most often call. The delay to get the ACK also means I don’t even start my engine before receiving it. The super-speedy ACK from SkyDemon gives artificial (undeserved) confidence to pilots (“I’ve done my part, now it’s on them”).
AF wrote:

Was rather unnerving trying to:
a) Understand what she just told me to report at

I got this in Denmark, pronounced with a danish accent by the danish controller even though our conversation was in english. Even for an almost local it took me a while to find the place she was referring to (danish sounds like russian to me).