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Autorouter issues and questions (merged)

Thank you, as ever!

EGKB Biggin Hill

Wonderful – Thank you Achim!

Problem with autorouter

Hi all,

Greetings from Brac , Croatia !

Am trying to put a FP into Autorouter from Brac to Colmar for tomorrow , and getting the error message below , any ideas ?

It all worked fine on the way down , but won’t seem to validate /allow me to file anything at the moment .

Thanks , or if there is an email address for support.

Thanks , lovely place by the way.

Mark

Route parsing error:
FlightPlan::get_wpt: index out of range

A temporary glitch, should be OK again.

Thanks for the quick response, seems to be working again though FP is not filed and is going to Eurocontrol for final manual correction , not had that before , fingers crossed.

In most cases, flight plans that go to the manual correction queue are rejected by Eurocontrol.

You’re a victim of the LFEE1A problem which is a weird bit of airspace that protrudes into Germany and where the Eurocontrol profiler behaves strangely. You might have to file a VFR arrival and then sort it out in the air which is no problem. Might want to put it in RMK as well.

Yes that’s sorted it , one to remember , many thanks , great service , I really appreciate that.

Understanding the Autorouter for VFR

Dear EuroGA fellows,

Following achimha’s post, I started browsing the autorouter with the objective to generate VFR flight plans (I have no instrument rating). The briefing package and the bot are fantastic, but the routes it generates seem somewhat awkward.
Here are 2 examples of proposals generated by the Autorouter, for which I’m trying to figure out the logics behind the answer. The aircraft is a Cessna 182, I specified max cruise level (FL085) and shortest time.

Example 1: LFMA (Aix) to LFBL (Limoges) on August 13th 2017:
I get 8 possible routes, from 229Nm to 236 Nm. All of them are close to a straight track, and go through either IFR reporting points or ADFs / VORs. But some routes are proposed at FL065 while others are proposed at FL085 without any obvious reason [e.g. avoiding restricted / prohibited areas]. Furthermore, some of the routes at FL065 go through a national park prohibited area. So they would either be rejected by the FPL approver (at least, if he/she takes a close look to the proposed route) or I would bust prohibited airspace if flying them.

Example 2: LFMA (Aix) to LFKC (Calvi – Corsica) on August 13th 2017:
I get 2 possible routes, 162 Nm and 163 Nm, all of them at FL075.
For this overwater leg, there is in fact only 1 acceptable route: LFMA – STP – LERMA – MERLU – XC – LFKC , which is a VFR compulsory transit published in the AIP. Any other route will be denied.
But none of the Autorouter proposals corresponds to this route. I get: LFMA – STP – LONSU – LFKC or LFMA – OGREN – RESBO – CALNO – LFKC

So here are my questions
- What constraints / rules are taken into account by the Autorouter when generating an optimized VFR route? E.g: prohibited / restricted areas / published compulsory VFR transits, etc…? What are those that are not taken account, and for which the pilot should check compatibility of the proposed route (e.g. national park)?
- How is the proposed flight level defined? is it based on aircraft performance only? Is the weather forecast accounted for? Any other input data for optimum altitude calculation?

Any thoughts and advice appreciated!

Thanks

LFNR

There really isn’t something like “VFR autorouting”. There are simply too many factors and variables in VFR route planning… it would be impossible to code this into some software. So, while the latest autorouter update does allow for VFR flightplan filing, it can’t really take the task from you to study your route, the weather, the airspace structure and “work out” a route yourself (actually, this is part of the fun of VFR flying). Sure, autorouter will “suggest” something, a “starting point” if you wish, but it will never be a fully “considered” routing.

Anyway, one note: VFR flightplans and their routes will not – in terms of their content – be checked by AIS/ARO/BRIA staff. Means: the acceptance of a flightplan does not say anything about the practical “flyability” of that flight. That remains up to the pilot. The only thing the AIS/ARO/BRIA does is check the flightplan under formal aspects, i.e. whether all formal rules have been followed. A common misunderstanding. But it makes sense. I mean, no person in the world would be able to really 100% “check” every detail about a flightplan. Take restricted areas. These aren’t 0/1 type of things. Many restriced areas allow transit subject to certain conditions, like radio contact.The only person that can make a full assessment of these things is the pilot. And when it comes to controlled airspace (B, C or D) then the “flyability” will also depends on ATC of course.

So, work out a route. Then, if need be, the autorouter allows you to file the flightplan for you. But never consider a filed VFR routing to be cast in stone. It is merely the statement of your intended routing, which you put into the route field of the flightplan for SAR reasons only.

Last Edited by boscomantico at 11 Aug 21:54
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

it would be impossible to code this into some softwareThe old (but still supported with database updates) Jeppesen Flitestar/Flitemap product does VFR autorouting. You specify what you want to avoid in terms of airspace class, altitude, etc, and it plots a route. It generates many waypoints which are lat/long so the result is usable only if loaded into a GPS, and the program supports many of the old aviation handhelds. It doesn’t get enroute notams however so you could fly straight through a prohibited area around an airshow etc.

It’s true indeed that in Europe the route filed is rarely looked at, but sometimes (usually in the south eastern bits like the Balkans) somebody does actually do that; you find out when they reject it, by contacting the departure tower and they tell you that you can’t go I’ve had that, and have heard of recent cases.

Otherwise I obviously agree with Bosco – it would not be a usable feature. Especially as any filed FP would be just a coordinate list.

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Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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