Many of you regular flyers to France will know that for a long time we had an online flight preparation weather, notams etc and planning filing flight plan site called Olivia.
This has now basically morphed or is morphing into Sofia briefing with access to much better information. The latest update includes amongst other updates the ability to receive CTOTs by email (actually it says couriel I am assuming email).
(Translation below)
NEW VERSION OF SOFIA-BRIEFING!
For flight plans:
Creation of the RVR field
Ability to enter significant two-letter points
Taking into account alphanumeric characters entered in the RMK box from a smartphone / tablet (e.g.: telephone number)
Choice to receive information relating to SLOTs by email
Update of the flight map by specializing the display of the take-off time (CTOT display in the flight thumbnail)
Better visibility of the reason for rejecting a flight plan.
IMO using Sofia needs a little patience for a first timer but gets easier and better the more you use it. I have not investigated the full range of services as of yet. But if you are thinking of flying to or over France it might be worth taking a look.
Is Sofia for France only?
I did a search and didn’t find anything.
There were long standing issues with Olivia e.g. on a flight plan at least one end had to be in France otherwise the FP would disappear.
I just tested it on a LFMD-LIRZ and EGLL-LIRZ flights and it recovers NOTAMS (in english) and can provide weather forecast (METAR-TAF), then gives an easy access to TEMSI/WINTEM maps is available (=if day of the flight is current). What SFIA cannot do is filing a FPL with a departure outside France, but you can still have NOTAM and weather.
I tested it also and managed to get NOTAMs, TAF and METAR for ENVA so it seems to work for that part outside France. I still prefer www.ippc.no.
In the notes it says that only FPLs with a departure airport in France can be filed.
It doesn’t say that the arrivals airport needs to be in France.
