Introduction to routes and flight planning

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 5:24 am

I'd like to know more on how pilots (or rather companies) go about establishing a route for a new flight.

Let's take Montreal and Toronto, if you draw a line between the 2 cities; there's one high altitude airway to the south and several to the north.

1. How do you go about chosing which way to go?

I've been told about preferred routes in NOTAMs, specifically the Detroit area. I went on NavCanada and couldn't find anything. I've seen NOTAMs before and wouldn't know how to read that stuff anyways.

2. Do ATC try to use airways as roads first, like the NAT tracks?

I know airways go both ways, but in and out of airports must gets complicated with planes always changing altitude.

3. I know Victors are low altitude airways (mostly small planes), but are they used in and out of airports by the large planes? Let's say to reach a nearby VOR and then onwards to a Jetway?

4. Do pilots appreciate being given a suggested SID/STAR in case they don't feel like going through charts? Some of our current flight plans have them.

I know wind and other conditions affect departures and arrivals. But sometimes SIDs and STARs can be common to all runways at some airports.

Sometimes an airport might have many SIDs/STARs and it isn't apparent for those using only the FMS which one is in their direction. I know a chart says it all, but does it hurt to have extra information?

I also know Canadian ATC will most likely change a SID, but pilots can always leave it out when they file the flight plan on VATSIM. Maybe those that fly offline appreciate having this extra information.

(I'm in the proces of adding new routes for the 767 so I'd like to do this as close to reality, if possible and it doesn't make my job unbearable)

Edited By CVA0014 on 1270272625

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 5:45 am

Here's another example: CYQB - CYUL.

If we use MAIRE6 as STAR in Montreal, it makes sense to route via J578 BLAKK OMBRE MAIRE6.

Quebec doesn't have much in STARs, so would the logical choice be a northside route via YUL J566 UFX J546 SOKYE RESAC YQB?

What about J555 along the center, would that be used for non-stop traffic?

Edited By CVA0014 on 1270273625

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 6:19 am

About VORs:

CYTS - CYSB.

1. Would you include the local VORs in this flight?

YTS J557 FRALK YSB

CYYZ - KDET.

2. Would you start at YYZ out of Toronto or just head straight out to ROKTO?

LEST7 ROKTO V98 YWT GOHMA1.YXU

I used Lester7 in this example and that will make you pass thru 19DME, 16YYZ, 16DME or MALTN, depending on the runway. As far as I know, you would not have YYZ in your flight plan if you use Lester7, but what do I know? I'm here asking questions.

cva3906 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 1:23 pm

Let's get one thing straight first...are we talking flight plans or are we talking routes? They are two different things.

A flight plan is what you would file when you are getting ready for your flight. It is a condensed version of your routing.

For example, you may have a jet way in your flight plan. You would include the starting fix that you pass when starting to follow the jetway and the last fix you pass when you depart the jetway. All other fixes that you pass along the jet way would not be listed in a flight plan.

For the actual routing, we could add as much detail to this as is needed to successfully fly the route.
If you wanted to add every waypoint along a jetway or victor airway, you could.

Aharon · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 1:54 pm

When I pick routes, I always go to www.vataware.com and use city pairing to put two airport codes to get list of flights and pick one of them showing realistic waypoint routes.

If you are asking me what flights I like to pick, one of good examples would be few more flights to CYYJ so that I can enjoy the new freeware airport scenery designed by Don.

A suggestion would be cool Canadian post office mail run from CYVR to CYXT to CYYJ.

I do not know why there is only one flight to CYYJ when Air Canada flies Airbuses to CYYJ from major Canadian cities.

Aharon

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:11 pm

cva3906 wrote:

Let's get one thing straight first...are we talking flight plans or are we talking routes? They are two different things.

A flight plan is what you would file when you are getting ready for your flight. It is a condensed version of your routing.

For example, you may have a jet way in your flight plan. You would include the starting fix that you pass when starting to follow the jetway and the last fix you pass when you depart the jetway. All other fixes that you pass along the jet way would not be listed in a flight plan.

For the actual routing, we could add as much detail to this as is needed to successfully fly the route.
If you wanted to add every waypoint along a jetway or victor airway, you could.

"I'd like to know more on how pilots (or rather companies) go about establishing a route for a new flight.".. between 2 cities.

Maybe that is clearer. I meant a route as in what I'm about to add to the CVA schedule.

Yeah, FS Commander would sometimes add in a bunch of waypoints along the same line. Unless there was a physical turn in the airway, I removed them all and keep the entry and exit waypoints. I'd leave in that turning waypoint for those that are not flying with an FMS.

Edited By CVA0014 on 1270303900

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:26 pm

Aharon wrote:

When I pick routes, I always go to www.vataware.com and use city pairing to put two airport codes to get list of flights and pick one of them showing realistic waypoint routes.

...

I tried those places, and noticed that many of those flights are what I consider incomplete. This is the first one I clicked on for CYUL-CYYZ right now:

It does exactly what I had talked about in my posts, it uses one of the northern routes. But I would have included the VOR VIE in mine. Excluding it makes for a big kink in the flight, that would mean planes would not be where ATC expect them to be.

So that's why I started this thread to learn the intricacies of setting up a route. It's not just a matter of putting in a city pair in FS Commander and clicking High Altitude Plan.

Edited By CVA0014 on 1270304942

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:37 pm

I put CYUL-CYYZ in Simroutes and these are what I got:

Look at the 1st, 3rd and 5th flight plan. They don't make sense, Why have YSO twice?

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 2:49 pm

So let's look at the 2nd flight plan:

This one left out MAVOD and didn't follow airways. That could leave to confusion with ATC as to where the plane is supposed to be flying; cut across or follow the airways.

Now let's look how this flight plan left the airport and reached the first waypoint:

It's not following any Victor. Am I to assume that it is following ATC vectors during that time (like in Dorval6 SID)? What happens when there is no ATC present, do you just go your merry way to KANUR?

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 3:01 pm

And that leaves us with the 4th flight.

It also has a kink in the flight plan, MAVOD is missing.

And they somehow assume that we will magically get to VOR YUL to get to victor V316 and continue on J509 to YOW.

That's 5 flight plans for CYUL-CYYZ on SimRoutes and they all have some sort of inconsistencies that I would not accept to add as a regular route on the CVA schedule.

Edited By CVA0014 on 1270306934

mattymsboi · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 3:17 pm

Hey Robert,

With regards to your question about routing, I know that from an Air traffic Controller view of things, as long as your route fits in with our sequencing system of sorting out arriving and departing aircraft at a particular airport, then it is perfectly acceptable. Now lets use CYYZ as an example:

Toronto Pearson Airport branches out *ruffles through my papers to find a chart* Ah here it is!

Ok CYYZ airport has about 8 standard departure fixes, in which we would prefer that you have one of them as your first fix on your flight plan. These are:

BULGE
ARTHR
CALON
TONNY
ANCOL
OAKVL
EASTBOUND-which break up into the posibilities of J594 via the R-079 of the YYZ VOR to MSS VOR
-OR BEJAT
-OR GOPEV
-OR KENDI
-Also KLOPS is acceptable too, so J594,BEJAT,GOPEV,KENDI, and KLOPS are all waypoints you could consider if flying east to CYUL or CYQB, or even across the pond. Now thats not to say you can't fly out of ANCOL or BULGE, or even TONNY but its faster to depart from an EASTBOUND route.

With regards to initial waypoints, like BULGE, ANCOL, ect... If your flightplan starts with the airway that one of the waypoints are on, then thats fine also, since we know you'll be flying through them anyways if your on the airway. And yes, even heavy IFR aircraft fly on Victor Airways to depart Toronto airpace, and then transition to a Jetway airway as they climb out of 18,000 ft if I remember correctly. Its easy to visualize, just picture the CYYZ airport as the starting point and from the airport branches out starting the Victor aiways and initial waypoints.

As for Arrival fixes, the standard ones are FLINE, WASIE, LINNG, and ROKTO. These will be found as the first points on your STAR into CYYZ, or somewhere close to the first waypoints. These waypoints, along with the STAR, help you get set up for your approach at pearson based on the active runways, I won't get into Arrival procedures as Im not there yet in my training as a controller

.

Now as for filing your route or making a route, you should consider two things:
1) Is this route going to interefere with any arriving or departing aircraft at my departure airport and arriving one?
2) Have I filed the proper altitude for my direction of flight (EAST flights have ODD Flight levels, and WEST flights have EVEN flight levels)

#2 doesn't really apply to route making but it applies to the pilot flying them.

Its important to making sure, especially at your departing airport, that your route won't conflict with arriving traffic, since your route needs to be ammended and if controllers are busy, you'll find yourself waiting a faire bit before he can figure out a re-route for you. (Most of the time its a minor thing, and can be easily corrected, the ones I hate as a controller is when their whole flight needs to be changed b/c of one error!)

For CYYZ, these are the inbound arrival routes which you should not be flying on if departing the airport:
(these are all inbound by the way)
YSO- via YOW J546, YXI J597 or YYB
LINNG- via DKK V522 LINNG or BUF V36 LINNG (BUF is ok if you plan to cruise at under 10k ft)
YWT- via ECK V216 YWT, YXU V98 YWT or Via V450 YWT(ECK is the exception, you may fly it departing the airport)
YMS- via TIBUD J525 YMS or YSB J600 YMS

Getting back to your question, So any routing is fine really unlessit interefers with what i've wrote about above, but it may be more adventageous to choose a route that consumes less fuel, and is a shorter distance. But thats for you to figure out, ATC couldn't care less if you travel all the way around going east to go to CYVR

Hope this clears up some of the questions!

-Matt

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 3:22 pm

Ok, 2 more from SimRoutes, CYEG - CYVR

The 1st one gives off a close waypoint, so not having YEG is not the end of the world. But then it goes on to omit YRM and YNY.

The 2nd one doesn't bother with YEG or YRM. I know they are all on the same airway, but I'd give a closer starting point that YNY all the way down there.

Both flight plans have a redundancy, BOOTH7 starts at BOOTH. You don't need to have BOOTH listed, it's no big deal but it's unneeded. I like giving as much information as much as possible, but I don't like to clutter flight plans either.

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 4:01 pm

mattymsboi wrote:

...Ok CYYZ airport has about 8 standard departure fixes, in which we would prefer that you have one of them as your first fix on your flight plan. These are:

BULGE
ARTHR
CALON
TONNY
ANCOL
OAKVL
EASTBOUND-which break up into the posibilities of J594 via the R-079 of the YYZ VOR to MSS VOR
-OR BEJAT
-OR GOPEV
-OR KENDI
-Also KLOPS is acceptable too, so J594,BEJAT,GOPEV,KENDI, and KLOPS are all waypoints you could consider if flying east to CYUL or CYQB, or even across the pond. Now thats not to say you can't fly out of ANCOL or BULGE, or even TONNY but its faster to depart from an EASTBOUND route.

.... And yes, even heavy IFR aircraft fly on Victor Airways to depart Toronto airpace, and then transition to a Jetway airway as they climb out of 18,000 ft if I remember correctly. ...

As for Arrival fixes, the standard ones are FLINE, WASIE, LINNG, and ROKTO. These will be found as the first points on your STAR into CYYZ, or somewhere close to the first waypoints. ...

...

Its important to making sure, especially at your departing airport, that your route won't conflict with arriving traffic, since your route needs to be ammended and if controllers are busy, you'll find yourself waiting a faire bit before he can figure out a re-route for you. ...

For CYYZ, these are the inbound arrival routes which you should not be flying on if departing the airport:
(these are all inbound by the way)
YSO- via YOW J546, YXI J597 or YYB
LINNG- via DKK V522 LINNG or BUF V36 LINNG (BUF is ok if you plan to cruise at under 10k ft)
YWT- via ECK V216 YWT, YXU V98 YWT or Via V450 YWT(ECK is the exception, you may fly it departing the airport)
YMS- via TIBUD J525 YMS or YSB J600 YMS
...

Great stuff Matt, this was the sort of answers I was looking for.

Ok, so I can go through the STARs for an airport, list the arrival fixes and avoid using those in my departure.

1. How can I go about getting standard departure fixes for an airport? Are those listed on charts or are they shuffling about on ATC internal paperwork?

Excellent, so everyone uses Victors to exit an airport (when possible).

2. So, how can I go about figuring out how far along a Victor it takes for an airplane to reach 18,000ft?

I use FS Commander and I have a measuring tool. FSC lists the B767 with a rate of climb of 1800 ft/min. So, doing some basic math and assuming the plane starts climbing to 18,000ft as it leaves the runway (ATC might delay that, I just want a rough estimate):

18,000 / 1,800 = 10 minutes
(sorry, can't find the stupid DIVIDE sign)

Using 250kts limit under 18,000ft:
250 / 60 = 4.17
4.7 x 10 = 47nm in 10min

Does that make sense?

Maybe add a margin for delays in climbing and I could assume it takes 60nm for a B767 to reach 18,000ft?

Aharon · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 4:08 pm

wow very advanced explanation stuff that I do not even understand most of them:):):)

no offense to all of you:):)

Aharon

CVA0014 · Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 4:40 pm

I was examining those SimRoutes flights for CYUL-CYYZ and noticed something else in the 2nd and 4th flights.

I don't think you're supposed to enter YSO if you use SIMCO2. I think you end up with 2 YSO entries in your FMS if you type that it in that way. I would do it like this:

KANUR TUKIR SIMCO2.YSO

This is how I've seen it done to show the entry to SIMCO2 is YSO.

1. When do you use the VOR and when do you use the intercection when you have both available?

I'd assume a VOR would be required for radio navigation and that an intersection is sufficient for FMS flight. But it wouldn't really be a problem 'cause pilots would use what they need when they enter their flight plan.

Introduction to routes and flight planning

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