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I'm running v1.21 of PFPX with Navigraph cycle 1507. I planned a flight with the PMDG737 from EGCC to EGKK this morning.

For a westerly departure on 23R I was assigned this routing:-

N0429F230 LIST2R LISTO P18 UTUXA UN859 KIDLI ASTR2B

The problem is that SID is restricted to non-jet aircraft and certain other aircraft which don't include a 737-800.

The correct SID should have been SANBA which is for jet aircraft only. Any reason PFPX preferred the LISTO one?

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I don't know exactly how PFPX works, but I guess it doesn't account for the selected aircraft type and just looks at the shortest/best routing with the current weather.

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I don't know exactly how PFPX works, but I guess it doesn't account for the selected aircraft type and just looks at the shortest/best routing with the current weather.

It wouldn't be a very good planner if it didn't take into account the aircraft type. But it is a very good planner so hence my question. :)

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I have to admit to being quite surprised this feature wasn't included when this program was released. The word 'professional' is bandied around a lot with products but this one really does look the business.

Hence my surprise that this is a feature which needs adding a couple of years after release. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long.

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You can indeed already classify terminal procedures as Jet or Prop only, but you can't yet specify whether a particular aircraft type is a Jet or a Prop.

I started out in the business nearly 30 years ago. We flight planned manually, First step was get the charts out and trace out a route, then hand-write into a form and find a calculator to work out time and burn calculations. When the new-fangled computer arrived in the office we still got the charts out to check what the software churned out. Roll on to 2015 and although I'm no longer involved directly in ops the lads who do the planning in our various group airlines all complain about their flight planning systems being "stupid". After 30 years the same warning remains. Never trust what comes out of the printer, always do a sanity check. Real-world automated route finder algorithms are not perfect - PFPX is more real than you may think!

Jon

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Very nice.

However the new SID out of EGCC to EGKK goes almost all the way to Cardiff before turning back towards Gatwick!

Not PFPX's fault of course.

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Very nice.

However the new SID out of EGCC to EGKK goes almost all the way to Cardiff before turning back towards Gatwick!

Not PFPX's fault of course.

To which SID are you referring?

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Stephen,

This is what it gave me for a 737-800...

KUXE1R KUXEM P17 NOKIN N862 ERNOK L9 KENET ASTR1F

As Ned say's Cardiff is not usually on this route unless it's a sight-seeing flight. ;)

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Stephen,

Two points. That document you pointed us to is 692 pages long. I trust you're not expecting us to read through its entirety to find the solution? :(

Second point. The link to the utility takes me to the same NATS page.

I would have hoped that PFPX could integrate UK rules into the product so when we enter two UK ICAOs we get a sensible plan. If every other country has its own rules how on earth can we expect PFPX to generate logical routes? Or is it only the UK that has these 'rules'?

I'm finding more often that generating a route in PFPX does introduce some dog-leg routing and it's only when I go to the Advanced option and generate it there I get a sensible routing. That is disappointing.

If I go into Advanced and deselect Ignore RADs I get a sensible route... SANB1R SANBA UN859 KIDLI ASTR2B

So why can't the default mode give me the same routing?

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Updated the second link Ray, thanks for the heads-up

The SRD is easily filtered selecting the departure airport or waypoint of entry and finding the arrival or exit.

Hopefully the SRD will be implemented in to PFPX at some point taking into account it updates every 28 days based on the AIRAC cycle. When you start adding in the expanding Free Route Airspace, Borealis Europe fully implemented target 2020, areas using Route Availability Document directs in place of airways it will be quite a task to keep up with Europe alone.

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Looking at that document Stephen I don't realistically see how PFPX could keep up with all the world-wide rules. But for the EGCC-EGKK route the SRD has suggested SANBA N859 KIDLI WILLO3B which isn't too different from that in the Advanced Edit option.

That option does at least provide a sensible routing. The default supplied earlier is clearly ridiculous.

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This is strange.

For EGCC to EGKK if I go to advanced and check "Ignore RADs" I get the route that Ray got

SANB1R SANBA UN859 KIDLI ASTR2B

But if I go back to advanced and uncheck "ignore RADs" I get another entirely different route

EKLA1R EKLAD UY53 NANTI L8 STAFA P18 TELBA UL151 KIDLI ASTR2B

which is not the same as the original extremely long route.

Looks like there are some inconsistencies here.

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  • 1 year later...

Gents,

 

I'm sorry to resurrect this thread but I've been flying Concorde most of this year and have just switched back to the 737-800.

Using PFPX v1.27.3 and AIRAC 1216 if I plan a flight from EGCC to either EGLL or LFPG PFPX is still selecting the LISTO SID which is only for use by aircraft with a MTOW of 35000KG or non-jet aircraft.

 

The correct SID for 737s and heavier is SAMBA. Is there no way PFPX is able to select the most appropriate one?

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  • Deputy Sheriffs

Hello Ray,

 

as far as I know the nav data (NavDataPro and Navigraph) this kind of information is not included in them. So PFPX has no means to know that "by default".

 

But you should be able to add it manually into the Restricted Departure Procedures/Waypoints configuration of the Airport Data.

 

Please login to display this image.

 

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Thanks Tom. Although not ideal I've restricted the LISTO SIDs from Rwy 23L and 23R to Prop Aircraft only. That has resulted in me being assigned the SAMBA SID.

 

At least there is a workaround for which I'm grateful. :)

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