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Route Analysis Flight Radar 24


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I usually use Flight Aware to make flight plan routes with FsBuild. I noticed, on flights outside the United States, the routes are terribly inaccurate. The link I mentioned in my original post uses real world data from flightradar 24 to make a realistic route by using a csv file (which contains position, altitude, etc.) to make coordinate waypoints that can be inputted into FsBuild, Simroutes, Skyvector, etc to be used in Fs Flight Planning, and FMC routes. Is there any other way to make a realistic flight plan that is easier, and possibly free (besides using flight aware routes)?

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  • Deputy Sheriffs

First of all, are you asking this question because you want to create routes with PFPX, or with another tool? 

If you want to use other tools, this is the wrong place to ask, because this is the PFPX support forum.

 

PFPX gives you exact routes according to the navigation database version (cycle) you have installed. These cycles are getting updated every month and are real world data. If you have a subscription (for either NavDataPro or Navigraph) your route planner and FMC would be on the exact same navigation data as real world systems.

 

If you look at routes on FR24 you have to first keep the date in mind. What navigation cycle was current at that moment and are your planning tools and FMCs are on the same version? (routes change from time to time).

Also FR24 does of course not reflect any ATC involvement, diverting an aircraft from the originally filed flight plan.

 

 

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Tom, I made the original post to which Agovico21 was referring.

 

My reason for making that post in November 2016 was I believe the same as his question now - I was trying to find a way to analyse real world routes to use in PFPX so I could best recreate real world flights.

 

If you live or fly in the US simple - Flightaware gives you the ATC route. If you're in Europe and have access to Eurocontrol applications no problem. Otherwise how can you find the filed ATC flightplan route flown in the realworld to use that in PFPX to generate flightplans? The only way I found to "fudge" it, again as Agovico21 quite correctly pointed out, was to download a csv file from FR24, convert it so the position reports can be viewed in Skyvector with an overlay Airways chart and then manually input an appropriate route into PFPX. I guess no one's come up with a more elegant solution.

 

If you catch a flight whilst it's still in the air yes you can see the track with an airway overlay on FR24. If it's a historic flight and your only recourse is playback, no you can't.

 

My question of a year ago is still I believe valid, and so's Agovico's, you certainly weren't wasting anyone's time with your post.

 

Cheers

Jon

 

 

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  • Deputy Sheriffs

No one said something like time has been wasted here.

 

But to come back to the question: what if ATC gives you an offset to your filed route/leg, or a direct? These things happen and will lead to a route you see in FR24 which simply can't be recreated with tools like PFPX, as they just use the official navigation database (with all current waypoint, airways and restrictions). But if ATC takes over in any way, what you see in FR24 and what you see in PFPX (as also your navigation display on board) is simply not the same anymore.

 

That's what I meant with:

 

9 hours ago, Tom A320 said:

Also FR24 does of course not reflect any ATC involvement, diverting an aircraft from the originally filed flight plan.

 

So in my opinion it simply is impossible to use PFPX or such tools to try to recreate flown routes. Even if you use route databases to grab route from there, they only contain the filed routes, but not the actual flown ones (including all ATC deviations).

 

With PFPX you are able to create valid routes like they are also created by airline dispatchers (according their needs in terms of fuel usage, timing, etc.). This is as close as you can get with any tool like PFPX.

 

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13 hours ago, Agovico261 said:

I'm sorry for wasting anyones time. It seems though as I have put this topic in the wrong section.

 
Thank you for your time and generosity explaining this to me. I said my self that I considered that I wasted your time  So please don't take this as an insult towards one another because no one is to blame here. 
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Tom, I understand what you are saying (I was planning flights for real before new fangled computer things were invented), but it’s fun to see where a real world flight has flown and recreate it in a virtual world. I guess we’ll just have to disagree how we use PFPX ;-).

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  • Deputy Sheriffs

Of course you can use PFPX for doing what you want to do. You just should not be too surprised if you will find routes on FR24 for which you can't create a 100% fit in PFPX using standard waypoints and airways.

You can always also use directs within PFPX as also create your own waypoints (defined by they long/lat position).

I just wanted to point out that routes flown in RL deviate from ATC filed routes.

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Hi,

Let me interfere a bit and try to express my visions to the subject also.

The PFPX is a software sold out and it should fit most of the Customers' needs. There are many people in the SIM society who wish to fly as close as possible to the real flights. This is especially valid to the VA members where the conditions should be as close to the reality as possible, which should be the aim of a reputed VA. In respect to the above it is a common sense that reasonable source of information can be FR24. 

I can agree with Tom that the actual route depends on many factors like ATC, AIRC, etc., but all these things can be adjusted if someone knows what he is looking for and how to operate with the tools. The main question here is how to adapt the .csv files provided by FR24 to the format used by PFPX? Our colleague BW901 had stated something in his older posts, but it seems to be in starting phase only. Whoever has experience with GPS devices may know that .csv is one of the major sources for coordinates on the map using a specialized format, which the device reads. Is it so difficult similar principal of reading to be used in PFPX?

Another thing, which I would like to mention is that the way how PFPX calculates the routes seems a bit strange for me. Someone who is more in the programming may wish to explain it, but we should admit that there are routes flown in real life, which cannot be planned by PFPX. Take for example flight EK641 flown every working day from OAKB to OMDB and try to plan it. The result unfortunately is negative. Even the advance planning gives no results. What is the solution in such case? Is it not very confusing that simBrief, for example, gives a route in almost no time and this route is very close to the real one, which can be seen on FR24?

I am far from the intention to be a lawyer on the online free websites, but once we pay for something it should cover the basic requirements for the purpose at least. It has to be in every point better than the free source.

Hope this is enough for now and will be curious to know what others think.

 

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1 hour ago, Goshob said:

Take for example flight EK641 flown every working day from OAKB to OMDB and try to plan it. The result unfortunately is negative.

 

Post the route , maybe then an explanation can be given.

 

PFPX can plan an OAKB-OMDB route without issue using either LOWER/UPPER/ADVANCED planners.

 

 

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Compare the PFPX planned route to FR24 EK641:

 

ATC ROUTE: N0423F280 LOGAR3 NOLEX A453 PIRAN/N0483F380 A453 DAVEP Q10 MOBET M324 PATAT Y911 VUTEG Y603 PUVAL PUVA3B
 

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@Goshob

 

PFPX can generate the real route from EK641. But in order to do so, you have to generate via Advanced Route Finder and set Min FL and Max FL to 280. That's because the real flight also maintains FL280 until iranian border, as the airway used is only available from FL160 to FL290. If you expand the "flight data chart" on FR24, you can see the altitude profile flown.

 

 

Regards

David

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Hi Guys,

I would like to thank you for the suggestions first. My intentions for writing all the above were not much to discuss the particular route from Kabul To Dubai, but to make the conversation more general using the .csv files obtained from FR24 in particular. It seems that many people are trying to follow exactly the company routes in their SIM and FR is a good source for such. I forgot to mention before that .csv is kind of an excel table in general, which hopefully is not so complicated to be handled by PFPX. At the same time, as David mentioned above, the .csv contains data for the vertical profile and some other details also, which might need to be taken into consideration for the planning. Another important question is how to bind the actual GPS coordinates with the existing WP. All these are very perfunctory assumptions, of course, because I am not a software professional and might be wrong.

Coming back to the particular route, I have to admit that the idea for entering FL280 in both fields (min and max) of the advanced route finder did not come to my mind. That was maybe the reason why PFPX came back to me saying that this route cannot be planned. I had noticed that the en route charts are with minimum altitude of FL160 obviously due to the terrain restrictions, but unfortunately this did not ring me the bell that min altitude should be limited...

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