The UK saw its second deployment of Free Route Airspace yesterday (albeit with lots of RAD restrictions) above FL245 in the ‘West’ area of EGTT. However, I’ve noticed that SimBrief applies an initial altitude restriction of 24000 via the ATS routes in this area. While this is technically correct, as the ATS routes are only established up to FL245, aircraft in reality are able to request/climb to their final cruise level while on these ATS route portions because the airspace above is Free Route.
Is there any way SimBrief could take account of certain portions of a route being within FRA and therefore ignoring upper limits of these ATS routes? Not sure how the r/w flight planning systems do this so difficult for me to suggest anything. But we see a lot of pilots not understanding ‘step climbs’ and therefore just sticking at a low level!
One thing the real FPS may have is a B2B connection between the engine and the Eurocontrol validator.
Operators for flights w/in the EU may have one route built between say EGSS to EDDM for when the connection is down; on day of dispatch the dispatcher tells FPS to give me the most optimum IFPS route between AAA and BBB, FPS talks to the IFPS via the B2B, Eurocontrol says AAA UN546 BBB or whatever, and away we go.
R/W Operators will also have access to the protected side of the NOP; and in there I can see what everyone is filing across the EU - their whole FPL, and a more functional validator which I can request RAD compliant route options.
When the B2B works, its magic. No, our system at work does not have a B2B (but we do have the protected NOP); but I also consulted with an FPS who does have a B2B, and its magic.
Yeah I meant more what would be coded into r/w flight planning systems to basically say “ignore the max level of this ATS route and just climb straight to cruise”.
Currently there isn’t a way for me to “blanket” override the max airway altitudes for these cases. But I think you’ve figured out the workaround now.
Simply set the max altitude for that portion of the route to 99999, for example by setting the altitude restrictions to something like: 99999/KISWO/99999. You might have noticed that this will also automatically be applied to other routes beginning with the same airways, so you technically only need to do this once for each departure routing.
