Free Route Airspace & Route Availability Document, as well as other Flight Planning Restrictions Worldwide

Charts General
1

Hi,

I recently got a Navigraph subscription under the impression that the flight planning tools would help generate optimal routing in bizarre airspace with many applicable rules. One such is Europe, where the Route Availability Document has multiple rules for various arrivals, departures, and transitioning aircraft.

I see the flightplanning software in Charts fails to do the following:

  • Account for aircraft type and navigation capabilities
  • Account for flight level in planning
  • Account for vertical FRA boundaries (explanation below).

I tried planning a flight from LIRF to UUEE using Charts flying a CJ4, with the expectation that the software will climb above the FRA boundary (FL325?) in Italy, since the CJ4 cruises at high flight levels like FL400. However, in Italian airspace, the planner took high level airways rather than the directs. I was hoping Charts would be able to be more particular with routing requirements and take advantage of directs where possible?

On this note, I was wondering:

  1. Does the Charts planner (Standalone app or Webapp) actually account for restrictions, prohibitions, and mandatory routings listed in the Route Availability Document, including those that depend on time-of-day and day-of-week?
  2. Are there any future plans to have the route planner calculate optimal routing with the aforementioned restrictions by taking into consideration the aircraft type, equipment on board, weight, altitude, and winds? (This is what I bought a Navigraph subscription for, thinking this was what the service would be capable of…)
  3. If this isn’t already available, is there a potential for this service to exist in conjunction with Simbrief?
  4. Are there any plans for this service to rule out or “hide” charts and procedures that aren’t applicable to the route or aircraft you’re flying? For example in the US, many arrivals and departure procedures will be restricted to whether you have RNAV or not, apply only to some classes of aircraft (turbojet vs turboprop) or some transitions will specify that they only apply to certain departure or arrival airports, for example:
    image
    image1199Ă—790 162 KB

Sorry if this sounds a little naggy, but this was more or less what I was hoping for when I signed up earlier today…

2

Hi…,

Welcome.

Have you tried Simbrief? It has more of the facilities you are seeking. Maybe try that and update your requests. We are working on a new Charts offering which will integrate with Simbrief. So your suggestions are welcome.

Cheers
Ian

3

Hey Ian,

I do use Simbrief primarily, but even that’s not perfect; I tried using the Route Generator embedded in Simbrief to plan a flight between KLNK and KDCA in an A320, and it seemed to want to pull the turboprop arrivals into KDCA before the turbojet arrivals.

That being said, I did see it plan a routing from LIRF to UUEE much better than the Charts planner did for the CJ4. However, the IFPS validation of the flightplan still produced errors in Italian airspace.

4

Hi…,

Simbrief is part of Navigraph now. For issues with Simbrief please post at Simbrief Support.

As mentioned your suggestions re Charts offering are welcome.

Cheers
Ian

5

My bad, I’ll be sure to forward my comments on the Simbrief planner to that forum instead.

Otherwise, yeah, my comments on the Charts planner still stand, it would nice to see those features or considerations better integrated. Thanks for looking into my inquiry!

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