Hi,

I'm flying AAR's flight 221 From JFK to KSI. I'm using Flight Aware's flight plan from yesterday which is GREKI JUDDS CAM YUL J574 MT 5500N 07600W 6000N 07800W 6500N 08200W 7000N 08800W 7500N 09500W 8000N 11000W 8300N 14100W PINAG G493 IDIMA G812 BALOM G226 UTS G493 BEDNA G115 ARKOD G494 NALEB G494 BANIR G494 SIMLI A588 BIDIB A588 NODAL A588 CHI W107 SANKO A326 DONVO G597 AGAVO Y644 REBIT COWAY1A The problem I had is trying to enter waypoints like 07600W. No matter which format I tried I kept either getting an invalid entry message or if I removed the leading 0 and entered it as W7600 or 7600W the leg distance was way too long. Any suggestions?

Hi,

I'm flying AAR's flight 221 From JFK to KSI. I'm using Flight Aware's flight plan from yesterday which is GREKI JUDDS CAM YUL J574 MT 5500N 07600W 6000N 07800W 6500N 08200W 7000N 08800W 7500N 09500W 8000N 11000W 8300N 14100W PINAG G493 IDIMA G812 BALOM G226 UTS G493 BEDNA G115 ARKOD G494 NALEB G494 BANIR G494 SIMLI A588 BIDIB A588 NODAL A588 CHI W107 SANKO A326 DONVO G597 AGAVO Y644 REBIT COWAY1A The problem I had is trying to enter waypoints like 07600W. No matter which format I tried I kept either getting an invalid entry message or if I removed the leading 0 and entered it as W7600 or 7600W the leg distance was way too long. Any suggestions?

Plug the route into a site like http://www.simroutes.com/fb2/ParseRoute.aspx and download it in PMDG format.

Hi,

 

The format accepted is:

 

Nddmm.mWddmm.m

Nddmm.mEddmm.m

Sddmm.mWddmm.m

Sddmm.mEddmm.m

 

where d=degrees and m=minutes and .m=tenth of minute.

Latitudes (N/S) have only two figures where longitudes have three. If your longitude is less than 100°, put a zero before (e.g.:045E -> N2736.2E04523.7)

 

For your example above here is the syntax for your positions:

 

5500N 07600W: N5500.0W07600.0

6000N 07800W: N6000.0W07800.0

...

 

 

Good flight, 

Romain

Edited October 5, 201312 yr by Budbud

Thanks guys this helps. The other thing is I need to make sure I have a FSX .pln format since I use Aivlasoft's EFB

I haven't used EFB for months but as far as I remember, you can export a route in a .plan file for fsx and in a .rte or .rt2 file for PMDG.

N60W078 should work too, for example. A little easier than NXXXX.XWXXXXX.X etc

true...

Hi,

I'm flying AAR's flight 221 From JFK to KSI. I'm using Flight Aware's flight plan from yesterday which is GREKI JUDDS CAM YUL J574 MT 5500N 07600W 6000N 07800W 6500N 08200W 7000N 08800W 7500N 09500W 8000N 11000W 8300N 14100W PINAG G493 IDIMA G812 BALOM G226 UTS G493 BEDNA G115 ARKOD G494 NALEB G494 BANIR G494 SIMLI A588 BIDIB A588 NODAL A588 CHI W107 SANKO A326 DONVO G597 AGAVO Y644 REBIT COWAY1A The problem I had is trying to enter waypoints like 07600W. No matter which format I tried I kept either getting an invalid entry message or if I removed the leading 0 and entered it as W7600 or 7600W the leg distance was way too long. Any suggestions?

 

The problem W7600 isn't a place. What you have here is half a co-ordinate. West 76 degrees,

 

A co-ordinate is made up of 2 elements that tells you how far east or west of the Greenwich meridian you are, and how far north or south of the equator you are.

 

W76°00'00.0" is a line, 76 degrees west of Greenwich, which intersects the North pole, Equator and South pole and everything in between (In this case it runs through Canada, the North Atlantic, The Carribbean, Brazil, Chile and parts of Antarctica).

 

Add the "North of equator" and now you have an actual co-ordinate place.

 

So lets look at the flightaware co-ordinate style

 

5500N 07600W

 

That's one place. 55 degrees north of the equator, 76 degrees west of Greenwich meridian.

North/South always comes first, and the "Degrees" is 2 places (from 00 to 90) East/West comes second and needs 3 digits (from 000 to 180. 180W and 180E is the same place).

 

Assuming you are using whole degrees (ie 5500 is 55°00'00.00000000000"... that many decimal points accuracy is about the width of a human hair lol)

 

All the preceeding 0's have to stay (ie N05 can't be N5, because N5 might be N50, thousands of miles away)

 

5500N 07600W

55N076W

 

or

 

5500.0N07600.0W

 

N55°W076°

 

All of these places are discribing actual locations on the globe. In the case of N55°W076°, 

https://maps.google.com.au/maps?safe=off&q=N55W076&ie=UTF-8&ei=podQUo2fGqygigf0oICQDA&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAg

 

So lets look at that flightaware format and it's sillyness, and convert it into something intelligible.

 

 

5500N 07600W 6000N 07800W 6500N 08200W 7000N 08800W 7500N 09500W 8000N 11000W 8300N 14100W

becomes

55N076W 60N078W 65N082W 70N088W 75N095W 80N110W 83N141W

 

You should file your vatsim/pfpx type flightplan in this format (as above, 55N076W etc)

 

To enter it in the FMS you can go to the legs page in the FMS, and type in

 

N55W076

 

as a waypoint (Leg). This doesn't work in the RTE page, because it isn't a waypoint, and is a raw co-ordinate. The Boeing FMS treats this as something akin to a place/bearing/distance location, like JFK255/88 or RIVET180/40

 

The AIRAC come with Whole degree co-ordinates programmed in as 5 letter waypoints. For instance: 55N076W can be programmed in as 5576N.

 

5576N is a waypoint located at 55N076W. in the same manner that GREKI is a waypoint located at N41°28.80' W073°18.85 (As per the chart http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/JFK/DP/GREKI+THREE/pdf )

 

These are 5 letter waypoints, They are not "another way of encoding co-ordinates" any more than "GREKI" or "REBIT" are. However there is one for every full degree co-ordinate (full degree = N50W060, N51W062 etc, rather than N51°22.8'W018°22.7')

 

Here's a picture of how the waypoints line up with the co-ordinates. ie 5060N = N50W060 while 50N60 - N50W160. One is not far from the Atlantic ocean, and the other is closer to Alaska... while 5060W is near Argentina.

 

Pictures:

and I just keep learnin"