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North Atlantic Tracks... for all flights over the ocean?

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Hi there,

 

just a question: are all flights forced to use the NAT's? Does an airline have to fly a NAT to TNCM? What's for (imaginary) flights from europe to hawaii? Does europe->west coast flights have to use nat's? Or are these tracks only for europe->east coast flights?

Kind regards,

Stefan Sondermann

Jim Driscoll, MSI Raider GE76 12UHS-607 17.3" Gaming Laptop Computer - Blue Intel Core i9 12th Gen 12900HK 1.8GHz Processor; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 16GB GDDR6; 64GB DDR5-4800 RAM; Dual M2 2TB Solid State Drives.Driving a Sony KD-50X75, and KDL-48R470B @ 4k 3724x2094,MSFS 2020, 30 FPS on Ultra Settings.

Jorg/Asobo: “Weather is a core part of our simulator, and we will strive to make it as accurate as possible.”Also Jorg/Asobo: “We are going to limit the weather API to rain intensity only.”


 

One of the best documentaries I'v watched in a while:

 

This bit, about the "South East Corner" is probably most relevant to aircraft heading south of the NorthEastern USA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcKRe4_6SpQ

qfafin.jpg
Trent Hopkinson, 2015 Crewmember of www.mangrove.com.au WorldFlight sim

          Youtube channel www.youtube.com/user/musicalaviator

NATs are only in effect for flights that cross longitude 30W during the following time spans:

 

- eastbound: 0100z to 0800z

- westbound: 1130z to 1900z

 

Even when NATs are in effect you can instead fly a random route. Flights to/from western or southern parts of USA are more likely to use random routes as the NATs are too far out of the way. It looks like the ones linked above are random routes, basically great circle tracks with a fix at every 10 degrees of longitude.

 

EDIT: I meant to include the following document from the library:

http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=Michikian+Krikor&CatID=root&Go=Search

Barry Friedman

 


Even when NATs are in effect you can instead fly a random route.

 

Interesting  topic, was  wondering what are the advantages of using a NAT over random route

 

 

 

 


random route
Ah but you can't fly "through" a NAT. You either follow it or you don't. Other than that, yes you can plan any appropriate "random" route.  ^_^

Wybe Witteveen

VATSIM S3 Controller | Dutch VACC

 

 


Interesting  topic, was  wondering what are the advantages of using a NAT over random route

 

My understanding is the NATs are determined daily based on the jet stream, but there may be other factors. The advantage is using the NAT should save time and fuel since they use the upper winds to best advantage (or avoid severe headwinds). There might be other benefits, perhaps better ATC coverage.

Barry Friedman

Another reason besides taking advantage of wind and weather, there's no radar coverage in certain areas (I believe still), so due to the high volume of traffic over this area, this (I believe)allows uniform traffic flows for ATCs primary purpose: separation of aircraft (prevent collision).  With no radar coverage, pilots announce position reports at specified times and controllers use pen and paper (don't know if this is still used or is computerized now?) to keep track of where aircraft are. 

10700k / Gigabyte 3060

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