How to plan for a polar air route with PFPX and PMDG777

[andersonakoto 0]

Hi,

 

I've searched the world wide web on how to plan a polar air route on professional flight planner x but to no avail!!

 

Any kind person out there who could give me step by step instructions on how to do it on PFPX and then fly it on PMDG777, and any quirks I should look out for?  

 

Thanks!!

[pcubine 143]

What are your origin and destination airports?

 

Have you brought this up on the PFPX forum since this is a plan and that's what PFPX creates. The PMDG 777 follows a route created by a plan. It doesn't create the plan.

[pete_auau 1,153]

there are tutorials on how to do this on the pfpx forum

[scandinavian13 5,192]

 

 

I've searched the world wide web on how to plan a polar air route on professional flight planner x but to no avail!!

 

Not sure what you're looking for here.

 

There aren't any true organized tracks or airways to cross the polar region - it's all based off of the coordinate system (much like the Ocean crossings are). Today's KORD to VHHH flight plan (for CPA805) is PMPKN NEATO DLLAN RONIC BAE 4500N08700W 5000N08200W 5500N07700W 5830N07500W 6000N07400W 6500N07100W 7000N06800W INGUM 7500N06400W 8000N06000W 8500N04000W 8730N00000E ABERI B934 SUBEM B934 LUMIG B155 TUNIR A45 USONA G490 LAMIR G490 SERNA A310 POLHO G218 TMR B458 LARAD B458 WXI A461 OBLIK A461 LIG R473 WYN W18 NLG W23 ZUH R473 SIERA. Everything in red is the polar portion (the FAA defines the North Polar area of operations as the area lying north of 78 deg north latitude), and as you can see, most of it is coordinate-based. The darker red is what I'd call a transition area into the polar region. That's not an official definition, but you're crossing off of mainland Canada over the remote parts of Greenland at INGUM, and you are transitioning back over land (Siberia, so..."land," albeit mostly inhospitable) at SUBEM, so, despite it not being polar by definition, you're still in some pretty cold and remote areas.

 

Polar routes aren't intentionally flown. They're incidentally flown. What I mean by that is nobody intentionally seeks to fly up over the poles. They simply do so because that is the shortest route. That being said, there's no button or feature in PFPX that will intentionally put you through that region. It simply routes you that way because it's the shortest route that can be taken. Apart from that, it's flown just like any other ETOPS segment (with higher requirements for the diversion airports and recovery because a potentially powerless aircraft on an extremely cold/remote ramp could be a very bad situation for the crew/passengers). Before even selecting a route, just set the airports KORD and VHHH into PFPX and you'll already have polar route. If you select the "Quick Find Route" option, then it will try to bend that flight path onto available airways as much as it can, and will probably use coordinates throughout the polar region.

 

It's also worth mentioning that, because the map in PFPX is a Mercator Projection, you might not actually get a line that goes up over the pole with a nice picture of the North Pole. It will probably just "top out" (flatten out against the top of the map) at the top of the map, like this FlightAware Map of the above-mentioned flight.

 

For more on Polar Ops and requirements:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_16/polar_story.html

[andersonakoto 0]

awesome! thanks

[vc10man 732]

awesome! thanks

++++1. Nice work, Kyle.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

Glad to help, guys!

[andersonakoto 0]

1. And why when I'm approach an airport the "terrain terrain" warning sounds yet the whole landscape is flat? I have to       inhibit it which is boring.....

 

2. When flying a polar route through 82 degrees North the aircraft deviates from its flightpath and begins turning by itself     (i tried switching from "norm" to "true") it doesn't help...

[jcomm 5,890]

From memory I don't recall if we can change from Magnetic to Grid in the PMDG 777 ?  Can we ?

 

Although not specifically PMDG 777, this is a nice video to watch :-)

[PMDG777 231]

From memory I don't recall if we can change from Magnetic to Grid in the PMDG 777 ? Can we ?

 

Although not specifically PMDG 777, this is a nice video to watch :-)

I believe it changes automatically however there is a guarded switch below the captains ND.

[andersonakoto 0]

yeah i know that but why does it keep veering off-course? regardless of whether the switch is in "norm" or "true"

[jcomm 5,890]

yeah i know that but why does it keep veering off-course? regardless of whether the switch is in "norm" or "true"

 

Because its still MS Flight Simulator driving it internally... There are no miracles.

 

MSFS's Geoid model is limited near the Poles :-/

[pcubine 143]

yeah i know that but why does it keep veering off-course? regardless of whether the switch is in "norm" or "true"

Don't change any switches. The T7 will fly itself in this region of the world. If it's not staying on course, then you have done something wrong.

[downscc 1,327]

There is a section on polar navigation in the FCTM. Read it.  Note you need to use LNAV not HDG in most cases.

[andersonakoto 0]

what about my question on the terrain alerts on landing?