Vertical separation rules

[deetee 164]

Hi. I do most of my flying in Europe and I am finding that the flight level rules sometimes differ between Simbrief and P2ATC. For example flying from Rome to Palma (LIRF-LEPA), SB will plan me an odd level FL290, but on importing the plan into P2ATC, the latter will "correct" this to FL300. Trying to manually override this does not work. As I'm no expert on this I did some research and it seems a lot of countries in Europe follow ICAO separation rules (according to the table in the link below, Simbrief actually should have assigned me FL280 or FL310 for a westbound flight from Italy).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_level

Anyway, P2ATC refuses to accept me overriding an even FL with an odd and vice versa so is there a way around that?

There is an option - "Calculate safe enroute altitudes" which I turned off, but that does not seem to solve this particular issue.

Many thanks.

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

On the FltPln tab of Config, check the "ATC Ignores Bearing Based Altitudes" option.

Dave

[deetee 164]

Thanks Dave I will give that a shot. 

[magicnorm 0]

Hi Dave, what about this situation. Is this a bug or I am misinterpreting?

Flying from North to South (Porto to LIsbon)

SymBrief gives me FL350 Pilot2ATC FL340
LPPR/35 MANIK1E MANIK DCT XAMAX XAMAX8A LPPT/03

In Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_level is see the following rule (see below in bold):

Semicircular/hemispheric rule
The semicircular rule (also known as the hemispheric rule) applies, in slightly different version, 
to IFR flights in the UK inside controlled airspace and generally in the rest of the world. 
The standard rule defines an East/West track split:

Eastbound – Magnetic track 000 to 179° – odd thousands (FL 250, 270, etc.)
Westbound – Magnetic track 180 to 359° – even thousands (FL 260, 280, etc.)

At FL 290 and above, if Reduced Vertical Separation Minima are not in use, 
4,000 ft intervals are used to separate same-direction aircraft (instead of 2,000 ft intervals below FL 290), 
and only odd flight levels are assigned, independent of the direction of flight:

Eastbound – Magnetic track 000 to 179° – odd flight levels (FL 290, 330, 370, etc.)
Westbound – Magnetic track 180 to 359° – odd flight levels (FL 310, 350, 390, etc.)
Countries where the major airways are oriented north/south (e.g., New Zealand; Italy; Portugal; France) 
have semicircular rules that define a North/South rather than an East/West track split.

In Italy, France and Portugal, for example, southbound traffic uses odd flight levels; 
in New Zealand, southbound traffic uses even flight levels.

 

Thanks.

 

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

P2A does not enforce all flight level assignment rules.  That is the reason for the option "ATC Ignores Bearing Based Altitudes".  In this case, just select this option and use FL350 for your Cruise Altitude.

[magicnorm 0]

Dave.

When I import my flight plan with the option "ATC Ignores Bearing Based Altitudes", I still need to modify the Cruise Alt manually. Would it be possible to have Pilot2ATC enter the correct Flight Level imported. If it is supposed to ignore the Bearing, it should in this case set the Cruse ALT to FL350.

Thanks

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

What type of import are you doing?  If importing a .pln or .fms file, if the Cruise Altitude is in the flight plan and the option to ignore Bearing Based Altitudes is checked, it will leave the Cruise Altitude alone.  

Most other imports don't contain cruise altitude information.  In this case, you will need to enter  the cruise altitude after the import.  The one entered automatically is to prevent calculation errors and may not be correct.

Dave

[magicnorm 0]

Dave, I import a .fms file from Simbrief.

Here is a copy:

I
1100 Version
CYCLE 1906
ADEP LPPR
ADES LPPT
NUMENR 4
1 LPPR ADEP 227.000000 41.235556 -8.678056
11 MANIK DRCT 31800.000000 40.691944 -8.616111
11 XAMAX DRCT 35000.000000 40.031111 -8.536111
1 LPPT ADES 2900.000000 38.774167 -9.134167
 

Edited June 20, 2019 by magicnorm

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

I see there is a bug in the import of .fms  files that does not attempt to capture the cruise altitude.

I will get that fixed for the next update.

Thanks,

Dave

Edited June 21, 2019 by Dave-Pilot2ATC