What fixes do you use for flight planning?

[Paul Tomblin]

I'm trying to improve my database generators for CoPilot and other
programs (see http://navaid.com/ and http://xcski.com/~ptomblin/CoPilot/
for details). The problem I'm trying to deal with is that the FAA is
totally inconsistent on how they name waypoints, DAFIF isn't any better,
and there are literally thousands of them. And because of that, I am
having real problems giving people a way to select just the types of
waypoints they want. I look through my databases and find instances of
what I would consider en-route waypoints labelled "WAYPOINT", "REP-PT",
even "RNAV-WP". One guy suggested that I just give the option of only
selecting waypoints if they are 5 alphabetic characters, with no numbers.
The problem I have with that is that I still end up with a lot of IAP
waypoints, including GPS ones, which bloats the database.

Now I don't know about you, but I don't put in the waypoints for an
instrument approach when I flight plan - I generally put the departure
airport, the first fix on the filed route, then I find the last waypoint
on the en-route chart that would apply to the STAR or normal approach, put
that in and the airport, and then apply a fudge factor for how long a
departure procedure and approach should take. Do other people do any
differently? Are you likely to want every named step-down fix and GPS
fly-over waypoint on your flight planning tool?

Another possibility I was looking at was that the FAA waypoint file lists
what charts a waypoint appears on, and DAFIF categorizes their waypoints
as "HI", "LOW", "BOTH", "RNAV" or "TERMINAL". So I was thinking maybe
of categorizing waypoints that way and allowing people to pick any
combination of:
- points that appear on High Altitude En-Route charts
- points that appear on Low Altitude En-Route charts
- points that appear Instrument Approaches ("Terminal")
The only problem I have is with SIDS (sorry, DPs) and STARS - should they
be classified as "terminal" or as "en-route"?

--
Paul Tomblin > http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
The problem with this country is that half of the population is below
median intelligence

[Stan Gosnell]

(Paul Tomblin) wrote in
:

> I'm trying to improve my database generators for CoPilot and other
> programs (see http://navaid.com/ and
> http://xcski.com/~ptomblin/CoPilot/ for details). The problem I'm
> trying to deal with is that the FAA is totally inconsistent on how
> they name waypoints, DAFIF isn't any better, and there are literally
> thousands of them. And because of that, I am having real problems
> giving people a way to select just the types of waypoints they want.

I don't have a solution, Paul, but if you do find a solution let me know.
I don't use any of these very often, because I rarely fly on airways, but
it would be nice to be able to easily get what I do need. I have room on
my SD card for lots of waypoints, but the more you have, the longer sorting
and searching takes.

--
Regards,

Stan

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
(Paul Tomblin) wrote:

[snip]
> Are you likely to want every named step-down fix and GPS
> fly-over waypoint on your flight planning tool?

If you are referring to points in approaches, then no, I wouldn't
want them.


Do you know what the DAFIF/Arinc 424 rules are for naming points?
Might that help a little?

--
Bob Noel

[Paul Tomblin]

In a previous article, Bob Noel > said:
>Do you know what the DAFIF/Arinc 424 rules are for naming points?
>Might that help a little?

The DAFIF WPT.TXT file only uses a few type classfications, "I" (Unnamed,
charted or computer nav fix), "IF" (same, but off-route), "R" (named fix),
"RF" (named, off-route), "NR" (named NDB fix), "NF" (off-route NDB fix)
and "V" (vfr reporting point). Not terribly helpful since "R" "named fix"
doesn't distinguish between en-route and approach named waypoints. And
they don't see very consistent. That's why I'm looking to combine that
Type field with the Usage Code field.


--
Paul Tomblin > http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Died. Woke up in Hell. Punched in PIN, logged on. Just another day.
-- David Gerard

[John Clonts]

"Paul Tomblin" > wrote in message
...
> I'm trying to improve my database generators for CoPilot and other
> programs (see http://navaid.com/ and http://xcski.com/~ptomblin/CoPilot/
> for details). The problem I'm trying to deal with is that the FAA is
> totally inconsistent on how they name waypoints, DAFIF isn't any better,
> and there are literally thousands of them. And because of that, I am
> having real problems giving people a way to select just the types of
> waypoints they want. I look through my databases and find instances of
> what I would consider en-route waypoints labelled "WAYPOINT", "REP-PT",
> even "RNAV-WP". One guy suggested that I just give the option of only
> selecting waypoints if they are 5 alphabetic characters, with no numbers.
> The problem I have with that is that I still end up with a lot of IAP
> waypoints, including GPS ones, which bloats the database.
>
> Now I don't know about you, but I don't put in the waypoints for an
> instrument approach when I flight plan - I generally put the departure
> airport, the first fix on the filed route, then I find the last waypoint
> on the en-route chart that would apply to the STAR or normal approach, put
> that in and the airport, and then apply a fudge factor for how long a
> departure procedure and approach should take. Do other people do any
> differently? Are you likely to want every named step-down fix and GPS
> fly-over waypoint on your flight planning tool?
>
> Another possibility I was looking at was that the FAA waypoint file lists
> what charts a waypoint appears on, and DAFIF categorizes their waypoints
> as "HI", "LOW", "BOTH", "RNAV" or "TERMINAL". So I was thinking maybe
> of categorizing waypoints that way and allowing people to pick any
> combination of:
> - points that appear on High Altitude En-Route charts
> - points that appear on Low Altitude En-Route charts
> - points that appear Instrument Approaches ("Terminal")
> The only problem I have is with SIDS (sorry, DPs) and STARS - should they
> be classified as "terminal" or as "en-route"?

This would be great for me, because I often use the waypoints to
georeference approach charts and enroute charts, (e.g. see
alt.binaries.pictures.aviation "TPL GPS 33").

I remember once before having trouble that you're talking about, with the
categorization WAYPOINT", "REP-PT", "RNAV-WP", etc.

Thanks a lot for your service!

Cheers,
John Clonts
Temple, Texas
N7NZ

[Blanche]

As a rule I don't download any of the waypoints for CoPilot. I
manually enter the handful I need for VFR (already on the computer
in a file so I can download easily if they ever disappear). If I
go someplace where I need more, it's usually just a few, so those
can be manually loaded too.

[[email protected]]

Paul Tomblin wrote:

> I'm trying to improve my database generators for CoPilot and other
> programs (see http://navaid.com/ and http://xcski.com/~ptomblin/CoPilot/
> for details). The problem I'm trying to deal with is that the FAA is
> totally inconsistent on how they name waypoints, DAFIF isn't any better,
> and there are literally thousands of them. And because of that, I am
> having real problems giving people a way to select just the types of
> waypoints they want. I look through my databases and find instances of
> what I would consider en-route waypoints labelled "WAYPOINT", "REP-PT",
> even "RNAV-WP". One guy suggested that I just give the option of only
> selecting waypoints if they are 5 alphabetic characters, with no numbers.
> The problem I have with that is that I still end up with a lot of IAP
> waypoints, including GPS ones, which bloats the database.

In NACO's DAI CD-ROM those fixes are segregated by:

DPs, IAPs, STARs, en route low, and en route high.

Seems using the en route low file would solve your problem.