Are "Popups" A Hassle?

"Everett M. Greene" wrote in message ...
Newps writes:
Ron Garret wrote:


2. How many flight plans per day does the current system handle?

Millions.

Are you certain about that? It sounds high by several orders
of magnitude. Every airplane in the world would have to make
about a hundred flights per day to get to a million flight
plans per day.

Within the U.S., the number of IFR airborne aircraft at any moment
peaks up to between 4000 and 5000 on most days now.
Overnight minimums typically get down to around 1000 at a time.
http://flightaware.com/analysis/graphs/total.rvt
I won't try to extrapolate that to a total daily count, though.

John R. Copeland wrote:
"Everett M. Greene" wrote in message ...
Are you certain about that? It sounds high by several orders
of magnitude. Every airplane in the world would have to make
about a hundred flights per day to get to a million flight
plans per day.

Within the U.S., the number of IFR airborne aircraft at any moment
peaks up to between 4000 and 5000 on most days now.
Overnight minimums typically get down to around 1000 at a time.
http://flightaware.com/analysis/graphs/total.rvt
I won't try to extrapolate that to a total daily count, though.

Also keep in mind that MANY flight plans are filed that are never
flown, but the system still has to keep track of.

I know locally there's a company that flies checks each morning. In
just one sector at the local center they have 7 or 8 automatically
generated flight plans each morning, going in and out of a set of small
airports. Those flight plans only get activated if the weather is IFR,
otherwise the company pilots fly VFR and the flightplans just timeout.
There's another company that has quit a few of their routes, but has
not cancelled their automatically generating flight plans for those
routes each morning. They're in the same sector mentioned above. The
facility has been after the company to stop the flight plans, but they
haven't done anything about it yet.

That's 10-11 flight plans per morning (never mind the rest of the
day...), in ONE single sector, that are processed by the system but not
included in the daily traffic count. It all adds up pretty quickly.

writes:
John R. Copeland wrote:
"Everett M. Greene" wrote
Are you certain about that? It sounds high by several orders
of magnitude. Every airplane in the world would have to make
about a hundred flights per day to get to a million flight
plans per day.

Within the U.S., the number of IFR airborne aircraft at any moment
peaks up to between 4000 and 5000 on most days now.
Overnight minimums typically get down to around 1000 at a time.
http://flightaware.com/analysis/graphs/total.rvt
I won't try to extrapolate that to a total daily count, though.

Also keep in mind that MANY flight plans are filed that are never
flown, but the system still has to keep track of.

I know locally there's a company that flies checks each morning. In
just one sector at the local center they have 7 or 8 automatically
generated flight plans each morning, going in and out of a set of small
airports. Those flight plans only get activated if the weather is IFR,
otherwise the company pilots fly VFR and the flightplans just timeout.
There's another company that has quit a few of their routes, but has
not cancelled their automatically generating flight plans for those
routes each morning. They're in the same sector mentioned above. The
facility has been after the company to stop the flight plans, but they
haven't done anything about it yet.

That's 10-11 flight plans per morning (never mind the rest of the
day...), in ONE single sector, that are processed by the system but not
included in the daily traffic count. It all adds up pretty quickly.

OK, but that would amount to maybe 10K flight plans per day
nationally. That's still two orders of magnitude from 10**6.

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...

Excellent question, and I would like to know the answer. If I ask for
an IFR clearance to the next way point just to pop up, I just get asked
what airport my destination is and then told it will take a while to
coordinate. If I ask for a clearance to VFR on top to the next way
point, the clearance comes right out. So, I agree, why is it different?


It's not different. It appears to be a lack of understanding on the part of
the controller. There's nothing wrong with asking for a clearance to a
waypoint, I have no idea why the controller would ask for your destination
airport. If you had wanted an IFR clearance to an airport I'm sure you
would have asked for that.

"Ron Garret" wrote in message
...

Since you asked...

1. What hardware does the current system run on?


Old hardware.



What operating system does it use? Who wrote the software? What language
was
it written in? How is flight plan data stored? Is it on hard disks? In
a RDBMS? Flat
files?


Beats the hell outta me.



2. How many flight plans per day does the current system handle?



Nationwide? I suppose it depends on how you count them. A single long
range flight plan might be processed by half a dozen center computers, do
you want to count each one?



3. How sophisticated is the current system in terms of auto-routing and
capacity management? Can it figure out that there are, e.g. too many
planes headed for a particular navaid at a particular altitude and route
new traffic some other way?


Not the Flight Data Processing computer, it just processes flight data,
giving each controller along the route the necessary information.



4. What actually happens when I'm waiting for my IFR release? Is the
computer involved, or is it just the controllers at that point?


Most likely just the controllers involved.

"Nathan Young" wrote in message
...

It would not have to know that, it is a reply/request based system.
The controller (client) would type in an N-number (the request), and
the server replies with flightplans on file for that N-number.


So what did you mean by "each controller would have access to each
flightplan, but only as they need it."?



I know so little about the current system, that I do not know where to
begin. Do you have a link to documents or websites which would
explain how FSS and ATC enter, share, and track flightplans - ideally
in a few pages, not a 400page technical document?


No.



However, I will start with a few questions:

1. If I file an IFR with 1800WXBrief, what happens to that
information? Does it go to a nationwide database? From discussion
the in this thread, I gather it only is sent to controllers
responsible for the departure airport, or perhaps controllers for
nearby airspaces.


It will go to the ATC facility responsible for the airspace at the departure
airport. If that airport is within a TRACON it will likely also go to the
first ARTCC sector along the route. If it's near an ARTCC boundary it will
also likely go to the adjacent ARTCC. If that airport has a VFR tower it
will also go to the ATCT.



2. How does ATC communicate with adjacent Center/Approach facilities?
Is this a leased phone line arrangement? Do you dial a number or just
pick up the appropriate phone for each location?


Through dedicated phone lines. Controllers working adjacent airspace can
communicate at the push of a single button. Other facilities or sectors can
be dialed.



3. When a facility hands off to another facility how does the info on
the strip get from the first controller to the 2nd?


Flight data is passed through the flight data processing computer. Strips
are printed, at those facilities still using paper strips, about half an
hour prior to entering the airspace assigned to that facility or to the
proposed departure time.

On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 04:21:01 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:


wrote in message
...

That's what I was saying. Although it is pretty sad that the nationwide
system cannot keep everything together in a unified way. It's not that
it's that much data... just that the system is so old that it cannot
handle it.
If a couple megabytes of memory in a GPS can handle every APT, VOR,
ADF, INT for all of north america, regular computers shouldn't have
trouble.


Right. Let's put all the flight data in one system, give every controller
access to all of it, and make it easy to shut down the entire system.

The simpler you make a system from the user's point of view the more
complicated the programming, the more likely you'll end up with side
effects, and the more easily compromised the system and or data.

In a sensitive system the data needs to be compartmentalized and
redundant. It also needs to be isolated from the rest of the world,
but if stations/centers are to talk to each other then the data is
open to compromise.

It's true the data is *relatively* simple and takes very little memory
for each way point. A hand held can hold all the data for the low
level enroute charts and approaches. It might be pressed to have all
of the low level and high level but lets assume it can. This is
static data in that it doesn't change, or has little change.

Then there are the many thousands of flights in the system daily. This
data is dynamic and takes many times the computing power to handle
compared to the static data. The varying data must be coordinated
through centers and with airports. As airplanes join and leave, climb
and descent they affect others in there area or possibly approaching
their area. If their speed changes, arrival times at reporting points
change this has a snow ball effect on planes that may not even be in
the air yet.

Add to this random failures in the system. By that I mean both
aircraft, RADAR, and the computer system itself. No system is without
some faults and they have a way of surfacing at the most inopportune
times.

Probably the best system I can think of would be a distributed
computing system that works much like a PtP system with systems
sharing information, but with checks and balances to provide data
integrity and security. Each system would *almost* work
independently, but share information and operate based on feed back as
well.

The worst and most dangerous approach from a system being compromised
and loss of data integrity would be a single central system feeding
various points/centers and airports. It lacks the ability to do the
checks and balances of a true and integrated distributed computing
system.

However any time a system has the requirement that parts in different
locations must communicate, that system is open to outside compromise
so additional measures such as encryptions and various methods of
verification must be used in addition to firewalls and other
protective software.

It's not nearly as simple as it sounds.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

On Mon, 24 Oct 2005 15:23:35 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
: ... and a corollary: If one does *NOT* do a popup, but rather files IFR
: and departs VFR, how much of a hassle is it to open said flight plan
: mid-stream? Picking up a flight plan filed with a different FSS for
: departure
: 3 hours earlier is not likely to work and will degenerate into a popup.
:

: Do you mean filing IFR from an untowered field and calling for clearance
: shortly after departure? That usually works quite well as it is actually
: easier for the controller.

I'm primarily used to untowered fields, so the clearance delivery and void
time et al can be kinda a pain. It was the "shortly after departure" that I was
thinking about. Basically, planning to make the trip VFR, but filing an IFR plan in
case the weather's worse than you expected. If you're 2 hours down the road VFR
without having opened your IFR flight plan and you try to open it then and get a
clearance, it's probably been flushed from the system and is as bad as a pop-up.

I've filed two stage IFR. Coming out of OSH to Newberry (ERY). Then
two hours later activating (picking up the clearance) the separate
plan from ERY to 3BS. No void times and other than the clearance it's
just like activating a VFR flight plan. Of course it probably works a
lot better out here in the sparsely populated areas in the middle of
the night.

I just called Minneapolis Center and said "This is November eight
thirty three Romeo IFR out of ERY for 3BS. There as a pause followed
by "stand by" followed by, Eight thirty three Romeo, climb to and
maintain seven thousand, cleared as filed which was direct. Other than
a call about every 10 minutes (I think to keep me awake) I didn't hear
anything until they passed me off to MBS approach which was just
before entering Cleveland center's airspace. MBS was "Descend to and
maintain 3000 at pilots discretion. Would you like to cancel now of
when on the ground?" (they wanted to go home) I said I'd be on the
ground in 5 minutes if they didn't mind staying with me. I called on
the RCO/GCO and they still got to leave on time.



Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

-Cory

It's not different. It appears to be a lack of understanding on the part of
the controller. There's nothing wrong with asking for a clearance to a
waypoint, I have no idea why the controller would ask for your destination
airport. If you had wanted an IFR clearance to an airport I'm sure you
would have asked for that.

Steve, Could it be a lost comm issue? Perhaps controllers don't want
to issue IFR clearances with clearance limits that are not airports?
I'm still not sure why it would be different for VFR-on-top though.
-Robert

wrote in message
ups.com...
John R. Copeland wrote:
"Everett M. Greene" wrote in message
...
Are you certain about that? It sounds high by several orders
of magnitude. Every airplane in the world would have to make
about a hundred flights per day to get to a million flight
plans per day.

Within the U.S., the number of IFR airborne aircraft at any moment
peaks up to between 4000 and 5000 on most days now.
Overnight minimums typically get down to around 1000 at a time.
http://flightaware.com/analysis/graphs/total.rvt
I won't try to extrapolate that to a total daily count, though.

Also keep in mind that MANY flight plans are filed that are never
flown, but the system still has to keep track of.

I know locally there's a company that flies checks each morning. In
just one sector at the local center they have 7 or 8 automatically
generated flight plans each morning, going in and out of a set of small
airports. Those flight plans only get activated if the weather is IFR,
otherwise the company pilots fly VFR and the flightplans just timeout.
There's another company that has quit a few of their routes, but has
not cancelled their automatically generating flight plans for those
routes each morning. They're in the same sector mentioned above. The
facility has been after the company to stop the flight plans, but they
haven't done anything about it yet.

Does ATC reserve airspace for an un-activated IFR flightplan? or not until
you call for clearance?



Mike Teague - Vancouver WA, USA
-- Opie and Anthony - XM202 - O&A Party Rock!
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