After 7 years of IFPS operations it's amazing the lack of knowledge people have about the system and all the urban legends that have been created.
Seeing as all flight plans are fed into some kind of central computer that selects the routing it thinks best, why on earth is it not possible for us to simply state the departure point, requested level and destination, and let the computer route us the way it would have chosen irrespective of what I had originally planned?
NO, the "computer" does not alocate routes as it sees fit.
All FPL's, with either sintax or route errors are sent for manual processing. The routes are corrected or created using the information provided by the States. Example; you try and file ANY direct routeing in Italy. It will not be accepted, not because we just decided so, but because the Italians have determined that ABSOLUTLY NO DCTs WHATSOEVER are plannable in their airspace.
Leeds to Cambridge DIRECT no NO NO you have to go Airways . Reason "Lack of SID Distance"
The SID/STAR and enroute DCT limits are determined by the States. If a route comes up in error in the UK airspace because of a DCT being too long, its because the brits have told it is so, and that the way they want the FPLs in their airspace.
IFPS is completely irrational and manned by the worst European Civil Servants you can possibly imagine. They have absolutely no idea of common sense or customer awareness.
If they (the authors of that document) really expect any corporate pilot to wade through RAD's of such complexity, and with so many subject to's (for example except on a Wednesday, or if there is a Y in the month, etc. etc.) and then transpose all that information onto a chart in order to figure out a routing, then they really are gonna continue to have to check and re-route a great majority of all of pilot divised plans.
Absolutly right. The complexity of the thing is huge. Almost at the same level as the complexity of the airspace you guys fly in. The RAD is there to make the enroute ATC job easier, not the pilots.
Off to bed now.
