In Ops last week I was fixing an IFPS rejected Flight Plan, from a south-east UK airfield to France, via route TACAN Blue 6 (TB6). At the position
(south of Shoreham over the channel) where this route crosses the UK/France FIR boundary is found waypoint "
SPT" . I was asked its full name but didn't know e.g. CPT = Compton, MAY = Mayfield etc.
Does anyone know
what is the full name of SPT? I couldn't find its decode - I presume it must have been a long name at some point but is this now lost in the mists of time? Clearly 5-letter waypoints are made-up but pronounceable "words" in their own right, but (I thought) all the 3-letter ones have long names, related to their location...or I could be wrong.
Take a look at the UK TACAN route system chart (
ENR 6-3-5-1 UK AIP) and it can be seen that there are other France/UK UIR TACAN intersection waypoints identified as
CNO,
EPT and
NPT. Are these designations also really only random groups of three letters? I doubt it.