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Five-letter designations; KUXEM, LAMIX etc. How are these arrived at today ?

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Five-letter designations; KUXEM, LAMIX etc. How are these arrived at today ?

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Old 5th Jun 2023, 12:19
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Five-letter designations; KUXEM, LAMIX etc. How are these arrived at today ?

Some of these do make at least a little sense, e.g. ROSUN = Rossendale, SANBA = Sandbach, BATLI = Batley. I understand GASKO is named for the hamlet of Gammersgill in Coverdale. But others such as KUXEM are a mystery to me. Is there a computer program that generates random but pronounceable five letter groups or are people actually paid to make them up ?

Thankyou.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 12:27
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Some years ago it was a wag not a computer that dreamed them up. Up in Lancashire are ARTHA and DALEY.

Last edited by Dave Gittins; 5th Jun 2023 at 12:38.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 12:36
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Pre computer, a retrograde step if ever there was , someone dreamed up all kinds of names which did have some relevance - several fish themed ones off the cost of Eastern Canada and a few in mid Indian Ocean relating to the desolation of an island there . Some baseball ones in the USA too

PB
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 13:15
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I remember LOACH and HADOC (spelling ?)in the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe they still exist.

EGNM is currently in the process of trying to reorganise its airspace, which could lead to additional SIDs if eastbound instrument departures off RW32 are introduced. SELBI, HOWDN and COTAM come to mind.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 18:04
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I was told they simply programmed a computer to generate random 5 letter names making sure they rejected anything which had consecutive letters the same.
When I needed a 'new' VRP near my airfield, I named it 'NOKIA' because there was a factory there which had the name NOKIA painted on it.
Guess what the 'powers that be' decided.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 18:20
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NEDUL is in the vicinity of The Needles, the chalk columns off the west coast of the Isle Of White, and the next reporting point along the airway is THRED. Flew over them for a few years before I got it!
Also, one of the new reporting points that appeared a couple of months ago in the southwest UK airspace is EPACE. Apparently near the factory where they build the Jaguar Epace. Wonder if it’s a bit of subtle advertising aimed at the airline pilots flying through it. (The reporting point, not the factory.)
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 18:44
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Reading between the lines, is there a two syllable rule for these five letter things ? It appears to be the case for all the Manchester and Leeds Bradford SIDs. Both airports once had Wallasey SIDs but as it's three syllables...Should have redesignated them as WALSI.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 18:46
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Originally Posted by chevvron
I was told they simply programmed a computer to generate random 5 letter names making sure they rejected anything which had consecutive letters the same.
When I needed a 'new' VRP near my airfield, I named it 'NOKIA' because there was a factory there which had the name NOKIA painted on it.
Guess what the 'powers that be' decided.
NOKIN ?
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 18:54
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No
'To avoid confusion' it was called 'The NOKIA Factory'.
Its now a BMW plant and I've retired.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 18:58
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Mooncrest,

Yes, it’s the ICAO ICARD database.

From memory (it’s been a few years ago since we chose MAXIT/MODMI, GOGSI/GASGU and UMLAT/ULTIB), you get a list of about 40 ‘valid’ names. You get to choose from them or you can run another search and get another 40.

I don’t think you can say ‘I want XXXXX, is it valid?’.

See here…

https://www.icao.int/NACC/Documents/...nes%202020.pdf
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 19:17
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Thankyou chevron and Gonzo. Is too soon to implement a DONNY departure from Leeds Bradford?
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 19:39
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Originally Posted by Gonzo
I don’t think you can say ‘I want XXXXX, is it valid?’
You can’t. As you say, you apply for an allocation, and you’re sent a long-list of mostly unpronounceable gibberish to try and hack some kind of useable phraseology from.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 19:44
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Originally Posted by Mooncrest
Reading between the lines, is there a two syllable rule for these five letter things ? It appears to be the case for all the Manchester and Leeds Bradford SIDs. Both airports once had Wallasey SIDs but as it's three syllables...Should have redesignated them as WALSI.
Beacons are a different thing from reporting points - they have geographical names, shortened to three-letter abbreviations. Since SIDS can terminate at either beacons or reporting points, they can have names of either format.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 19:48
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Thankyou rodan.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 20:09
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Heater...

"Some baseball ones in the USA too"

I think I remember some approaches into DFW that were related to their favorite baseball pitcher Nolan Ryan. I was flying there 1995ish.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 20:19
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SUBUK is above Barrow-in-Furness where the UK builds it’s submarines.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 20:37
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LIMRI on the Eastern end of the NAT is off the coast of Limerick, DOGAL is off the coast of Donegal, there's a few in Irish airspace named after the river mouth they are adjacent to, TOLKA, BOYNE, LIFFY. And we mustn't forget GINIS....

Many way point names are in use in more than one place. To this day occasionally an aircraft filed A-B-C is given a shortcut from A direct C and takes an unexpected turn towards a waypoint with the same name thousands of NM away.

Some great ones out there on SIDs and STARS in the US...BADDA BINNG into EWR (Sopranos reference), ITAWT ITAWA PUDYE TTATT IDEED.........SPICY BARBQ TERKY SMOKE.....SILCN VLLEY APLLE GGUGL......and of course....INBRD which I read is in Alabama.....
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 20:46
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Originally Posted by Jump Complete
NEDUL is in the vicinity of The Needles, the chalk columns off the west coast of the Isle Of White, and the next reporting point along the airway is THRED. Flew over them for a few years before I got it!
Also, one of the new reporting points that appeared a couple of months ago in the southwest UK airspace is EPACE. Apparently near the factory where they build the Jaguar Epace. Wonder if it’s a bit of subtle advertising aimed at the airline pilots flying through it. (The reporting point, not the factory.)
It's not, it's one of a list that was given out by ICAO and we had to pick them. It's considerably better than some of the other new reporting points in the airspace that are just awful to say and spell. Some of the geographic ones still remain, but not many anymore
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 21:23
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My favourite was the SINNK STAR into Brisbane, following LEAKY-BOATS-SINNK. Now apparently replaced by gibberish.
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Old 5th Jun 2023, 21:24
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Many good ones in the southern hemisphere too:

YBBN used to have LEAKY BOATS SINNK joining the 19 ILS. The waypoints from the other side were DRAIN PLUGG SINNK.

Starting at S22 E110 and heading south in 1 degree increments you have WONSA JOLLY SWAGY CAMBS BUIYA BYLLA BONGS UNDER ACOOL EBARR TREES.

Around New Zealand quite a few good ones as well. NZWN has a few locally themed waypoints (e.g. TPAPA UMAGA JONAH). Rumour has it they needed a holding pattern "Somewhere up there" and SWUTH was born.

I'm sure there's plenty more but those come to mind easily. Apparently any discretion in publishing new ones has been taken away and they are auto-generated by a computer.
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