AFPEX problems
 

A couple of weeks ago I applied for an AFPEX account but did not hear anything back so I e-mailed NATS and got the following reply.

I thought I would submit it on here in case anyone else was waiting for their application to be processed.

AFPEx - A Flight Planning Exasperation
 

Typical NATS really. In the interests of profit they get rid of the expertise and tallents of those staff at Heathrow Flight Plans and replace them with a computer system which is not fit for purpose. Then they realise that that the computer system will cost them more money than they thought because they didn't realise they needed user licences for each user (=licenced pilot, airline, handling agent etc) to register. Then they have to pay out redundancy and employ more of the staff at a higher grade to cover the support tasks no longer carried out. What is achieved? Well why don't you send a faxed flight plan to the computer systems guys at Swanwick to help them develop some of the expertise that Heathrow had:rolleyes:

Not fit for purpose.....
 

Sorry Dan, but I have to stick my head above the parapet here and say that as far as I'm concerned it very definately is fit for purpose.

It allows me to file flight plans, both IFR and VFR from the comfort of my own home at a time that suits me - in exactly the same way as the old fax line did. I have templates for regular routes which can be tweaked as necessary in terms of POB or frame for the day, just like the old paper / fax system.

Admittedly, addressing VFR plans can be cumbersome, but other than that I have no real issues with the system.

I feel for the guys and gals at Heathrow FBU who always gave a sterling service, but we need to start looking more at how we can do the same things with the same level of safety and with less associated costs. Maybe in this instance it may take a little while for the 'less associated cost' to be realised.

I think the NATS AFPEX website is a spledid idea in principle, just a shame that if you have a Mac that has any processor other than one made by INTEL, you can't use their site. Some incompatability with the JAVA download or some-such bolleaux.

Simply amazing that pornographers the world over can get really the most sophisticated interactive smut to run on any old machine, and yet NATS have tried to reinvent the wheel.

When I rang NATS and eventually found all this out (having spent £300 on various unsuccessful software updates, downloads, et al, courtesy of a selection of folks at their IT department - the bill is on it's way, guys...) I asked whether they had looked at the French website, OLIVIA, before launching theirs, the answer came back "what's OLIVIA?".

This is, of course, all a trojan horse for pay-per-flightplan, which NATS plans to roll out in 2011.:ugh:

And why oh why does the password have to be alpha-numeric with nothing that could look like a word in it. It is almost as bad as the AIC website.

SND

Do you have a reference for this?

Homebriefing.com will file an FP for under 4 euros, and they advise/confirm stuff like acceptance/rejection and slots via SMS and email, and you can call them for changes etc - all included in the price.

Its Crap, It took me ages to get a flightplan through 2 weeks ago which resulted in a 3 hour delayed departure, which in turn resulted in running out of daylight over high ground.:ugh:

IO540

I don't have a reference for the 2011 pay-per-file which I can quote, as this was put to me with some vehemnce by an ex-NATS employee, who I don't care to name. This does fit with my perception of the world, however, so I'll be pleasantly surprised if this doesn't happen...

I agree it may happen because NATS accountants see GA as a waste of their money.

But if it does happen, it will merely play into the hands of any State owned tom dick or harry outfit outside the UK who has an AFTN terminal and wants to start up a flight plan filing service. It takes all of a few days' work to knock up a website with a flight plan form on it, Paypal/Worldpay prepay accounts, and off you go.

AFAIK a number of years ago the airlines stopped using UK facilities for flight plan filing and have been doing it via flight support services which inject the FPs into the AFTN via terminals in the USA. This resulted in the Heathrow FBU filing almost entirely just GA VFR flight plans; thousands per month so it is no wonder they were eventually closed.

Outside the UK, we don't have the privatised ATC / airport structures with crazy artificial accounting separation and there are lots and lots of establishments who can offer a commercial service - like homebriefing.com which is an offshoot of Vienna ATC.

Not even homebriefing charge for flight plans which either start or terminate within their states.

Does one known of a country that charges for such flight plans?

This is basically a "struggle" between the UK (where the service is privatised and under pressure to terminate all services not making money - unless mandated by ICAO) and the rest of the world (where this stuff is not generally privatised).

Every airport tower must provide a flight plan filing service, under ICAO. How they do it is their business (within the UK, the man in the tower will generally type it into AFPEx, or one the older AFTN terminals) but a pilot must be able to just hand in a handwritten ICAO flight plan and have it processed.

It doesn't have to be done for free, however.

Upon advice from NATS themselves, we applied as an ATC unit for an account, just in case our primary systems fell apart - we'd otherwise rely on the fax machine, which is cumbersome, has a running cost (whereas Afpex is free) & restrictive.
That was six weeks ago and we still haven't heard anything at all from them, perhaps we should employ some pigeons as a precautionary measure.:rolleyes:

I visited them recently with my AOPA UK hat on to find out what's going on.

Because you are being given direct access into the AFTN and your own personal AFTN account they have to vet applicants for legitimacy before you get access. This includes checking that the license details you submitted tally with your personal details.

This is where the Data Protection jobsworths come in. NATS is a public/private partnership owned in part by the Airline Group. It is a commercial organisation carrying out some State functions on behalf of CAA, which is an Agency of the DfT. CAA are the holders of the licensing data and unlike the US it is not published to the public at large. CAA were trying to charge NATS 15 quid for every verification enquiry so now someone from NATS drives from Swanwick to the Belgrano with a list to do the verification process. It gets done when it is possible to spare someone from Ops and of course in the summer staff availability goes down (ATCO's are entitled to holidays too;)) Hence the delays.

Demand has been higher than expected, which is perhaps is understandable.
God:- "Moses! I have a commandment for you!"
Moses:- "What's it going to cost me?"
God:- "They're free"
Moses:- "In that case I'll take ten."

Improvements to the login process are anticipated in October. It's run by a small team based at Swanwick who are committed and keen for it to succeed.

Re "pay per flight". As stated above NATS is a commercial organisation. It is in large part funded by the airlines, who are a major shareholder and we all know the airlines are going through a very rough patch at the moment so they are cutting costs wherever they can. It also suffers from a fixed cost base and variable income. It takes a long time to train ATCOs and you can't just lay them off when demand drops and expect them to come running back to be re-hired when things pick up.

I've been asked several times what services NATS could provide over and above the basic ICAO mandated ones that pilots would be willing to pay for. My answer has been that they will struggle to come up with something worth doing. If smaller and more nimble organisations are not able to make money out of PPL's then NATS is going to find it impossible.

NATS has in the past sought to extend charging for services that it purports to be purely GA related, such as ATSOCAS. CAA has refused, which is to their credit. When NATS got their license it was on the basis that they would provide all of the services then being provided. Since that time they have been able to make significant savings by using technology to reduce headcount. Introducing technology to allow the same services to be provided at lower cost does not amount to introducing new services.

WRT Homebriefing, Austrocontrol uses the same software that used to be used by NATS AIS before the current website. NATS did not however implement the FPL filing part of it.

Mike
AOPA UK

I wonder why not?

Pilots had been asking that question for years.

Is it because they did not want to implement a billing system, to pay for the SMS transmission? Or was it concerns over vandalism?

Mike's explanation is very interesting, but it does not address the point, which is they run out of licences for their software :rolleyes: (assuming it's a bespoke system, why didn't they just bought it outright?)

Well, to be fair, data protection laws are there for a very good reason. It's hardly their problem if the various UK governments in the last couple decades have decided to go flogging off the entire State infrastructure.

Plus, as has been hinted, there appear to have been plenty of other solutions with more of a chance to actually work. Both OLIVIA and Homebriefing have been mentioned, and I could add simply picking up the phone and speaking to any ARO in France or Spain works a charm too, even if you're flying nowhere near their respective countries.

My information is that ANAIS by Thales which is what Homebriefing runs on and the old AIS site used to run on is more labour-intensive. In the UK FPL filing is not and never has been a function of AIS. Austrocontrol clearly works differently.

AES required UK AIS to manage their own Oracle Database whereas the new UK system uses the European AIS database where each State maintains only its own data and the cost of maintaining data pertaining to non-participants is shared out across the participating States. Also I gather that the FPL bit of AES requires human input before the FPL is released on to AFTN whereas the Comsoft application used by AFPEx requires no human intervention by NATS and is therefore much cheaper to implement and potential failure points are reduced.

I also suspect that the very poor standard of VFR FPL's in the UK (not of course by you dear reader) might have had a bearing. Because VFR plans were simply faxed to the destination and did not enter the AFTN the non-conformities to ICAO standards did not cause a problem. Those who have been filing IFR through CFMU will be well aware of the need for higher standards of production.

Worth mentioning that the inability to use 4 letter a/d designators in a route (much derided by the proponents of Olivia) is an absolute requirement for any system for submitting FPL as 4 letter designators are not valid in an ICAO FPL route.

There are a number of solutions out there and it's a commercial decision as to which is chosen. EAD, by Frequentis for Eurocontrol is what the UK chose as their AIS solution and I know of no reason to argue with that decision.

Mike
AOPA UK

I got a phone call today from a very pleasant lady at NATS who explained that priority was been given to those applicants who had no permanant AFTN address and that those applicants such as us (airfields) were being put to the back of the queue, indeed existing airfields who had primary AFTN connections thorugh the normal channels were having existing Afpex facilities withdrawn to enable more private pilots etc to be allocated the facility.

I strongly suspect that when the licensing issue is sorted, airfields like us who want to use it as a back up facilities will probably have to pay for it whereas, hopefully, those who want it for the purpose it was designed for, will get it for nothing.

AFPEX
 

What a system!!!
First of all it took over 6 months, yes 6 months to get my application in on line and it was only resolved because I new an employee there who took in by hand my hard copy of the application.
Then it is a nightmare to log on using Java. Last Saturday it took 9 minutes to download a blank flight plan and even that took 3 attempts as the website 'timed out' each time. total half an hour. Surely it would be easier to break in to the Bank of England than to file a flight plan. All I wanted to do was to fly a microlight, with a passenger from the uk to LFAT.
When one could fax a FP to Heathrow it was heaven but not now it is a nightmare before you set off. These FPs cannot be all that important as in the recent past Farnborough could not estabish that my flight plans was in the system, once in the air and requesting activation. Fearing a return to base they replied 'no worries we will send a departure notice to LFAT. so all was well.
How civilised and helpful, unlike SWANWICK. where my HELP phone call went un-answered after 4 attemps despite a so called 7days 24 hr service.
What did I do? got on to the OLIVIA French FP filing site. Job done in just 7 minutes. This why all UK services are all going down the PAN.
In the UK it seems 'Just how difficult can we make it' whilst in France the attitude is 'How can we Help?

As I said in my earlier post ..its crap!

"Activate via London info" (assuming you're lucky enough to get it filed).

On climb out from home base " Stand by"(london info)

Southend "stand by"

North Kent coast "Stand by"

Dover " London info have you forgotten me?".."no we'll get back to you as soon as possible"
Listen to more dribble from every man and his dog explaining what colour socks the're wearing that day.

Mid Channel..."Stand by"

Coasting in...."pass your message"..."well I wanted to open my flightplan to Calais, but I am too busy to talk to you now as I'm actually on finals":ugh:

Dear all,
Details below of a meeting to be held at West London Aero Club, White Waltham Aerodrome starting at 1930h on Tuesday 11th August.
Food will be available for purchase from 1800h until approx. 1915h.

AFPEX "The joys of compulsory DIY On Line Flight Planning"

On 28 January 2009 National Air Traffic Services (NATS) introduced AFPEX (Assisted Flight Planning Exchange), an on-line flight planning system. All flight planning in the UK is now operated through the NATS Air Traffic Centre at Swanwick

Tony Purton (PPL) will give a user's experience of AFPEX.
Kevin Loy and Jed Aldridge (NATS) will provide information on the use of AFPEX.
Presentations will be assisted by use of the NATS AFPEX on line training document and a real time on line link to the AFPEX site, to enable demonstration of filing a flight plan

TO BE FOLLOWED BY QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION ON AFPEX.
ALL WELCOME

I don't see how AFPEx (or any other electronic service) changes the ability to insert any old crap in a VFR flight plan.

The FP is just an AFTN message and nobody cares what it contains. You could file a VFR FP with waypoint called "Samantha Fox" and the system would transmit it to the specified addresses, just fine :)

IFR flight plans are validated by Eurocontrol, which is nothing to do with the issue here. Eurocontrol do this because IFR FPs are addressed to them and to nobody else, and they re-distribute them to the units along the filed route.

It is rather academic now but I cannot help wondering why electronic FP filing has taken so long.

Regarding AFPEx, I think people should disregard the negative press which is all over the forums, from a small number of individuals who for the most part, as far as I can see, have difficulty with the internet and "IT" generally. The system has its faults (like the big Java download, and no feedback on IFR slots, and the Java app does not run on some/most non-windoze computers) but it works really well otherwise. I really like the way the message is sent instantly and, on IFR FPs, the feedback is similarly instant.

It is unfortunate that the PPL training process does not prepare people for the fact that practically everything connected with flying has gone to the internet and that their lives will be a lot easier if they get up the learning curve.

I am one of the people that have trouble with I.T.

I admit it .I'm hopeless at it .

I hate it with a vengance.

I can fly an aeroplane,I have been doing so for 30 odd years.

I have experience on many types and have owned nearly 80 aircraft over the years.

Every two years I get my licence revalidated..I do not have to prove to the instructor/examiner that I can operate a computer, nor did I take any exams in IT to get my licence.

I can use a phone.

Once I escape these shores, I can use a phone to file a flightplan right accross europe, I even have the numbers in my phone memory.

So why does have to be so bloody hard here?

Can anyone tell me if I can phone France (for example) and file a flightplan FROM the uk?

Yep. :ok:

hatzflyer

I think you have written this on other forums too.

May I suggest this in an entirely constructive spirit: would you like to meet up with somebody who can take you through using a laptop?

If you can fly a plane, get weather (how do you get weather without the internet?), get notams (likewise?) but cannot use a laptop, you cannot be that far away from being able to do the whole lot.

Once you get Afpex set up, it is really very easy.

That would be most welcome. you will be pleased to know that I have been promised a laptop for my birthday!:ok:

Excellent :ok:

Make sure you can get mobile internet using GPRS/3G; this means either connecting to a bluetooth capable mobile phone (using bluetooth), or getting a GPRS/3G modem (which normally connects via USB). The first option is preferred because you have just one SIM card to worry about.

Thanx..birthday Sept. but already looking!

Is anyone having problems connecting to the NATS AIS Site with a Vodafone 3G Mobile Broadband?

I keep getting the no further than the front page, any pages below comes up with a page error.

Not a problem on the same computer on fixed based broadband or any other Mobile Broadband dongle, so only Vodafone 3G Mobile is the problem as far I can tell.

No reponse from Vodafone yet to my call on their problem page.

I've just tried it on Vodafone 3G - Contract and it works ok for me.

BTW, one interpretation of Fred Hunt's comment as quoted here is that some part of the system is contractually licensed to a limit and that the limit is too low to support the next batch of new users for the system. That limit may related to the number of total/active/concurrent users of the system or some other more loosely related quantity.

Commercial software or components within are often sold on the basis of some licensed limit. This is often lower than the hardware resources could support. Regular Pprune users will be familiar with busy periods were some users are denied access to the messageboard to preserve access for others!

Any feedback from the evening with NATS yesterday?

Called off, couldn't get the laptop to boot :ugh::E

AFPEX= The biggest pile of !!!!e except from what can be found behind an Elephant, thankfully we still can fax 01489 612793 and can use the old style form.

Jonkil,

Were you able to get an AFPEX account in Ireland? Of do you have a sneeky CAA licence/UK address?:oh:

Airfield based in Ireland, but just inside the FIR boundary in the UK side. Licence is UK NPPL.

Just hate the bloody AFPEX interface, more into flying than IT. :hmm:

Jon

I sense that Afpex has become a kind of "bashing" issue, just like Mode S became a "CAA bashing" issue.

Regardless of the rights or wrongs, people rally behind easily identifiable causes :)

The real issue with Afpex, in most (not all) situations, is that many UK pilots are not up to speed with the internet and the most basic IT skills.

Weather moved de facto to the internet a few years ago, but it is still possible for an IT-phobic person to get away without it. Most people do local burger runs only and one can get the weather off the TV, and by looking out of the window.

Notams moved totally to the internet c. 2003 (unless one flies local burger runs, and hangs around a club where local area notams are pinned to the board each morning) but many or most pilots don't get notams, and for burger runs they usually get away with it.

Flight plan filing can still be done by handing the FP in the tower, and other methods, but flyers who don't fly from a towered airfield, and have no fax facility are now stuffed. They will have to use the internet. I suspect this has caught a lot of the most "traditional" pilots, who have thus far managed without any technology, but now cannot fly to LTQ because that needs a flight plan filed.

It's time to get a laptop with mobile (GPRS/3G) internet and move into the 21st century. Life is so much easier. You can get weather, notams, all kinds of stuff, very easily and conveniently. You will never look back.

Naw, think I'll pass...... have a few contacts in Shannon that I can ring, files them for me every time, no problem, and this works worldwide!!!... this system never had a "boot problem".... costs me a few bottles of Jameson whiskey at Christmas to keep this "handy arrangement"!!.. same with all walks of life, business or otherwise, its a lot about who you know, and less to do with what you know.
KISS system, hard to beat.
Tally ho.

Jon.

Ah I see....I can't use that one unfortunately....I've love an AFPEX account!

While I agree with you IO, it does seem to me that AFPEX has shot itself in the foot with it's addressing.

Pilots are simply not trainned to address flight plans, and have little knowledge of it.

It's also something that should be extrememly easy to computerise. You've only got three pieces of information:
Departure Airport
Arrival Airport
FIR's crossed.

Each of these has a set of addresses that are required to be addressed. Why can't the software simply have a list of them, and insert them automatically based on the information supplied?

I think that would solve 95% of the complaints.

I would agree to some extent; not totally.

I don't think the FP addressing is a huge issue, because IMHO most of the time it doesn't really matter if you get or don't get every possible FIR in there.

It is trivial to address it to the departure, destination and (some say this is unnecessary but I disagree, for some countries) the alternate. That's 2 or 3 addresses and they are obvious e.g. LFAT or whatever followed by ZTZX.

It is similarly trivial to select the FIR addresses from the pulldown menu.

It is the weird special cases (some of which are in the pulldown menu and some aren't) which have been apparently taxing people e.g. flight plans to Blackbushe having to be addressed to Farnborough also.

But I see no evidence that anybody actually cares about these. If the FP goes to the departure ARO then you can depart. If it goes to the destination ARO then you can land. If it goes to the FIR(s) in between then they will know about you as you fly enroute. Does Farnborough actually care about getting FPs for Blackbushe??? Both places are in Class G. This stuff has to be meaningless.

Especially as we are talking about VFR; 99% of UK pilots are not going to fly to Mongolia (or even places like Albania who may well get funny about some stupid detail); they fly to places like France who only just barely care and have never been known to turn somebody away at the FIR boundary because they cannot find their FP..

The major issue with Afpex is the ~ 4MB application download. They have to stop this, and make it optional, using an announcement (on their website or with a pop-up) that a new version with new features is available. It has been said recently that this issue will be fixed soon. One can avoid the repetitive download by using the laptop's Hibernation feature, together with not exiting the Afpex application and leaving it running; this has worked for me for a couple of months at a time (until I forgot and did a full reboot and then had to do a total reload ;) ). This download makes the system totally unusable over GPRS which is the major "mobile internet" system in Europe; 3G coverage is still poor in many areas.

The other issue with Afpex is the lack of feedback like SMS/email notifications of IFR slots, but this doesn't affect most GA pilots (cannot get slots in VFR) and IFR pilots have tended to be "mobile/internet" for some time because it is the only practical way to fly.

There are plenty of other "would be a lot nicer" things like why is it a java app and not a straight HTTPS website (which could be used in an internet cafe, etc), and there are loads of features in there which are not required by most pilots and which could be stripped out. There are some weird dependencies on the java runtime version although I have not been able to replicate these (I use Afpex only for FP filing and for AFTN messages for PPR/PNR purposes) but they would be due to poor programming practices.

I think that Afpex has dragged out a lot of pilots who have somehow managed - until now - to scrape through without using the internet, and in many cases without any preflight briefing whatever. The powers to be, having been running the Notam system wholly on the internet for 6-7 years, probably assumed that the GA community is by now up to speed with the internet, and moved FP filing to it too (making big payroll cost savings in the FBUs who in recent years were filing mostly just GA-VFR flight plans). I suspect they - as most of "us" - did not realise just how many pilots never use the internet, or (for the farm strip flyers) do not have the knowledge to purchase a laptop with mobile internet on it.

Afpex is actually a damn good tool. After you got the thing started, knocking up a flight plan is as fast as you can type it in (minutes), and it is delivered to all addresses within seconds of pressing the Send button. No messing about with filing something through some tower and then twiddling one's fingers for an hour while somebody hundreds of miles away manually re-types it into an AFTN terminal. For IFR flight plans it is brilliant and you get the ACK (or rejection) message back in seconds - nothing comes close. The AFTN messages can be used for PNR/PPR communications (they work slightly better than faxing); recently I planned a number of trips to N French airports and most of them were "Customs PNR". AND IT IS FREE :ok: UK GA should rejoice :)

I have a homebriefing.com account too but use it rather less nowadays. Afpex is free, it is quicker to use, you get instant feedback, and the internet data usage is a lot lower than Homebriefing's which is pretty siginficant when using roaming 3G. Rather perversely, I use Homebriefing when doing short trips on which I carry a tiny EEE laptop/netbook which doesn't have enough HD space to support Hibernation.

Very true, but they are not trained to do a lot of stuff which they need to know to fly usefully from A to B, like using the NATS website to get notams via the narrow route briefing (which is actually pretty good). GA flight training is pretty crap at the "operational stuff", at both VFR and IFR (IR) levels.

If the guys at NATS took a look at the French Olivia system and designed their interface around it then issues like this would be avoided.
The Olivia system is browser based, loads instantly, no fort Knox security and simple to use. it is a great interface, and the most illiterate IT person could use it.