Polar Operations

[Spooky 2]

Question for you guys that have been doing polar ops for awhile now. There use to be the Polar Track Structure (PTS) and now it appears that the term has been discarded and the use of airways has eliminated that concept. I have been unable to find any printed data that discuss these changes. Can anyone point me to a good source on this subject other than just looking at a Jepp chart.

[Fly3]

My experience over the past several years is that there is no airway structure in Canadain airspace up there so a randon track was flown to join the Russian Airway system at the Murmansk boundry. The Jeppie chart for the Polar region is the best you can do I think.

[Spooky 2]

Thanks. That is certainly the appearance on the Jepp Arctic Polar chart. Wonder why the they did away with the Polar Track System (PTS) as it seemed to bring some order to the program?

[Fly3]

I'm not sure that order is required as there are very very few aircraft that far north. I have seen Thia a couple of times, although they have stopped now, and once a small US Airforce plane flying from Alert to Thule.

[Spooky 2]

There is a lot of polar traffic these days. Several thousand regional polar crossings a year and increasing every month. By that I mean aircraft that get above 78 degrees.