NATS/PACOTS/AUSOTS Support

[TylerK93]

I would love to see, for some future version down the road, support for NATS/PACOTS/AUSOTS (North Atlantic Track System, Pacific Organized Track System, Australian Organized Track System) tracks that are used for trans-oceanic flights. These tracks change every day, and they can be publicly downloaded. QSimPlanner (github.com/jetstream96/QSimPlanner) downloads and uses the tracks, and that implementation could be a good place to start. These tracks are ways to specify more direct routes between points across the ocean from one another. As an example, with NATS, you can fly EGLL-KJFK straight across, and without them you'd have to fly EGLL down the coast of Spain and over, then up the coast of the USA. Much longer distance-wise and all.

Just my thoughts for the day. Thanks for your consideration, and for such an amazing product!

[Steve Waite]

IF's auto-planner has some NAT waypoints and all NAT waypoints are included when we use an AIRAC. Mostly those waypoints are not chosen with IF auto-plans because they do not lie on a great circle near enough to the proposed routes. For best results we Integrate an AIRAC (IF's popup menu on the front page) and then download a real NAT plan for best results. With that IF creates the full fat flight with plan and briefing.

[Steve Waite]

We can see a list of NAT waypoints in the Config folder which we can use when we don't install an AIRAC. If we want those included in the plan we can manually paste waypoints into the plan from the Edit plan button on the Flight generator page. The flight rebuilds with the waypoints we included. The weather incorporates high speed Jetstream winds. While not as severe as jetstreams in real life, they are designed with several layers of wind to increase in steps so we can fly into and out of them more easily.

[TylerK93]

So, in summary...if I want a full plan with NATS/PACOTS waypoints, I'd best get it from somewhere like SimBrief, then import that into IF with an integrated AIRAC cycle, right?

[Steve Waite]

Yes, that's the best way to incorporate NAT and other special plans plans into your flight. Drag-drop or load the plan file onto IF from the popup menu. IF makes the flight and briefing, incorporates systems like AI buddy and so on.

IF will make pretty good routes across the continents alone but as I mentioned, the planner doesn't attempt to go far outside the great circle even if we make the adjustments in the Flight gen page.