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Tony N
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Group: Forum Members
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Was mentioned recently in a popular UK GA Forum, but can this be investigated please? Quite often in UK, especially when departing from smaller airfields, it isn't always possible to get a FPL activated in a timely manner. If the departure airfield won't provide a FPL activation service then you have to rely on the, usually, very busy London FIR frequency. If SD offered a FPL activation feature, with some kind of easily viewable confirmation message/status, then I think this would be a very good enhancement.
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Tim Dawson
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 8K,
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It's something I am still thinking about. I'd like to provide it but there are some drawbacks. Outside the UK, many agencies would take a very dim view of pilots doing this for themselves, so there's a possibility I would have to make it UK only. Also, there needs to be zero chance of any user thinking they've opened a fligthplan but it not having actually worked. I think this would mean we'd need people to do it as a manual step just before takeoff.
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Adam Erchegyi
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Group: Forum Members
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+xmany agencies would take a very dim view of pilots doing this for themselves as?
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Tony N
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 335,
Visits: 2.4K
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Tim, I agree with your comments. Perhaps limit the option to UK FIR only (geo-fencing?) so it isn't possible to activate FPLs elsewhere. Tony
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Adam Erchegyi
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Group: Forum Members
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+xTim, I agree with your comments. Perhaps limit the option to UK FIR only (geo-fencing?) so it isn't possible to activate FPLs elsewhere. Tony Please don't. I would like this option everywhere. Just give me a checkbox when filing the plan if I want to automatically send a DEP message when airborn.
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Tony N
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 335,
Visits: 2.4K
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+x+xTim, I agree with your comments. Perhaps limit the option to UK FIR only (geo-fencing?) so it isn't possible to activate FPLs elsewhere. Tony Please don't. I would like this option everywhere. Just give me a checkbox when filing the plan if I want to automatically send a DEP message when airborn. Tim's concern is that most non-UK ATC agencies provide a FPL activation service as standard and may take a dim view if pilot's took on this responsibility. Also, what would happen if two "activation" messages were sent for a FPL? It's for Tim to decide on integration and how it would work. Would be a non issue if UK ATC and all airfields provided this service..
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Adam Erchegyi
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 95,
Visits: 2.3K
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+xTim's concern is that most non-UK ATC agencies provide a FPL activation service as standard and may take a dim view if pilot's took on this responsibility. Also, what would happen if two "activation" messages were sent for a FPL? It's for Tim to decide on integration and how it would work. Would be a non issue if UK ATC and all airfields provided this service.. Yes, but the SD message will be sent earlier, they would already find the FPL open. Meaning one less thing to do. Let's face it, the worst thing to possibly happen if a message with an incorrect departure time overwrites a correct one, affecting SAR services. Yes, it's for Tim to decide but for us to weigh in 
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grahamb
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Group: Forum Members
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I’d prefer a feature to submit a Departure message manually, with a confirmation back. I’d envisage using this at the hold as the last action before lining up.
I think a feature based on detecting you being airborne has potential issues.
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Tim Dawson
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 8K,
Visits: 8.9K
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The worst thing to happen would be that we get banned from sending any sort of flightplan messages (to a specific country/authority) because they view our DEP messages as inappropriate.
I really dislike the idea of doing it automatically, partly because we might be trying to do it just as you're losing your mobile signal (so we might not know whether it worked or not) and partly because I want the pilot to know for sure that it's happened.
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lve0200
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Group: Forum Members
Posts: 14,
Visits: 39
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@ Tim Dawson Hi there, I would like this feature very much. I am German, living in France and I fly a lot intl. Due to the absence of such features in SD, I use EuroFPL. I copy my route from SD into EuroFPL and file/manage in there. Once filed/approved in EuroFPL you have an 'ARR' button to send an arrival message. That's already in the free version and saves a lot of hassle, having to make calls to "somewhere" in a foreign country, hoping that you get somebody on the phone, who understands you. As a registered(paying) user, you also find a 'Dep' button about 30 min before the expected block off time. I agree that an automatic send could create troubles and I am therefore perfectly happy, doing it manually. ACKs for Arr/Dep are handled the same way as filing/delay/cancel messages. It would be perfect, if I could handle everything in SD on my flight tablet. A few "political" words, behind. The issue is not with SD, if something goes wrong; its with the users. As always in aviation, you should know, what you're doing; if not, it may be better to be locked out, eventually. Please don't try to protect a few users from themselves and lock out the majority of conscious users from a very useful feature. That's where over-regulation starts... ... and PLEASE don't limit it to UK! Best Regards hk
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