I just noted a small "bug" probably present in all versions of SD. When planning a border crossing flight and adding a published border crossing reporting point, SD will still add its own border crossing point in the flightplan in lat/lon notation. To wit, a flight from Graz (LOWG) to Maribor (LJMB) with a border crossing point of OLMOT will still insert another border crossing point.

I suggest to omit the calculated crossing point in case there already is a waypoint in the flightplan which is within 5 miles (measured along the planned route) of the physical border crossing.

Also, what were thise superfluous DCT's in the route portion? In Austria this drives the controller crazy. Have got an admonishing call twice because of them.

-- Chris.

I'm pretty sure SkyDemon does not invent border crossing points. Can you give an example?

SkyDemon puts DCTs between all waypoints, I believe, because it doesn't deal with airways routings being a VFR product.

Hi Tim,

I went and re-checked the problem (see example given in the original post), and it turned out to be a bit different from what I remembered.

The route field of the flightplan is OK, in that there is no specifically inserted waypoint for a border crossing. I seem to have placed a waypoint a bit besides the intended reporting point of OSMOT. However, in the "Extra Information" field I find the entry EET/LJLA0013. What ATC want to see is EET at a specific border crossing point. In this case there ought to be a EET/OSMOT0013 in the respective field. If I don't specify a border crossing point for coordination they are asking for one in every case.

My suggestion would therefore be: If a border crossing point was specified in the route field, use that to report border crossing time. In this context, I regard a border crossing point any point published in the AIP that is part of my route and not more than, say, 5 miles from the actual border crossing as measured along the planned course. If no border crossing point is defined becase (a) I forgot to include it in my route or (b) it isn't published in the AIP, fall back to your current method of reporting only the time of border crossing.

In a VFR flightplan DCT is superfluous and a thorn in the eye of at least Austrocontrol. Would it be possible to omit the DCTs if the type of flightplan filed is "V" (i.e., VFR)?

Greetings, -- Chris.

I'm afraid Austrocontrol are rather unusual. They seem to have a very specific view of VFR flightplans and what should (and should not) be included on them, which contradicts the view of every other European state with whom we deal when it comes to flightplans.
We looked in to doing EET/POINTxxxx in the past and discovered that while some people informally do it, the correct ICAO way to do it is to name the FIR, which we already do. I believe (despite what Austrocontrol might say) that we are doing it in the correct way. Certainly there haven't been any problems with the receipt of flightplans (Austrocontrol excluded) that include this method of specifying arrival point at the FIR boundary in the years we've been sending them (tens of thousands of flightplans).
We could omit the DCT, but why would we? You're supposed to have them to comply with the ICAO flightplan specification, and only Austrocontrol objects to them.

Well, just to prove I'm not making this up it is all spelled out in this document:
http://www.austrocontrol.at/jart/prj3/austro_control/data/dokumente/bbABB_227_tcm586-72348.pdf

Specifically, according to ICAO, you are supposed to use DCT if the departure point is not on an ATS route, followed by the first point on the ATS route and then the route designator. Or, if you are leaving an ATS route, use DCT before the first off-route point, except if both of these points are specified by geographical coordinates. For flights off ATS routes, use DCT between successive points unless both of them are given by geographical coordinates or radial and distance from a radio navigation aid.

So, it seems you are doing it correctly if, indeed, you abstain from using DCT between points given in lat/lon format (I haven't checked this yet.

Austrocontrol do, however, specify that for flights inside the FIR Vienna, DCT must only be used by flights of the Austrian military if their mission so demands and flights for geographic surveying.

Oh well, -- Chris.

One day all this VFR flightplan stuff will be agreed between European countries (hopefully). Until then, we're really not in a position to make everybody happy.
I suspect we do put DCT in even between coordinates.

Reading all these arcane rules and bloated verbiage about how to fill out a flightplan properly is not good to my blood pressure.

-- Chris.