I've spent a long time searching before asking so forgive me if this is an obvious question:

What's the best way to plan a route through mountainous terrain? EG: from Lausanne to somewhere in Northern Italy?

Obviously I can't simply climb high and fly direct so how do I plot a route given a FL or altitude or height that gets me through the various routes that exist without actually knowing what those routes are?

Say for example I was happy to fly at 10000ft with a lateral clearance of 2 miles to obstacles and a vertical clearance of 500ft.

Thanks in advance

Hi,

Thanks Robin Hood for your reply, that link is interesting although the translation by Bing is pretty poor. I'll persevere with that though.

However, what I had in mind is this.

Suppose I want to fly from LSGB to LIMF a distance of 69Nm in a straight line.

Of course I can't fly that straight line because there's some granite in the way.

What I would like to know is if SD will, if I set a level of say 8000ft, find me a course or series of waypoints in order to facilitate this journey. I know that if I zoom in and use the topographical representation I can pick and plot waypoints along the low points but I was hoping that the software would be able to do this for me.

I know that there is other software that can do this, I was just curious as to whether SD can do it.

By extension when planning a much longer route this would save an awful lot of time and effort, especially if it does it for airspace as well.

Stick.

SkyDemon will never attempt to create a suitable VFR route for you. You'll need to do this yourself, or use another piece of software, I'm afraid.

Thanks for a refreshingly succinct reply, it make my decision making a lot easier.

Stick.

I would not want to trust any route through mountains that had been generated by a piece of software - I just don't trust software that much.

I would let SD draw a straight line route - then I would rubber band it to fly through the valleys and avoid the mountains.

I believe that the SD team is doing some work on suggesting IFR routes - but that is only 0.001% as complex as trying to pick route around mountains. That is where the human brain - and our innate sense of self preservation comes into its own.

I would not want to trust any route through mountains that had been generated by a piece of software - I just don't trust software that much.

I would let SD draw a straight line route - then I would rubber band it to fly through the valleys and avoid the mountains.

I believe that the SD team is doing some work on suggesting IFR routes - but that is only 0.001% as complex as trying to pick route around mountains. That is where the human brain - and our innate sense of self preservation comes into its own.