Air France A380 F-HPJA

[Silver Doctor]

looking at the AF A380 now heading out over the Atlantic off the west coast of kerry, Ireland. Pity it didnt route a bit higher and i could have seen it.

[Pinza]

AF0006 departed gate at 1554utc on Sunday for anyone interested in tracking - only 204 mins late tonight...

[Pinza]

Well, either they need to pedal it mighty fast to catch up those 3 hours, or they could pull a sneaky time slip and get back in sync a day later.

Still over 3 hours late tonight - guess it will stay that way until Wednesday (no flight on that day I believe).  Little leeway when you only have one aircraft of that type in your fleet...

For the record, AF0006 did exactly the same as last night - routed due West over the Channel Islands and just south of Lands End - climbing pretty quickly to FL380.

Yesterday Fenris quoted:

<Track F entry point is at 52N 20W today, that's off County Kerry roughly.>

How did you find this info? - or more importantly, how would I or other RB users do so?

Cheers
Chris

[Fenris]

http://jetvision.de/nattracks.shtml

[Jeremy]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6690816/Air-France-Airbus-A380-superjumbo-forced-to-return-to-New-York-after-technical-hitch.html

J.

[dca]

<Track F entry point is at 52N 20W today, that's off County Kerry roughly.>

How did you find this info? - or more importantly, how would I or other RB users do so?

Cheers
Chris

Altenatively this is an excellent source for daily North Atlantic tracks...

http://www.turbulenceforecast.com/atlantic_westbound_tracks.php

Regards,

Dave




[/quote]

[Pinza]

Air France have done well - AF0006 only about half an hour late this afternoon. Turning an aircraft of this size around is not as simple as an easyJet or Ryanair quick turnround!

Thanks to Brian and Dave for feedback on Transatlantic tracks.

Couldn't get Fenris's link http://jetvision.de/nattracks.shtml to show a map though. An asterisk on the site suggested I use Firefox browser if I had problems - sorry, I already have Google Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer - I'm not going to add another browser!

Dave's link http://www.turbulenceforecast.com/atlantic_westbound_tracks.php worked for me though - lots of interesting links from this site too - maps of expected turbulence etc.

Now I know what the daily tracks are, how do I know which entry point a flight is headed for?

Fenris knew that F-HPJA was headed for track F entry point the other night - I now know how to find the daily changeable entry points - is it simply a case of monitoring a certain frequency to hear a transatlantic clearance that includes this info?

Cheers
Chris

[Fenris]

I made an educated guess Chris, I was not sure but I looked at the track the aircraft was making and thought it was likely they were on a southerly track.

I think it is possible to find the routing of a given flight, Shanwick have to know this well ahead of departure as they schedule the flights into the tracks and have to ensure the correct time and lateral separation.

[dca]

Transatlantic clearances from Shanwick Oceanic Control can be heard on 127.65 (mainly European airlines) and 123.95 (for North American carriers) although since the advent of ACARS there are fewer airlines using this service.

[Fenris]

Is there a web-based resource that captures ACARS messages related to North Atlantic clearances? I'm sure that I have seen something like this but I can't remember where.

[tommyg]

For eastbound Atlantic airline flights if you know the flight number you can use www.flightaware.com. This will give you the filed ATC routing, but beware as flights do get inflight reroutes if they cannot be accomodated on their filed route.

[Pinza]

For eastbound Atlantic airline flights if you know the flight number you can use www.flightaware.com. This will give you the filed ATC routing, but beware as flights do get inflight reroutes if they cannot be accomodated on their filed route.

Great site - many thanks tommyg!

Also thanks to Fenris and dca for additional useful info.

If I have any further questions on Trans-Atlantic routing, I'll start a new thread as we seem to have moved away from the A380 - F-HPJA subject, (sorry!)

Regards
Chris (10metres of Westflex 103 on order!)

[Canonjohns40D]

Hi F-HPJA is airborne now coasting out the French coastline Le Touqet  and heading towards Southern England Lydd presently. If the skys are as clear as here in NI you might get to see him soon.

John

[Allocator]

F-HPJA just coasting out NW of WAL.  If it's clear in the Isle of Man, watch out!

[Pinza]

Hi F-HPJA is airborne now coasting out the French coastline Le Touqet  and heading towards Southern England Lydd presently. If the skys are as clear as here in NI you might get to see him soon.

John

Yep, thanks John, just tracked it across England from near Lydd towards the Wirral.

Got the screendump I wanted, but too overcast too physically see it fly just east of my house - after a morning of glorious blue skies here in the Midlands - AARGH!

Am a happy boy now its eventually in MyFlights log!

Cheers
Chris