You can access FAA air traffic control documents at faa.gov/ATpubs/. The one that you will be interested inis 7350.7 âLocation Identifiers.â
The 3 letter codes in the routings are VORTACs.
The 5 letter item in the example given (DUNKS) is an intersection formed by radials from 2 VORTACS.
The item at the end of the route (BUNTR1) is a STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route).
All of the above can be decoded using 7350.7 Additionally, you can download the actual STARs by clicking on the resources link to the left of any FlightAware screen and then picking the arrival airport.
âJâ routes (e.g. J70) are high altitude routes. I believe the minimum altitude for these is 18,000 feet. âVâ routes that are below 18,000.
DUNKS J70 PMM J547 OBK BDF IRK J96 GUP BUNTR1
decoded: from DUNKS intersection take J70 to PMM then J547 to OBK. From OBK fly direct to BDF direct to IRK then take J96 to GUP. At GUP use BUNTR1 arrival. Use 7350.7 to decode the abbreviations.
DUNKS J70 PMM KG69K RBA KK54C CIM ZUN BUNTR1
from DUNKS take J70 to PMM then KG69K direct to RBA then KK54C to CIM then direct to ZUN and then use the BUNTR1 arrival.
Iâm not familar with KG69K and KK54C. If I knew what the departure and and arrival airports and aircraft type were, I could probably figure it out.
naco.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=naco/catalog gives a brief overview of different charts available. Doing a quick Google search, I couldnât find anyplace that has online charts.
Departure and arrival procedures are are the beginning and/or end of a flight route and are a series of letters followed by a number. Those procedures are available in FlightAwareâs resources section.
For example, if a flightâs route ends with BLUBL2 while en route to KHOU, thatâs the KHOU BLUBELL Two Arrival
Also, keep in mind some routes donât use STARs or SIDs. Some airports donât even have STARs or SIDs either. So a few flight plans, especially short hops or smaller general aviation (GA) planes will just fly direct to various waypoints. Even a lot of commuter routes are like that.
Yep, part of the new National Airspace Redesign/High Altitude Redesign (NAR/HAR) project, specifically the Navigation Reference System (NRS). The FAA has a cool video on this at faa.gov/ats/nar/har_section.htm
Speaking of this, does anyone have a website or free program that you can plug a route into and it will show you a graphical routing? The AOPA flight planner can do the reverse (print out a route plan from a drawn route), but every once in a while when I see a route like the above Iâd like to see it graphically.
FYI, on the mapping teamâs short list is to provide the option to display navaids and intersections and a projected path of flight when viewing a specific flight.
Hmmm⌠I guess maybe over a sectional would be what I was thinking of. But Iâll take whatever people can get. I think I have a bookmarked sectional overlay for google earth, so either would work I guess.
FYI some of the 3 letter codes are just VORs rather than VORTACs
Thanks for letting me know. As a non-pilot, Iâve always called them VORTACs and didnât realize that some didnât have a TACAN associated with them.
I use http://www.fsroute.com. Itâs meant for flight sims, and can output the plan to your flightsim, but after you hit generate, you can click view map on the bottom, and a nice little visual map shows up.