I’m a novice but trying to learn a bit of the jargon. Please tell me how I can decipher this ‘route’ to tell me where the plane is on its way in this example from Dubai to Sydney. I’d like to know which countries, locations, times. Thanks.
ummmm…what does that route have to do with NJ?
Anyway, 4 letters is the airport code as assigned by ICAO. 5 letters indicate an intersection of two airways or a point along an airway. The others, L223, N626 are airways. The longer ones are used to tell ATC approximately when a flight might want to change altitude or make a significant speed change, N0502F330 indicates 502 knots at Flight Level 330. M084F350 is Mach .84 at Flight level 350. DCT means direct from one point to another where there is no airway mapped out. And finally 14S090E is normally an Oceanic fix, 14 degrees south latitude at 90 degrees east longitude. Other than that you need a chart to look at.
I don’t have South Pacific charts but what I do have indicate ANVIX is the end of the published departure procedure from OMDB. L223 runs a further 17 miles to TARDI which is a point on the ATC boundary with Oman. GIDAN is about 30 miles south of Muscat. P570 runs SE to KITAL which is on the ATC border with Mumbai control which is actually fairly close to Oman. BIGBO is on the Mumbai/Male border. SUNAN is on the very SW side of the Male/Colombo border and DADAR is on the south side Colombo’s airspace and at the edge of my charts but appears to be Perth’s Oceanic border. Other than Male once the flight leaves Oman it is over water all the way to Western Australia.
Hope that gives you an idea of how flight plans are coded.
Thank you John for all the information. That detail has been precisely what I needed to know. The KPVC to KCDW (NJ) tag was just my way of getting into the discussion forums. I didn’t know any other way…
Pat in Antibes, France
