Flying NATs: A Tutorial

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Flying NATs: A Tutorial

Post by Greg Reince »

It is my goal in this tutorial to walk you step-by-step through the procedures behind flight planning and flying North Atlantic Tracks, NATs.

Eastbound NAT Flight
In this first example, I will use American's daily 777 flight, AAL108, from Boston's Logan Intl Airport to London Heathrow.

Step 1
Open up Flight Simulator and create a flight plan from KBOS to EGLL using the "Direct GPS" option; this will be the most direct route between Boston and London, the great circle route. Our goal is to match a NAT closest to that great circle route for the most efficient flight possible.

Step 2
Download NAT Plot This little tool allows you to save the NATs and display them on a map--this makes it easier to see exactly where you will be flying and to find a NAT close to your great cirlce route.

Step 3
Find the latest NATs North Atlantic Tracks are updated every 12 hours. Occasionally, due to the time of day and the number of flights predominately flying each direction, the NAT website may only include one-direction of tracks. For example, as I am typing this, 1745z, the NAT directory only includes East-bound tracks. This is because during the evening in North America, all flights across the Atlantic are generally East bound. Similarly, around 0900z, most flights across the Atlantic are West bound; so, only West bound tracks may be included in the publication.

Step 4: Deciphering the NATs
These are the latest NATs:

U YQX KOBEV 50/50 52/40 53/30 54/20 DOGAL BABAN
EAST LVLS 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400
WEST LVLS NIL
EUR RTS EAST NIL
NAR N79B N83B N85A-

V VIXUN LOGSU 49/50 51/40 52/30 53/20 MALOT BURAK
EAST LVLS 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400
WEST LVLS NIL
EUR RTS EAST NIL
NAR N63B N67B-

W YYT NOVEP 48/50 50/40 51/30 52/20 LIMRI DOLIP
EAST LVLS 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400
WEST LVLS NIL
EUR RTS EAST NIL
NAR N53B N59A-

X COLOR RONPO 47/50 49/40 50/30 51/20 DINIM GIPER
EAST LVLS 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400
WEST LVLS NIL
EUR RTS EAST NIL
NAR N43A N49A-

Y BANCS URTAK 46/50 48/40 49/30 50/20 SOMAX KENUK
EAST LVLS 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400
WEST LVLS NIL
EUR RTS EAST NIL
NAR N35A N41C-


Z DANER 40/60 44/50 46/40 48/30 49/20 BEDRA GUNSO
EAST LVLS 310 320 340 380 390 400
WEST LVLS NIL
EUR RTS EAST NIL
NAR NIL-

101412 CZQXZQZX
(NAT-2/2 TRACKS FLS 310/400 INCLUSIVE
JUL 11/0100Z TO JUL 11/0800Z

What the heck does all this mean?
Let's look at NAT V:

V VIXUN LOGSU 49/50 51/40 52/30 53/20 MALOT BURAK
EAST LVLS 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400
WEST LVLS NIL
EUR RTS EAST NIL
NAR N63B N67B-

-The V, of course, indicates which NAT to file in the Flight Plan. You will see the lower letters of the alphabet for the East bound flights (U through Z), and you will see the higher letters of the alphabet on West bound flights (A through F).

-VIXUN, LOGSU, MALOT, and BURAK are all waypoints. Yes, the intersections may be difficult to find, but with NAT Plot, you will be able to see where all the Oceanic intersection including in NATs are located.

-The numbers, 49/50 51/40 52/30 53/20, are the latitude (first number) and longitude (second number) coordinates of the NATs. So, NAT V has the coordinates N49 W50, N51 W40, N52 W30, and N53 W20.

-EAST LVLS, East Levels, are just that: the flight levels you can fly the NAT at going eastbound. 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400. On NAT V, you can fly any altitude from FL320 to FL400, regardless of direction of flight.

-WEST LVLS, West Levels, are, of course, NIL because you do not want aircraft flying West bound on an East bound NAT!

-What is NAR N63B N67B? NAR, North Atlantic Routes (I believe), are the airways you fly to get to the starting points of the NAT. So, you would have to fly either airway N63B or N67B to get to VIXUN on the NAT.

-What are EUR RTS East? Although none of these particular tracks include any European Routes East, they would be the airways you must fly outbound from the NAT. For example, out of BURAK, you occasionally may be required to only fly airway UN535 or UN536. However, due to the numerous airports flown to on each NAT, you do not usually see EUR Routes. You do not want to see an aircraft bound for Paris that must fly Northeast bound out of BURAK; Paris is Southeast!

Step 5: Plot the Tracks
At the NAT Website, right-click and "save page as." Save it in your NAT Plot folder (wherever you put it), and label the NATs so you can recognize it. For example, for today's tracks, I would save them under the title "NATs_7_10_07." It is somtimes fun to look back and see where the NATs are at different types of years. I have NATs all the way back to 2005 still saved in my NAT Plot folder. Open up NAT Plot, click "File," then click "read Nat/Pacots tracks..." There are your North Atlantic Tracks on a map! Remember, due to the time of day, only East bound tracks are included, and they are always red. If West bound tracks were included, they would be black.

Step 6: Find your NAT
Open up Flight Simulator again and find where the great circle route best intercepts one of the starting points of the tracks. From what I can see, the great cirlce route from KBOS-EGLL passes only 15nm or so north of YQX, Gander, which is the starting point for NAT U. I would say for this flight we use NAT U.

FS does not include longitude and latitude waypoints. What do I do? Luckily, AVSIM has files which include the lat/long points over the Atlantic.

For FS9, click here.

For FSX, click here.

When entering longitude waypoints in most FMCs, you must include the leading zero: W050, W020, etc. The latitude, however, can be entered in as just a two-digit number: N49, N57, etc. Here is an example of imputting a lat/long point in a FMC: N51W050.

Step 7: The Flight Plan
Remember the NAR. On NAT U, we must fly either of the following airways to get to YQX: N79B N83B N85A. It appears that the direct route from KBOS-YQX is almost on top of N79B airway, so we will use it as our NAR. The NARs are 400-600nm airways that take you from an initial waypoint closer to your destination to the NAT Track. So, following N79B towards Boston, we find the airway ends at ALLEX intersection. I would file the LOGAN 4 Departure out of KBOS, direct FRILL, direct ALLEX, then joining the NAR to the NAT. Here is the flightplan:

(LOGAN4*)FRILL ALLEX N79B YQX NATU BURAK...**

In the remarks section of your flight plan, be sure to include the TMI, Track Message Identification number. This ensures that ATC knows which NAT you are on (remember they change every 12 hours). Each new NAT cycle will have a different TMI.

Where can I find the TMI number?
The TMI is found in the "Remarks" section of the NAT website:

REMARKS:
1.TRACKS ARE AMENDED WITH RESPECT TO REMARKS. FORMER NOTE 5 HAS BEEN
REMOVED. TRACK MESSAGE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER IS STILL 192 AND...

*because some airports have only one, vectored departure, it will be assumed that you have the departure onboard; so, you do not HAVE to file LOGAN4.FRILL. Similarly, in O'Hare, you never see pilots file ORD1.IOW on Flightaware; you only see IOW. It is implied that the aircraft will receive radar vectors via the O'Hare 1 Departure. Example:

"Boston Delivery, AAL108 Heavy with Alpha, IFR to Heathrow."

-"AAL108 Heavy, Boston Delivery, cleared to the Heathrow Airport, LOGAN 4 Departure, radar vectors FRILL, then as filed..."

Even though you didn't include "LOGAN4" in your flight plan, you will still be cleared via the departure.

**I'm not going to focus on the rest of the European route to the arrival at Heathrow. This tutorial is about NAT flying--not European flying.

Step 8: Fly!
Push back, fire up the engines, taxi to the active, fly the departure, get on the NAR, and join the NAT.

Step 9: Postion Reports
Because the North Atlantic is not covered by radio, the two oceanic sectors, Gander and Shanwick, must rely on position reports of aircraft. The intersections (DOGAL, KOBEV, etc.) do no need to be reported because they are in controlled airspace, radar. A standard position report should include the following:

-The time (in zulu) you crossed the wapoint and the waypoint itself. (I will call it waypoint 1.)
-Flight Level
-Mach Number
-The waypoint you are direct to next (2) and the estimated time of crossing waypoint 2
-waypoint 3

Here is the dialogue that should happen between aircraft and position reporting center:

"Gander, AAL108 Heavy position report"

-"AAL108 Heavy, Gander Radio, go ahead."

"Gander, AAL108 Heavy position N50 W50 at 1800z, FL370, Mach point 84, estimating N52 W40 at 1840z, N53 W30 next. Over"

-Shanwick will read back the report.

If correct, "Gander, readback correct. AAL108 Heavy." It's not mandatory to say "readback correct," but the practice is welcome.

VATSIM UK has a great website detailing NATs as well.

That's it for the east bound flight. You continue to make your position reports and land safely at Heathrow!

See the reply for west bound and non-NAT flights.
Last edited by Greg Reince on 07-11-2007 12:40 AM, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Greg Reince »

Westbound NAT Flight
The westbound NAT flight is no different than as east bound flight. Go through the same steps as above. The only difference, however, is that you need to obtain an Oceanic Clearance. If you are departing from an airport that is WEST of West 3 degrees (pretty much anything in Ireland and extreme northern UK), you must get an oceanic clearance before takeoff. The airports included in this would be Glasgow, EGPF; Dublin, EIDW; and Shannon, EINN. Heathrow, Manchester, and Gatwick are all East of W3, and you do not need to get an Oceanic Clearance, OC, until in the air. Here is an example from the VATSIM UK website of an oceanic clearance request:

PILOT: "BAW175, Request KJFK via NAT Charlie DOGAL 54/20 54/30 52/40 49/50 LOGSU VIXUN at FL380 and mach 0.84 estimate DOGAL 11:40 BAW175"

SHANWICK: "BAW175, Cleared as filed along track charlie to KJFK at FL380 Mach 0.84, cross DOGAL not before 11:35, clearance expires DOGAL 11:45"

You only need to get an OC if Shanwick Oceanic is online. If not, fly as you would any flight. The previous dialogue should be made in a Private Chat message box. If you are not going to cross DOGAL by 1145z, then you must request another OC.


What if your flight does not fit into the NATs?
Not every flight is going to pass through a NAT nice and neat like our flight from Boston to Heathrow did. For example, flights from Los Angeles to Amsterdam, San Francisco to Frankfurt, Miami to Madrid, and Seattle to London do not even come close to the NATs. Now, occasionally I have seen some flight plans on Flightaware that have flights from the West Coast of the US to Europe fly the NATs, but it is very rare. Such a flight increases the flight time, fuel burn, and number of miles flown because you are not on a great circle route; you fly across the United States and "jump" on a North Atlantic Track. So, what I do with these flights is just choose a route that comes close to the great circle route. Then, once you run out of airways and VORs to fly to (such as in Northern Canada and the Central Atlantic), I just use long/lat coordinates across to best fit the great circle route. For example, I flew from Seattle to London yesterday, and I began using lat/long coordinates at W100. Every 10 degrees of longitude, I would use a round-numbered latitude that would be similar to the great circle route. For example, here is what my flight plan looked like from yesterday:

SEA J503 YNY J527 YMM NCAC YSF N61W100 N64W090 N66W080 N67W070 N68W060 N68W050 N67W040 N65W030 N62W020 AGORI...

Now, if you do not have have FMC, you're stuck because FS does not include the lat/long points in Northern Canada or the Central Atlantic. However, some of the routes try to mimic lat/long points. You can look up NCAC on FS and it does have waypoints every 10 degrees labeling them "100C" or "90C" for the longitude, but most FMCs will not accept NCAC as an airway and 90C as an ending intersection.


I hope this tutorial has made you a better North Atlantic Track pilot. Do not hesitate to ask if you have any further questions.

Greg :cool:
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Post by Harold Henderson »

Great gouge, Greg! I think this should give everyone interested in crossing the pond online a big leg up.

Picked up a few more pointers like there's no clearance required going east.

Also, from my Saturday adventure with NAT (unfortunately Shannon was offline), twas easy putting the lat/long NAT coords in the LevelD 767 FMC as NxxWxxx.
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Post by Norberto Rivera »

By the power vested in somebody other than me, please make this a sticky! :D

Great post Greg!
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Post by Greg Reince »

You're welcome guys.

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Post by Theodore Martin »

GREAT Greg, I always wanted to know how this was done! Thanks for taking the time.:)
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Post by Todd Meek »

I was wondering how this was done too. Before I joined AAV and did flights on my own, I just flew direct over the pond. Now with this post, I can do it the same way as the real pilots.
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Re: Flying NATs: A Tutorial

Post by Theodore Martin »

Not sure what NATPLOT.ZIP does but I imagine you are looking for NAT tracks across the Atlantic. If you go to this web site:

http://www.vatsim-uk.org/oceanic/index.php?page=nat

you will find a daily updated NAT chart.
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Re: Flying NATs: A Tutorial

Post by Michael Natale »

What a terrific post. Once again I find myself reviewing this thread before I depart to EGLL. Thanks Gregg for taking the time to post this.

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