stratfordman wrote:
Hi Ernie,
Many thanks for your reply.
I have read your instructions and I am still a little bit puzzled.
I enter Dep/arr airports in blue box-no problem.I then click on the North Atlantic Tracks button at the bottom and select any East bound track.
I chose one that gave me the following Valie Scrod 56/50 57/40 57/30 56/20 Pikil Soved.
What I do not understand is the 'wildcard character'-what is this and what do I do with it?
I apologise if I appear a little thick but I just want to ensure that I get this right.
Enter the track as below. The entry point (VALIE) the track (TRAKW) and the exit point (SOVED)
KJFK VALIE TRAKW SOVED EGLL
Then add the wildcard character between KJFK and VALIE
KJFK * VALIE...
This tells the autogenerator to generate a route segment only between KJFK and VALIE.
Then add the 2nd wildcard character
SOVED * EGLL
This tell the autogenerator to build a route segment only between SOVED and EGLL.
KJFK
* VALIE TRAKW SOVED
* EGLL
The blue text below shows the route the autogenerator made.
KJFK
BETTE HTO J55 ENE J55 PQI J582 YZV RR2 YGV VALIE TRAKW SOVED
NIBOG UN551 NURSI UN551 BEL UL10 HON BNN2A EGLL
Notice how the position of the blue text matches where the wildcard characters were ?
Notice it created a route while keeping the North Atlanic track in the flight plan ?
The wildcard allows you to specify what part of the plan is to be autogenerated.
So if you want to use a specific North Atlantic track, you enter it in the flight plan, then put wildcards around it. The autogenerator then builds a complete flight plan including your specified track.
If you do not use wldcards it will ignore all entries and build a complete route of its choosing.
Regards.
Ernie.