Flight Paths
 

Mods: Please move if this isnt the correct forum.

I'm curious. When I check flight routs, ex: UA 50 EWR-FRA. Flightaware shows this:
MERIT HFD PUT EBONY N275A TUDEP NATU BEXET OSGAR BAKUR UN546 STU UL9 GAVGO UL18 INLAK UL607 SPI UT180 PESOV T180 RASVO T180 UNOKO

I know, it sounds "Greek" (no offense to people of Greek origin) to me, but can someone explain. Sometimes I see real "words" as well like:

HAPIE YAHOO BRADD N255A JOOPY NATZ SOMAX NATZ ATSUR RATKA UN502 JSY UY111 INGOR UM25 LUKIP

Yep, just a curious person.

Those are aviation waypoints and airways. Waypoints are typically 5 letter codes, often meant to be pronounceable as words even if they're not real words. This site:
http://www.iflightplanner.com/AviationCharts/

will show waypoints in the US. If you take the portion of the flight that is over the US and plug it into the "flight route" field, it will show the path on the map. Try MERIT HFD PUT EBONY for example.

Example
 

Here's an example....


http://www.cfinotebook.net/graphics/...de-enroute.jpg

Thanks! This is so interesting for me to research.

You can have some fun (and waste a lot of time) looking for region-related names in this data. I know FLURY and CRSBY are near PIT, along with several others sports figures that I can't recall off the top of my head.

My favorite - If you're approaching Pease airport in NH, you might just be vectored to ITAWT ITAW PUDYE TTATT IDEED. No idea on whether there's a tie to Tweety and Sylvestery, or someone was just creative.

Landing on 1R in Kansas City? You might approach via SPICY BARBQ TERKY SMOKE RIBBS.

etc.

Another good site I use often is Airnav.com

You can look up all kinds of airport/navaid info there. Even can find airport diagrams which I find fascinating for some odd reason.

It just happens I'm a huge Pens fan!

FlightAware also has a "Decode" link at the end of the routing in some cases (maybe only US domestic??). Click it and you get a list of the waypoints and where they are.

It also may (or may not) be interesting to look at the North Atlantic Tracks from the flight plans posted. They are the "airways" that are labeled NAT_ (U and Z in the above). The points and lat/longs that these tracks fly over are changed on a day to day basis based on winds and weather across the Atlantic. It might look like more Greek, but for anyone interested you can see the days tracks at https://www.notams.faa.gov/common/nat.html.

dan

edit: add a couple images as examples of tracks from Aviation Knowledge Wiki

Westbound Tracks
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_K39YXp_Gz0...2+03+17+38.jpg

Eastbound Tracks
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_K39YXp_Gz0...2+03+18+29.jpg

Thank you Dan. The flight paths are so complicated. I can't imagine trying to figure it all out.

That's why you buy a ticket and let the chaps in the very front row figure it out ;)
Aerial navigation is a complex thing. Try to listen to some ATC recordings to get a glance at let alone the tower/aircraft communication over navigation.:cool: