Having now planned and flown plenty of international trips with the able use of SkyDemon, I reckon it would be rather nice for the programming to have the facility to automatically identify when you are crossing an FIR boundary and to automatically present the FIR ID (eg EGTT, LFRR, EDLL or whatever) either in the PLOG or simply on the displayed chart alongside the crossing point. Such FIR ID changing as necessary when reversing the route.

At present the FIR ID's aren't displayed (or I can't find 'em!) and one has to look elsewhere.

eg Flying Calais to Koblenz one crosses from France into the Belgian FIR (EBBU) thence into the German(Langen) FIR (EDGG) and the reversed route to show change in FIR entries (in this case Germany(Langen) (EDGG) - Belgian (EBBU) - France (Paris) (LFFF).

Is it even possible? 

As a workaround, you could add a custom waypoint a mile or so each side of the FIR boundary. By adding both, they will be bidirectional when you reverse the route.

You could also "rubber band" the route to give a relevant point on the FIR boundary itself. Will enable you to inform ATC of expected FIR crossing time. Is the name of the FIR region needed?

Also, its worth turning on Airways Reporting Points, as these are often on FIR boundaries. In your example IBESA is almost on track but nothing worthwhile on French border.

David

It's possible, and in fact SkyDemon already picks up such information and outputs it into a flightplan form if you choose to file one, as ATS providers often ask for your estimated enroute time to the FIR crossing.

However I'm not clear on the benefit of adding a note to the charts or to the PLOG for the crossing. Could you perhaps elaborate?

Cheers!

Thanks for all your ideas and suggestions people - I'm pleased to say that I already do what you say. My GPS 'User Waypoint' files are chock-a-block with cross FIR names.  

Hmmm! Elaborate? I fear I may be teaching granny to suck eggs here, so please don't feel offended .....  Here goes.....

Elaboration 1:- I think you've hit nail on head when you say one will need to put the crossing of the FIR in to Section 18 of the flight plan eg EET/LFRR0120  EBBU0155 etc. That's exactly what I'm attempting to ask SkyDemon to do for (lazy)me - display it on the chart.

The usual EGTT, LFFF, LFRR, EBBU etc etc are easily remembered but it's when crossing from say The Nederlands into Germany (and there are a  number of German FIR regions and then there's Poland of Czech Republic etc etc - One has to search down country borders on the Jeppesen charts , or whatever one favourite info sheet, for the FIR IDs. Lots of hassle for poor tired old me.

Elabortation 2:- I file via AFPEx and thus need to type the EET/LFRR etc  stuff manually - This means my lazy bones have to check the relevant paper charts/Flight info stuff from which to glean the 'name' of the FIR region I'm going to fly in to (LFFF, EBBU, EDLL etc etc ) as explained above. (Of course the IDs will change when I'm retracing my steps). 

Elaboration 3:- When I plan a route on SkyDemon from say Bournemouth to Calais I would file a plan something like: DCT LYD DCT LYD23 DCT with LYD23 being my chosen crossing point of the FIR. I was hoping you'd say it was VERY easy  to simply display on the charted route and alongside the FIR crossing point, the FIR region's ID ie LFFF.

Does that help?  Have I told you I was lazy?

Thanks, that helps us understand what you're after. Since SkyDemon does flightplan preparation for you, though, we can't really use this to justify implementing some kind of feature to help with it. Even if you don't want to use SkyDemon to file flightplans for you, you can still hit the Flightplan button and see the flightplan form all prepared, comlete with your EET to all international FIR boundaries (with their codes).

Thanks Tim, In that case, that's what I'll do, copy out the SD flight plan and type in the relevant FIR ID's and their respective ETA', into AFPEx - It'll certainly save idle me unfolding millions of charts and searching the FIR boundaries for tiny print - Cheers

Sorry to keep harping on about this subject .... BUT...

To properly try out your suggestion to use the SD Flight Plan to help ID the FIR region codes, I put in a recent planned a route Bournemouth to Olomouc (Czech Rep) via Calais, Koblenz, Bayreuth etc

The charted route crosses into the following FIRs in a sequence of :- Paris(LFFF), Brussels(EBBU), Langen(EDGG), Munchen(EDMM) & Praha(LKAA)

However, the SD flight plan displays the various estimated elapsed times to the various FIR boundaries in a rather disjointed and non-chronological fashion, as follows:-

 "EET/EBBU0130 LKAA0515 LFFF0107 EDMM0423 EDGG0252"

For personal and practical purposes it doesn't really matter much to me, as I can simply and as advised, use the identified FIR codes in my AFPEx flight plan. BUT is this the correct way? Does it matter to the AFTN network if it's not chronologically correct? Surely it's more desirous to list them in order of crossing.  or is this me overly pedantic?

I'm not aware that it matters in the slightest what order they appear in.

Pedantic - I'll take that as a "Yes" then