XTOPP?

T

Tiger815

Well-Known Member
Can anyone help me with the waypoints (lat/longs) that define this North Atlantic Track?

I'm working on a presentation slide for work and need to show an Atlantic crossing via this track. Google didn't help. I need a source for derinitive information and net searches were sparse except for simulation stuff. I need to be sure I'm using the real data if it's available.
 
I got some stuff on the PC at home...but the internet is down there. Lemme do a lil searchin and I'll get back to ya.
 
Ok, here's what I've got.

First, download this little program http://ourworld.cs.com/bobraemer/ownnav/natplot.zip
and unzip to a new folder on your desktop

Then, go here:
https://www.notams.jcs.mil/common/nat.html
and save this page (as an HTML file) to your desktop.


Run the .exe file in the new folder and go to File -> Read Nat/Pacots Tracks, find the html file that you just saved and presto, you have a diagram of the current NATs.

If that program doesn't give you exactly what you're looking for, check this out http://blackswan.ch/nat/
 
Don't the tracks change, like on a daily basis or something?

[/ignorant NATS question]
 
Yep, they do, but if you download that web page every cycle, you will have the most up to date info.

I know that they change the tracks based on current wind and weather over the ocean. In the summer, with the jet stream further north, the east bound tracks will be up close to Greenland, but in the winter they're further south. If I'm not mistaken, there are representatives from the airlines who's job it is to evaluate the conditions and agree on the daily track coordinates.
 
Tiger815 said:
Can anyone help me with the waypoints (lat/longs) that define this North Atlantic Track?

I'm working on a presentation slide for work and need to show an Atlantic crossing via this track. Google didn't help. I need a source for derinitive information and net searches were sparse except for simulation stuff. I need to be sure I'm using the real data if it's available.
Click to expand...

XTOPP ? I have never seen that before ... Tracks across the North Atlantic change every day. Tracks West in the AM start at the beginning of the alphabet, NAT A (Alpha), NAT B (Bravo), etc. Going east in the evening they are at the back of the alphabet, NAT X (Xray) NAT Y (Yankee) etc.

Where did you find this XTOPP ?
 
Fox Xray said:
XTOPP ? I have never seen that before ... Tracks across the North Atlantic change every day. Tracks West in the AM start at the beginning of the alphabet, NAT A (Alpha), NAT B (Bravo), etc. Going east in the evening they are at the back of the alphabet, NAT X (Xray) NAT Y (Yankee) etc.

Where did you find this XTOPP ?
Click to expand...

I have no clue what it means, but I found this when I was doing a Google out of curiousity:

FlightAware Heathrow/JFK routes.
 
It appears to be some form of a coded route system. If there are no tracks A/C usually will file certain routes based on the winds. These may be some form of a pref routing, in this case XTOPP may spell out a certain route across the Atlantic to land fall. I will look into this some more...
 
SteveC said:
I have no clue what it means, but I found this when I was doing a Google out of curiousity:

FlightAware Heathrow/JFK routes.
Click to expand...

That's were I was looking as well. The flight plan I found is:

XTOPP#ENE#BAF#J77#PTW#J48

From ENE its no problem plotting the course line. The XTOPP part is the nut I'm trying to crack. I like to find both the entry and exit points with some lat/longs that are resonably recent. Failing that at least figuring out the entry and exit points would help.
 
My guess would be that the flight was routed along Track X and the US entry point was TOPPS. Maybe it is some sort of coded intersection format so that domestic ATC knows that the flight will be entering US airspace via TOPPS, but they also, for some reason, need to know that it was flying along Track X. Without knowing the track plots for the day of the flight in question, there would be no way to know what fix was the starting point for Track X coming out of Europe.

BUT, isn't Track X an eastbound track?
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
My guess would be that the flight was routed along Track X and the US entry point was TOPPS. Maybe it is some sort of coded intersection format so that domestic ATC knows that the flight will be entering US airspace via TOPPS, but they also, for some reason, need to know that it was flying along Track X. Without knowing the track plots for the day of the flight in question, there would be no way to know what fix was the starting point for Track X coming out of Europe.

BUT, isn't Track X an eastbound track?
Click to expand...

Confusing aint it?

The documentation I found on the web says X is east bound and the flight plan I found seems to jive with that.

The link that surreal provided seems like a reliable source and indicates X is west bound.

For the purposes of my presentation I used the info from surreals suggestion and plotted:

ODF J48 PTW J77 BAF ENE COLOR RONPO 47/50 49/40 50/30 50/20 SOMAX KENUK

Thanks for the help guys!
 
What are the departure and destination airports of your example flight? I assume it is Hartsfield since Foothills is your first VOR. If thats the case, you can simply go to FlightAware's IFR Routes resource page and plug in the US departure and international destination and reference the route. The NAT is in there as NATx, x being the track designator. If it is a European departure coming into the US, I would suggest routing it through the TOPPS intersection or one of the ones listed below. If you look at the link that SteveC posted, all of those fixes start with X and then have 4 letters which correspond to a couple of different fixes that are right on the border of domestic airspace;

XTAFF=TAFFY, XTUSK=TUSKY, XALLE=ALLEX, etc.
 
Tiger815 said:
The documentation I found on the web says X is east bound and the flight plan I found seems to jive with that.

The link that surreal provided seems like a reliable source and indicates X is west bound.
Click to expand...

Not trying to make it more confusing. . . but Track X is Eastbound only. Take another look at the NOTAM JCS website and there are only Eastbound cruise altitudes provided. When no altitudes are provided for a direction it means that it is not available for that direction of flight.

NAT website said:
X COLOR RONPO 47/50 49/40 50/30 50/20 SOMAX KENUK
EAST LVLS 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400
WEST LVLS NIL
EUR RTS EAST NIL
NAR N43A N49A-
Click to expand...

Also, if you look even further, the altitudes available for eastbound travel are only 1000ft separation. Leaving no room for any opposite direction traffic (even in an RVSM environment). Hence, no west bound traffic.

Just had to clear it up.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
What are the departure and destination airports of your example flight? I assume it is Hartsfield since Foothills is your first VOR. If thats the case, you can simply go to FlightAware's IFR Routes resource page and plug in the US departure and international destination and reference the route. The NAT is in there as NATx, x being the track designator. If it is a European departure coming into the US, I would suggest routing it through the TOPPS intersection or one of the ones listed below. If you look at the link that SteveC posted, all of those fixes start with X and then have 4 letters which correspond to a couple of different fixes that are right on the border of domestic airspace;

XTAFF=TAFFY, XTUSK=TUSKY, XALLE=ALLEX, etc.
Click to expand...

I didn't see TOPPS on the chart I was using. Ya' got a lat/long or at least a "it's near the tip of something"?

It was supposedly Paris, Orly (ORL) to ATL, but since the X track seems to be eastbound, I'm not sure what's going on. I'll be able to access ATC resources at work tomorrow to get it figured out and will post what I find since there were a few folks interested enought to help me out.
 
I am somewhat familiar with North Atlantic ops and have never seen these codes before. I spoke with someone in airspace and procedures this afternoon and they said these ID's (XTOPP, etc.) have no ATC designation, they are most likely some sort of coding unique to flightware.

Like I posted earlier, the westbound AM tracks are low letters (A,B,C) and the eastbound PM track are high letters (X,Y,Z).

Look at this evenings track message... tracks (T)ango through (Z)ulu are all eastbound with tracks T-Y all being in Canadian airspace... track (Z)ulu starts at fix BALOO which is about 180 miles due east of BDA and is controlled by ZNY oceanic.

Since I am really curious about this I'm going to email flightware and see what they have to say.
 
surreal1221 said:
Not trying to make it more confusing. . . but Track X is Eastbound only. Take another look at the NOTAM JCS website and there are only Eastbound cruise altitudes provided. When no altitudes are provided for a direction it means that it is not available for that direction of flight.



Also, if you look even further, the altitudes available for eastbound travel are only 1000ft separation. Leaving no room for any opposite direction traffic (even in an RVSM environment). Hence, no west bound traffic.

Just had to clear it up.
Click to expand...


My bad. I had it right in my head just got dislexic in typing that post.

X goes East

A goes West

Now if we can just understand why FlightAware flight plans show west bound flights with things like like "XTOPP" or "XTUSK" as the first part of the routing we'll have it all figured out.
 
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