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North Atlantic Tracks for the westbound crossing of February 24, 2017, with the new reduced lateral separation minima (RLAT) Tracks shown in blue. The North Atlantic Tracks, officially titled the North Atlantic Organised Track System (NAT-OTS), are a structured set of transatlantic flight routes that stretch from eastern North America to western Europe across the Atlantic Ocean, within the ...
The first officially published tracks appeared in 1965, and later on similar track systems evolved in other high-traffic areas such as the Pacific Organised Track System. However, as demand increased in the North Atlantic airline market, traffic increased to such a point that a way to increase traffic flow had to be found.
The North Atlantic Track Agreement was an agreement in November 1898 [1] among thirteen passenger steamship companies to use a set series of trans-Atlantic routes that stretched from the northeast of North America to western Europe for the Atlantic crossing. Following the tracks was recommended but not compulsory.
North Atlantic airspace is the busiest oceanic airspace in the world with about 1,300 flights a day, most of which are large commercial carriers. More than half the flights follow the North Atlantic Tracks but about 40% are 'random', with flight plans not on tracks, such as search/rescue and others.
Historically, aircraft navigation specifications have been specified directly in terms of sensors (navigation beacons and/or waypoints). A navigation specification that includes an additional requirement for on-board navigation performance monitoring and alerting is referred to as a required navigation performance (RNP) specification.
In the North Atlantic Region pilots are expected to fly along the oceanic track center-line or 1 or 2 nautical miles to its right, randomly choosing one of these three offsets on each entry to oceanic airspace. The aim is to not achieve an overall even distribution of one-third of all flights on each of the three possible tracks, as one might ...
Useful named waypoints are always on one or more airways. A geographic waypoint is a temporary position used in a flight plan, usually in an area where there are no named waypoints (e.g., most oceans in the Southern Hemisphere). Air traffic control require that geographic waypoints have latitudes and longitudes that are a whole number of degrees.
The North Atlantic Tracks are the most heavily used oceanic routes in the world, and are largely covered by ETOPS 120-minute rules, thereby removing the necessity of using 180-minute rules. However, North Atlantic diversion airports are subject to adverse weather conditions that affect their availability for use.