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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:38 pm Post Subject: Flight Explorer Levels
John asked in a recent post:
Quote:
This brings me to a question for you. From your three months of constant use of Flight Explorer, what are the range of flight levels you see over New Zealand? What is the highest you have seen an aircraft? And what do you know, from official sources, to be the guidelines for flight altitude with regard to both domestic and international flights? It would probably be best to start a new thread with your answer”
Hi John,
To give you some background on Flight Explorer, the program has a FAA imposed 5 minute delay for members of the general public so if somebody decides to use this please keep this in mind. An aircraft at cruise speed can fly a long way in 5 minutes.
Military and sensitive traffic is supposedly filtered out but I have seen on several occasions military flights within NZ’s area of responsibility.
When observing Flight Explorer (FE) the flight data that is displayed in the “tag” is:
Flight Number
Altitude
Speed
Airport from and destination
Aircraft Type and time of departure/arrival
However, NZ domestic flight altitudes are not displayed.
I have seen that with other aircraft that fall under the FAA coverage, the altitude detail is very comprehensive. It will include ascending and descending designations and the information appears to be very accurate.
I contacted somebody within Airways NZ by email asking why NZ domestic flight altitudes were not displayed in Flight Explorer.
Just to clarify who Airways NZ are - this from their web site:
Quote:
“Airways New Zealand is one of the worlds' leading providers of commercial Air Navigation Services (ANS), responsible for managing all domestic and international air traffic operating within New Zealand's 34 million square kilometers of airspace”
Essentially he said that:
Quote:
“We are looking at allowing the actual level to show (not the cleared flight level. What you see in the FAA levels”
He advised that a conservative approach was taken as the data was supplied to FE about the time of 9/11, but they are currently working on:
Quote:
trying to come up with a solution that will keep all parties happy and enable us to 'turn on' the levels”
When it comes to International travel in and out of NZ we do see an altitude displayed.
I have had a good look around NZ for sometime now and there are very few flights above 40,000 ft (FL400). I have seen a couple as high as 43,000 ft but they have all been business/private jets, not commercial Airlines and it has been few and far between.
I have also been looking around the USA as well and the highest I have seen is 47,000 ft as well as many at around 45,000 ft.
For flights to and from NZ, it seems that 35,000 ft to 39,000 ft is the most common altitude.
What I have found out about NZ domestic altitudes from various sources within Air NZ is that cruise altitude is 31,000 ft 'ish but for the longer flights like AKL-Ch 36000 ft was more likely.
On a visit to Air NZ Flight Dispatch department it was confirmed on an actual flight in progress AKL-Ch that the cruise alt was 36,000 ft. On another that was planned Ch-AKL cruise was going to be 37,000 ft.
Over Blenheim/Nelson area aircraft travel at somewhere around 35000ft to 37000ft.
I asked for clarification on "Cleared Flight levels"
My email
Quote:
Could you clarify what "Cleared Flight Level" means? Is this what we see on the international flights to NZ or is it the actual Flight levels?
His reply,
Quote:
Actual Flight Level (AFL) is probably obvious; Requested Flight Level (RFL) is what the pilot has asked for - in the flight plan or updated directly to ATC; Cleared Flight Level (CFL) is what the aircraft is cleared by ATC to operate at - so these three can all be different. On FE we have a combination of AFL, and CFL being provided by different sources. When you see an up or down arrow, it is indicating the level the aircraft is operating at some intermediate level (not RFL).
