Navigation Stations

someday2010

What are LIFFY, ROKNA, BOYNE that you hear on ATC? Are these radio beacons or landmarks that the planes follow in a straight line. Whats the significance of each name? i.e. is it like morse code for the station or some thing

pclancy

They're navigation waypoints fixed by latitude and longitude and used by aircraft navigation systems and GPS. They might just be a made-up fixed point in space or might correspond to a landmark on the ground or a VOR/NDB radio beacon.

someday2010

Are planes navigated by just typing in the Latitude and Longitude and it then flys to that point by GPS? I was under the impression that the planes picked up and homed in a straight line on a radio beacon

xflyer

Your are right to some degree, LIFFY for example is an imaginary point, 28.9 nautical miles on the 097 radial from the Dublin VOR. BOYNE and ROCKNA are similar. LIFFY marks the boundary of the Dublin Control area and the London FIR. Outbound you call London FIR, inbound you call Dublin. ROCKNA is on the 063 radial from the Dublin VOR, 17.9 nautical miles out. We also have the points like VAGSO, LIPGO, VATRY etc. They are featured on Instrument approach charts. But you can be asked to exit via LIFFY on a visual flight.

Generally these points are programed on airliner Flight Management Systems and they appear on many GPS systems too. So you can be asked to exit via LIFFY even if you are a private pilot. They are reporting points everywhere but mostly used for Instrument approaches. For examply you can, should you lose radio contact with ATC, simply fly the approach via the reporting points specified on your flight plan at the times you specified without being in contact with ATC.

Blade Slapper

Typically IFR holding points or reporting points for de big coke cans.

It depends on the Class but combine with Advisory and (Class A/drop to C Ireland) or Airways(UK).

balkanhawk

Most of these points are based on a system called RNAV (Area navigation). Essentially this means that an aircraft can navigate to a point in space without having to fly directly towards a beacon. This can be achieved a number of ways;
DME/DME-arcs of a circle.
VOR/VOR-where two lines intersect.
VOR/DME-distance and bearing.
GNSS-umbrella term for GPS.

Most modern aircraft use a combination of these to achieve the required navigation performance (RNP). That is why these reporting points do not necessarily sit over a beacon.I believe above flight level 95 RNAV equipment is compulsory.

EchoIndia

xflyer wrote: »

Your are right to some degree, LIFFY for example is an imaginary point, 28.9 nautical miles on the 097 radial from the Dublin VOR. BOYNE and ROCKNA are similar. LIFFY marks the boundary of the Dublin Control area and the London FIR. Outbound you call London FIR, inbound you call Dublin. ROCKNA is on the 063 radial from the Dublin VOR, 17.9 nautical miles out. We also have the points like VAGSO, LIPGO, VATRY etc. They are featured on Instrument approach charts. But you can be asked to exit via LIFFY on a visual flight.

Note that the reporting points you mention are all made up of five letters. e.g. ROKNA and LIPGO.

Once upon a time there were a lot of IFR reporting points (based on VOR radial/DME measurements) with more "homely" names, usually referring to a local landmark or geographic feature. Hence we had Liffey and Vartry, each of which has now lost a letter to comply with the five-letter convention. There was also Liffey South (later TOLKA and now replaced by LIPGO), Granard (became RANAR), Lough Erne (ERNAN), Youghal and Greenore, to name but a few. Not surprisingly some of these gave non-natives, particularly non-English-speakers, some pronunciation challenges, so that's why we now have the standardised and usually meaningless names that are now used.

moss.ie

someday2010 wrote: »

What are LIFFY, ROKNA, BOYNE that you hear on ATC? Are these radio beacons or landmarks that the planes follow in a straight line. Whats the significance of each name? i.e. is it like morse code for the station or some thing

this might help a bit....High level routes -ireland/atlantic

moss.ie

low level

highlydebased

Moss, they are out of date now. We no longer have the upper-airways. This is the current one http://www.iaa.ie/safe_reg/iaip/Published%20Files/AIP%20Files/ENR/EI_ENR_6_2_en.pdf

someday2010

Thanks for those very interesting. Forgive my lack of knowledge but,

Do those charts mean that all planes over Ireland have to fly on the lines that connect the way points on those maps kind of like for example the national primary road network.

So would it be right to say the plane finds out its position by a bearing and distance from a VOR Station like Dublin and Shannon on those maps and then calculates the bearing and distance to get to the way points on the map.

So say for example you were flying from Galway to Dublin then you would fly to KORAK onto RANAR onto TIMRA and onto the standard approch points Is this how it works?

highlydebased

someday2010 wrote: »

Thanks for those very interesting. Forgive my lack of knowledge but,

Do those charts mean that all planes over Ireland have to fly on the lines that connect the way points on those maps kind of like for example the national primary road network.

So would it be right to say the plane finds out its position by a bearing and distance from a VOR Station like Dublin and Shannon on those maps and then calculates the bearing and distance to get to the way points on the map.

So say for example you were flying from Galway to Dublin then you would fly to KORAK onto RANAR onto TIMRA and onto the standard approch points Is this how it works?

In a way yes but in Ireland we no longer have those "lines" We have "free route" airspace so you route direct from one fix to another.