Simviation Forums

1) What would be the advantage for a plane (airliners or general aviation) to fly to a destination via waypoint-to-waypoint rather than direct to the place via GPS?

2) When you listen to ATIS and it says "airport information mike, 0254 zulu, altimeter 2992, etc". What does the 0254 (or whatever the number is) zulu mean?

3) Is your flight level determined by the distance from the departure airport to the destination airport? And if so, what is the equation?

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Jimmy

1.  It is just a different means of navigation.  GPS is the new toy for navigation and not all aircraft have it yet.  The old way is navigating from VOR to VOR or using waypoints.

2. Zulu is the aviation term for Greenwich mean time.  So 02:54 Zulu would be like 20:54 Central Time (-6 hours difference), or 8:54 pm

3. Aircraft travel at certain altitudes based on what heading they are going, and whether they are on a VFR or IFR flight plan.  

VFR with a heading of 000-179 use odd thousands plus 500 feet (ex 5,500, 7,500, etc)
VFR with a heading of 180-359 use even thousands plus 500 (ex 4,500, 6, 500, etc(
IFR with a heading of 000-179 use odd thousands ( 5,000  7,000 )
IFR with a heading of 180-359 use even thousands ( 6,000  8,000)

Using that format, you can pick what altitude you want.  general aviation aircraft usually fly below 12,000, airliners like to be between 24,000 and 36,000, while some of the corporate jets can get up into the mid 40s.  

Confusing enough yet, I think I confused myself.

Wow, thanks for the explanations. Helped a lot!  :)

VFR with a heading of 000-179 use odd thousands plus 500 feet (ex 5,500, 7,500, etc)
VFR with a heading of 180-359 use even thousands plus 500 (ex 4,500, 6, 500, etc(
IFR with a heading of 000-179 use odd thousands ( 5,000  7,000 )
IFR with a heading of 180-359 use even thousands ( 6,000  8,000)

Ah, didn't know that either. Thanks.

Using that format, you can pick what altitude you want.  general aviation aircraft usually fly below 12,000, airliners like to be between 24,000 and 36,000, while some of the corporate jets can get up into the mid 40s.

Not really true. I think, or as far as I've encountered it in FS, airliners are not restricted to an upper altitude. I think the solution here is to climb higher the farther your destination is away.
The reason is me seeing mostly long-range jets (777, 747, A340) at flight levels higher than 410.

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[quote]Using that format, you can pick what altitude you want.