X-PLANE
AIRWAY DATA (EARTH_AWY.DAT) FILE SPECIFICATIONVERSION 1101
REVISION HISTORY
10 Aug 201611 Apr 2017

Spec updated for X-Plane 11
Minor clarifications, wording

APPLICABILITY
This specification (XP AWY1101) is supported in X-Plane 11.00 and later. It is identified in the data files as “1100 Version” on the second row of the file.
The prior specification for airway data was XP AWY640, which was compatible with X-Plane 6.40 – 10.99. Changes in the spec for XP AWY1100 were:••

Enforcing referential integrity of airways, fixes and navaids. Instead of defining airways through separate geographic locations, airways now reference
enroute fixes and navaids.
New column for directional restrictions. Airways can be defined as one-way routes now.

OVERVIEW & SCOPE
This specification defines all airways by listing all their segments. The effect of this data is to:•••

Allow these airways to be selected in X-Plane’s GPS and FMC systems.
Allow these airways to be used for IFR flight planning with X-Plane’s ATC
Draw high- and low level airways on X-Plane’s charts

BASIC CONCEPTS••

An airway segment can only be defined between two points that are either listed in the enroute portions of earth_nav.dat or earth_fix.dat
If an airway segment is both High and Low, then it must be listed twice (once in each category).

X-Plane Airway Data (earth_awy.dat) File Specification

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If a segment is shared by multiple airways, and the minimum and maximum authorized altitudes or directional restrictions are different for each
airway on this common segment, the indicated minimum and maximum altitudes or directional restrictions on this segment are undefined and could
be applicable for one, but not necessarily all airways that use the shared segment.

FILE CHARACTERISTICS
The earth_awy.dat files are plain text files:••

Fields in the data can be separated by one or more white space (space, tab) characters.
By default, the files are generated so that columns of data are consistently aligned, but this is not required.

FILE STRUCTURE
In common with most other X-Plane data file specification, header rows of data define the origin (“I” = Intel byte order or “A” = Motorola byte order) of aparticular copy of a file, and define the file specification version. The file specification must include the four-digit AIRAC cycle date (e.g. 1602 for the AIRAC
cycle effective 4-Feb-16, refer to https://www.nm.eurocontrol.int/RAD/common/airac_dates.html for cycle dates), an 8-digit build date and the reference tothis document. A copyright message may be added, while the total length of this line is not to exceed 1024 characters:
I
1100 Version - data cycle 1602, build 20160204, metadata AwyXP1100. Copyright © 2016, Robin A. Peel (robin@xsquawkbox.net)...

The complete copyright message should be left intact if you redistribute this data. The GNU GPL (general public License) under which this data is released isdesigned to encourage modifications, enhancements and redistribution, even in commercial derivative products. More details about this license are available
on my website (http://data.x-plane.com).
Subsequent rows of data define each airway segment. Sequence is not important.
The file is terminated by a ‘99’:99

ROW CODES
Unlike other data files, no ‘row codes’ are used for airway data, since the file contains just one type of data.

X-Plane Airway Data (earth_awy.dat) File Specification

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EXAMPLE DATA
Here is a simplified data fragment for three airway segments in awy.dat:
ABCDE
ABC
DEF

K1 11
K1 3K2 3ABC
K1 3 N 2 180 450 J13
DEF
K2 3 N 2 180 450 J13
KLMNO K2 11 F 2 180 450 J13-J14-J15

DEFINITION OF DATA FIELDS
Each column in each row is defined below, using the example data from shown above. Note that:Row[none]

Meaning
Example value

CommentExplanation

Valid values

Airway Segment

Upper or lower airway segment

No row codes are used, since all data refers to segments

Identifier of enroute fix or navaid at the beginning of this segment
ICAO region code of enroute fix or navaid at the beginning of this segment
Type of Fix or Navaid
Identifier of enroute fix or navaid at the end of this segment
ICAO region code of enroute fix or navaid at the end of this segment
Type of Fix or Navaid
Directional Restriction. This segment has N = “No” directional restriction.
If the directional restriction is F = “Forward”, the airway segment is authorized to beflown in the direction from the first fix to the second fix.
If the directional restriction is B = “Backward”, the segment is only to be flown in thedirection from second fix to first fix.
This is a "High" airway (1 = "low", 2 = "high"). If an airway segment is both High andLow, then it should be listed twice (once in each category). This determines if theairway is shown on X-Plane's "High Enroute" or "Low Enroute" charts.
Base of airway in hundreds of feet (18000 ft in this example)
Top of airways in hundreds of feet (45000 ft in this example)
Airway segment name. If multiple airways share this segment, then all names will beincluded separated by a hyphen (eg. "J13-J14-J15")

One to five character valid identifier of known fix or navaidMust be region code according to ICAO document No. 7910
11 = Fix, 2 = enroute NDB, 3 = VHF navaid (VOR, TACAN, DME)
One to five character valid identifier of known fix or navaidMust be region code according to ICAO document No. 7910
11 = Fix, 2 = enroute NDB, 3 = VHF navaid (VOR, TACAN, DME)
N = “None”, F = ”Forward”, B = “Backward”

ABCDE
K111ABCK13N2180450
J13

1 = “Low”, 2 = ”High”

Integer between 0 and 600
Integer between 0 and 600
Up to five characters per name, names separated by hyphens

FURTHER INFORMATION
Resources are available for airport and nav-aid designers at the X-Plane Scenery Gateway at http://gateway.x-plane.com/
X-Plane Airway Data (earth_awy.dat) File Specification

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