Flight Planning Software

[matta757]

Hey guys,

What software are you using for flight route planning? Are you using the defaul FS software or some other piece of software? If you're not using flight sim to plan, what are the pros or cons of what you are using? I am looking for a comprehensive flight planner and would like some real-people feedback!

I am currently using FS Commander 9 for my flight planning. I like it because it provides the ability to plan with SIDS and STARS. It gives a route string after planning which can be used as the flight planned route. I take that route string, copy it into the TOPCAT loadsheet and print it off.

What I don't like about FSC is that it's not all that user friendly and can be cumbersome. I also wish it had MORE options for printing detailed flight plans and also did a better job regarding forecasting fuel usage. That's my main reason for starting this topic, I'd like to know what you guys are using and what features they have in the hopes that something better than FSC is out there.

Matt

[hexpope]

I use  Vroute for my flight planing at the moment (with the latest AIRAC) and the online website for fuel planning which is http://fuel.aerotexas.com/ (online based fuel planner) it never let me down so far. All free which is good. The PAX load etc, I use FSPassengers.

[rhysb]

Fsbuild and topcat for me, as fsbuild neatly exports straight into the aircrafts format.

[saabpilot]

I mostly use Vroute Premium as it can export direct into the FMS and have a huge plan library.
If the route does not exist in Vroute, (seldom happen with EU routes) I use Jeppesen.
A bonus is that the routing will be accepted on the VATSIM network.

Sometime after Jan 1st 2012, the authors of TopCat say they will release a brand new flight planner.
Considering TopCat is a superb application I believe the planner will be super too.   

Bjorn

[blueskydriver]

You need AivlaSoft EFB.

[Maurice]

Fsbuild and topcat for me, as fsbuild neatly exports straight into the aircrafts format.

I use Fsbuild as well. Very easy to use if you just want the route but it has much more functionality as long as you care to spend time reading the manual. It does let you choose SIDs or STARs as well but I really don't know if the program always selects the right SID or STAR automatically for a particular route. Perhaps Rhys can comment on that.

The graphics that display the route though are absolutely horrible but you don't really need a graphic display, so not that big a deal.

Maurice

[Perik]

Hello Matt

For flight planning you have at least these few options:
FSC, FSbuild, http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/ and the manual way ;-)

For the moment I use FSC 8.6 due to support for daily NAT tracks
and a few other nice feature (FMC export) but the GUI is some real crap
Not tested the new version (9.0) though. I believe FSC and FSbuild is about the
same when it comes to flight planning.

All other; Vroute, EFB's etc. is nice but none is capable of generating
a flight plan as far as I know. I use Vroute Premium quite often to make a
nice print-out of the Flight-plan and FSC while online to get airport charts,
overview of ATC and other A/C.
Really looking forward to "an all inclusive" solution if ever.
BTW - http://www.navdata.at/ is a must if you need/want
updated charts, SID's and STAR's, but do add some cost.

[mikeh]

I use Vroute where suitable but I'm a luddite and like flying radio Nav rather than FMC & Fixes so I tend to use FSC and airways. Mainly fly in UK and near europe due to speed of the ATR I fly. but I like things to do during the flight rather than letting the uppity computer do it for me - but whatever floats your boat I reckon - I'm not looking for converts to the luddite camp, just enjoying flying

[rhysb]

Fsbuild and topcat for me, as fsbuild neatly exports straight into the aircrafts format.

I use Fsbuild as well. Very easy to use if you just want the route but it has much more functionality as long as you care to spend time reading the manual. It does let you choose SIDs or STARs as well but I really don't know if the program always selects the right SID or STAR automatically for a particular route. Perhaps Rhys can comment on that.

The graphics that display the route though are absolutely horrible but you don't really need a graphic display, so not that big a deal.

Maurice your right fsbuild is an excellent tool as it can be used simply to build and export a route or if you go a lot deeper into it you can get a bit more out of it.
As far as SIDS and stars go your right it doesn't choose the correct one normally just the first in the list for that runway or most used not really the correct one. But on that note SIDS and stars can change for many factors hence why we only select the right one later on once all weather act and traffic data is in place.

I tend to fly in the sim the same as the real thing so I use fsbuild and topcat to produce the paperwork,load sheets etc and then get in the sim and do the work needed as if it was a line carrier flight.

I tend to fly with virtual airlines now who will give you a flight plan etc or look at the recent real world flights to determine routes,

Miss our group flights Maurice be good to fly over oz again!

Rhys

[Maurice]

Miss our group flights Maurice be good to fly over oz again!

Rhys

I miss that too Rhys. I had a lot of fun that one time but soon after that, I had to dismantle my sim and it took me more than 2 years to be airborne again. Would love to fly online again once I am ready so maybe in a few months we can arrange a group fly-in  Maybe we can even coax Tim out of 'retirement' 

Getting back to flight planning, I have a heck of a time figuring out what is the correct STAR for a particular approach & I almost always choose the wrong one altogether and especially the transitions. I find it very hard to determine what is best by just looking at the STAR charts. I tried to do it with FSBUILD but if it is possible, it certainly is not easy with their lousy graphics.

Do you have a better way or do you rely on the virtual airlines to do the dirty work for you 

Thanks,

Maurice

[Bob Reed]

There is a TeamSpeak server and a FS server running for Cockpitbuilders. All the fun of online with none of the stuff if you are just looking to fly someplace together.

[Maurice]

There is a TeamSpeak server and a FS server running for Cockpitbuilders. All the fun of online with none of the stuff if you are just looking to fly someplace together.

Very good to know Bob but I will certainly need instructions on how to access the server. Are they available on this site somewhere?

Thanks,
Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Glad this has been brought up about online, group or virtual flying. Since going back to using the 3 window views to get the 180 degree on the projectors, anything to do with Gamespy will not allow three views to be used.

You can go to a room or session and try selecting a load (to load a premade 180 degree FLT file), but it will load that first, and then immediately do a reload with 3 windows that all have the same views (no 180 degree corrections). Thus, the questions is, what happens when you fly in other online sites like VatSim or whatever? It shouldn't change like Gamespy is doing...right?

It's not about flying on Gamespy, but just want to know what happens at other sites, so that way we can join something or somewhere else.

Oh, sorry didnt mean to hi-jack. Since we did, at least we can do is contribute to the thread question.

Matt, Maurice, Rhys and others, here is some info regarding the EFB. AivlaSoft EFB will use RouteFinder (here: http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/) and VATRoute (here: http://www.vatroute.net/) to help find the routes (by the way, you can use Routefinder and VATRoute without using EFB ), and if you use Navigraph updates (which PM uses, as well as AivlaSoft) you will have the most up-to-date SIDS and STARS. Plus, in the EFB you can select the SIDS, STARS or Waypoints based off what it suggest. For example, if you are coming into KMSP from the West, the EFB will list the closest STAR from the West, like SKETR3. If you were coming from the West and South, it would suggest a West STAR likewise, but from the South as well, so TWOLF2.12B (for 12R and FOD transition). In the case of saying where you are coming from and going to, but pre-planing the STAR and Arrival, and then the weather changes enroute, you just select on-screen buttons for North, South, East and West (or combinations thereof) to find the right STAR or SID. In other words, it helps find the data for you before, during and after, so it is AI smart in a sense.

With things like changing Arrivals and Approaches based on the most current METAR, you can look at the METAR report right in the EFB (like you'd see in a hand printout), or let the EFB translate the data for you (the easy read way), and then you select the correct runway based on what it sees as the favorable winds. And, it even suggest which one based on how much runway length it thinks you need based on weight, as well as wind direction. Besides this, the EFB is a Moving Map with on-screen Traffic (with Data), a Point to Point planner, a flight log manager and flight data translator that saves the data in several formats:

1. EFB  .efbr format
2. FS9 and FSX .pln formats
3. iFly .FLTPLAN format
4. ISG Flightplan .RTE format
5. KML Rout and Placemarks .kml format
6. PMDG JS4100 .RTE format
7. PMDG .rt2 format

Likely, PMDG 737NGX will be added soon. Although, you don't need to wait because it should be able to use FSX .pln format, so using EFB FSX .pln, you would save it as such, then import it into PMDG CDU. In fact, that is exactly, how we do it with PM. That simple. Did we mention, it has the flight restrictions placed; well, that is if you're using current Navigraph Data (or old, but if you change/update Navigraph for PM, you should be changing it for EFB, so the right restrictions are being used).

Additionally, the EFB works with FSX, REX, HiFi ASA or ASE and NOAA weather engines. So, when you're looking at the METARs, you can be sure the weather it reports, is the weather you will be seeing in FSX (FS9).

Consequently, we have TopCat also, but the last Navigraph data is outdated and is not being updated, and after sending emails to both Christian Gill from TopCat and the Navigraph Support Team, it seems the two have a communication issue going on. One wants it, the other wants to do it, but the formatting between the two programs is causing issues. Although, this not something that has been just discovered, it has been a long while since Christian asked Navigraph. Sort of like one of those "He said, She said or He Said, They Said"...

Still that is no reason to not use TopCat, in fact it with AivlaSoft EFB, and IS by Luis Gordo is the best trio to have thus far for planning, load control, and adding inclusive (meaning timed failures) or on-demand failures (meaning at the push of a button). Now, combine all three of these and use them with an Ipad (on Air Display), you'll have the ultimate flight control characteristics in the palm of your hand.


Finally, we've been working on some videos to post on youtube real soon, and we are giving an overview on the EFB. BUT, you all know by now how slow we do things here at the BSD Team Insanity House! We can say tomorrow, and it would be next year; we could say next year and it'll be tonight. Heck! Bob has to email us 5 times before we pull our "heads out of the sand" and answer...right Bob? Nothing new though, just the way things works for 1/2 half of our team...

Hopefully, this has answered some of the questions you have.

Best Regards,

BSD Team and all of what it's CRACKED up to be!

[Maurice]

Hello Blueskydriver,

Are you sure you don't own shares in Aviasoft? If you don't, you should as you are doing a great job of selling it 

It certainly has fantastic features, but what I don't like about it is that you need a PC and you cannot use it with an Ipad if I am not mistaken.

That would not be so bad if you could print the charts but it does not let you do that either. So how do you see the charts in the cockpit?

I may be totally wrong here & if I am, please set me straight because I do love the Aviasoft EFB features.

Thanks,
Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Maurice,

Short answer (been up since 3:30am), thank you about my EFB sales pitching, but no I don't have shares. Maybe, I should though, like you suggest...

Yes, you do need a PC and it works on the Ipad, but not as an Ipad dedicated App. That's where Air Display comes in, as it makes the Ipad another monitor to the PC. However, you could use a laptop just as easy or a tablet PC in the cockpit, and do away with the Ipad all together.

As for the charts, yes it does show you the charts and the moving map follows the charts based on which segement of the flight you are in: Ground, Dep, Enroute, Arrival, Approach, Ground.

As far as I know, at the moment, it does not print the charts, but you would not need them printed out, since the charts are following you in the Moving Map. That is where, in our case, the Ipad comes in. We just mount it via Velcro to the side panel clipboard location. Will post a pic in the AM...

Best Regards,

BSD Team

[Maurice]

Maurice,

Yes, you do need a PC and it works on the Ipad, but not as an Ipad dedicated App. That's where Air Display comes in, as it makes the Ipad another monitor to the PC. However, you could use a laptop just as easy or a tablet PC in the cockpit, and do away with the Ipad all together.
BSD Team

You should go to bed now  . But if you are still up, another question that can surely wait until tomorrow. I have read about the Air Display and my understanding is that it turns the Ipad into a dumb terminal and you cannot use the touchpad to change screens.

So this makes the Ipad relatively useless in the cockpit. The best scenario I think would be to use something like the Dell Inspiron Duo although the touchpad ability is much more limited since Windows is not touchpad friendly. Still, better than leaving the cockpit & running to the PC with the EFB software.

I wish Aviasoft would get off their high horses about saving the planet & let you print the charts. To me, it is ridiculous that they don't let customers decide if they want to print or not. Just for that, I will not likely buy their product unless they made it available as an app on the Ipad.

My 2 cents anyway,

Maurice

[rhysb]

Maurice,

Indeed reading star charts can be difficult when your unsure but really easy when you know how (although I should know how to read them!).

Maybe something we can do on a group flight bud? Always happy to help. You just need to always make sure that your route ends with an entry point into that airports star system. Just remember SIDS and stars are for the cockpit stage of a flight and not the flight planning stage.

Plus if you fly online the act will normally give you an indictation. Just remember when planning an arrival work back from the runway! So once you know the runway choose the approach then choose the star to that approach and then check it back the other way to the runway.


The other question is no if you connect to vatsim this doesn't affect your 3 window setups.

[Maurice]

So once you know the runway choose the approach then choose the star to that approach and then check it back the other way to the runway.

Thanks Rhys but that is precisely where I have a problem. Since I don't fly online (not yet anyway), I am alone in the cockpit with a CDU that gives me all the choices available. If I'm not mistaken, a real FMC should only show you the ones that make sense for a particular arrival based on your point of departure. But it seems that I get all the STARS and all the available transitions and I know for a fact that most of the choices are nowhere near what the correct one should be.

The choice of STAR should happen when you are close enough to the airport and you know the landing runway and when you are alone in the cockpit, it seems you would have to pause the simulation & thumb through all the charts to find the one that makes sense since there can be lots of STARS in big airports.

So basically, the only realistic way to fly in a simulator would be to fly online so that ATC assigns the correct STAR. Failing that, it would seem that the PAUSE button is the only way unless you have a co-pilot with you perhaps.

Matt, I hope this is not a real hijack of your thread since you asked  about SIDs & STARS as well and this is relevant. If you prefer, I could ask the administrators to move this discussion somewhere else.

Thanks,

Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Good Morning,

Back at it today and here is an answer for you Maurice. The Ipad still works as normal. The problem was in past versions, the Air Display, that relies on WiFi would disconnect, and then you would have to go to the PC and reconnect. That makes no sense if you have to get out of the cockpit to restart it on the PC. You could use a laptop in the cockpit to do this PC portion, but it can be real silly when someone says "Can I sit in the FO" seat and you have to stop and remove a laptop.

The other problem Air Display had, was if you click the main Ipad button and switch to something else (like Safari browser) and then came back to Air Display, the Air Display would be disconnected. Or, you would normally get a message saying, you have a minute to go back to Air Display on the Ipad or it will disconnect. That has been addressed, even more so after we complained to the author of Air Display about it. However, it is not 100% yet, it will still disconnect after soon long, if you do not go back to it on the Ipad.

A work around is to keep your Ipad plugged in...why? Because after so long and when the battery starts to run down, the WiFi is the first thing to turn off for the Ipad. Apple does not say this, but after using two Ipads (version 1 and 2) with Air Display for 8 months, the first thing to go is WiFi when power begins to drop.

As for the touchscreen function with the Ipad and the EFB, IS or Topcat, there is no problems; the Ipad works as it should and you enter data via the Ipad via Air Display back to the PC where the programs are running. So, is it worth it? Yes! To control 3 programs and also have all the Ipad Apps available to do other things with is great. Sometimes, while sitting in the cockpit, flying a four hour, real-time flight from (KLAS-KMSP) we would switch out from the Air Display to Safari and checkout Cockpit Builders and make postings from there; although, the meaning of peck & hunt typing is really true with Ipads on-screen keyboard.

Finally, would we suggest you use the Ipad or go buy it for this sole reason? Yes and No. Yes, if have other reasons and ways to use the Ipad, and likely there will be more Ipad specific Apps for FSX soon (actually Aerosoft has the radio panel now). Even EFB could be made as an Ipad App someday. For the No reason, the Ipads are not cheap and you could do the same thing with a long monitor cable and a small (cheap) monitor that has touchscreen ability. All in all though, this route, of an Ipad or a cheap touchscreen, is much cheaper than using Jeppesen services over the long run.

BSD

[Maurice]

Mucho thanks BSD. That explains a lot of things I was wondering about and so now the decision is which touchscreen. I think I will buy the EFB software now & play with it on a straight PC and that will determine the route I take (metaphorically speaking of course) 

Thanks again for the detailed explanation,

Maurice

[matta757]

Maurice,

I don't mind you hijacking my thread at all! In fact, I have my own inputs to add about the usage of STARS. Now, I don't know if you are flying with Radar Contact (which I am) but when I do my flight planning in FSC (Flight Sim Commander) there are a few steps I take in order to properly plan my flight.

1) If I am flying a REAL flight (like last night I flew Delta 122 SFO-JFK) then I go to FlightAware.com and look up the flight. Flight Aware is AWESOME in that it gives you the route string for the flight you look up. It also shows you what level the flight cruised at, when it took off and arrived and everything you could want to know like if it performed step climbs, etc.

2) Looking at the route string, you can determine which SID and STAR was used. So next I fire up FSC. I put in the Origin and Destination airports and before doing anything else, I load the weather. The main reason for loading the weather is to check and see which runway is MOST LIKELY to be used by flight sim.** Once I have determined which runways will be used for both takeoff and landing, I can proceed with flight planning.

3) Back to the Flight Aware route string. First, I copy the route string EXCEPT for the SID and STAR portions into the route box on FSC and click "Go" (because FSC gets confused if you copy the SID and STAR into the string). This loads up the initial flight path WITHOUT the SID or STAR selected. Then I select the SID, which is usually runway specific. So using DL 122 as my example, out of SFO I knew I'd be using runway 28L and the SFO8 SID. I add the SID to the route. Then I select the STAR. STARS can be much easier to add because their not ALWAYS runway specific. For instance, last night I flew the LENDY5 STAR into JFK. The LENDY5 is not runway specific, it's just a particular string of waypoints with some crossing and speed restrictions so I didn't have to also select runway 22L (which I knew based on the winds I would be using).

4) If the STAR is runway specific, I do my best to try to figure out which runway will be used. Now, given that several hours lapse between planning and the arrival and real-world-weather often changes the runway orientation, STAR planning is not always perfect. But in my experience, I have learned that MOST STARS have the same initial waypoint routing and then radar vectors to the final approach, so it's not that big of a deal within the game if the runways changed, I still get vectored by RC anyways.

5) I select the cruise altitude in FSC, save the plan, fire it up in RC, load up the sim and away we go. That's my basic overview for how I use SIDS and STARS given the constraints of the simulation vs. real world practices. In Flight Sim you have to plan a certain route and at least with RC, there is no changing that route once you start the game like their is in real life.

Hope that all makes sense,
Matt

**I say most likely because everyone once and a while, Flight Sim takes the winds to be different and uses a different runway. This is a pain because for SIDS especially, the waypoint routing usually changes. So if I plan for a particular runway and load that route in RC then Flight Sim uses a different runway, I miss my departure route waypoints. In these cases, I end up flying the CORRECT SID WAYPOINTS and not the RC waypoints and then as soon as I can, I request a direct with RC to the common waypoint for the SID (usually the waypoint the SID is named after).

[Maurice]

Matt,

I printed the RC manual a long time ago and I figured then I was too old to have time to read & absorb it all. There is a lot of stuff in there which I did not find particularly exciting to read, so I gave up on RC, and also because I really don't care about following instructions from a computer generated voice. It's either 'real' ATC for me or doing my own flight planning without ATC. And also my flights are seldom longer than an hour or so, so changing weather conditions are not much of a factor.

So until I muster the courage to fly online & let ATC figure out which STAR I need to follow, I still want to learn how to do this myself and not rely on RC or other simulated ATC. I would have done this by now already but I'm still finishing my sim and so not that much time to fly lately.

With Fsbuild, good flight planning is possible but very awkward I find since the graphics they use to display the path are really bad and it is hard to determine the best STAR to select without also looking at all the STAR charts at the same time. For me, an ideal flight planner would be one that gives a good visual representation of the path with all the waypoints so that the best route would be obvious.

Unfortunately, I don't think such a program exists and that's why I am going to investigate the Aviasoft EFB software. Apparently the EFB software suggests the best STAR for a particular route and if that is the case, then that will likely be my final choice.

Maurice

[matta757]

Maurice,

I totally understand all that. I have many frustrations with RC. The problem with doing something like VATSIM is that it doesn't allow for one's own AI traffic. It completely clears out the traffic and instead has the other people you're flying with. I love the idea of live ATC, but as discussed in a previous topic, my AI traffic also means a lot to me. It's a trade off I guess.

But getting back to STARS... you should take a look at FSC. It allows you to display all the STARS at an airport and pick the one that suits your route the best. I may be mistaken, but it seems that's the feature you have been looking for?

All the best,
Matt

[mikeh]

Not sure if I want to get into the middle of this conversation but my 2 pennyworth is

1 Remember the prime purpose of a STAR is to get the pilot to a holding tank - not a runway - this is certainly true in Europe.  If flying on unicom or under ATC with no holdups then often the last leg to the holding tank is left out and vectoring sent to move pilot into the route to ILS interception

2 On my very limited use of FMC's (see luddite tendancies above) vasfmc2 etc  if I enter the receiving runway just before entering the STAR then only the relevant STAR's are given based on the end of route waypoint since your route should always end in a valid STAR insertion point based on your direction of arrival

[Maurice]

Yes Matt, I remember you talking about your AI traffic and I was amazed you could run it at such a high value without running into a slide show. I can't have more than about 20% traffic at any major airport without the frame rated taking a steep nose dive.

So, AI traffic is not that important to me as long as I can see some airplanes on the ground. Wish more airports had static aircraft just for the ambience like the old Kaitak airport for instance.

Anyway, I took a quick look at FSC and it does look very interesting. I like one of their graphics example that shows a SID selection. So I'll download the evaluation version and play with it. That could be all I really need.

Thanks,
Maurice