| AVSIM Column "Contrails" Flight Planning for FS2002 By Maury Pratt |
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Now that I'm creating a "preferred" flight simulation environment for my new system, I've taken the opportunity—which comes along only "once in a blue moon"—to look over the many things that have accumulated on my previous machine and rethink what really works well together. I thought it might be helpful to those of you who enjoy flying air transports as much as I do to share the rationale behind my picks of available flight planning tools. So this commentary traces my own thought process in selecting and installing these software packages—for the specific features they provide beyond what already is available in the default FS2002. In addition to Flight Planners I've included a brief look at setting up SquawkBox (I'll discuss Radar Contact for off-line ATC in a future 'Contrails'). Remember, all this is one man's opinion—your mileage may vary.
First I'll describe briefly my simulation environment as context:
Mainly I like the Boeing 757s, 767s, 777s and an occasional Airbus 320. One reason is that the panels used with these planes include fully functional Flight Management Computers (FMCs) — using the Wilco (Eric Ernst/Wade Chafe) 767PIC and Phoenix Simulation Software (PSS) 777 and Airbus series aircraft. (PSS offers an equally impressive B-747 but I'd rather not make such long journeys ;-) With regard to the visual quality of planes in 'spot' view, the PSS products are superb, but I find Wilco's to be less so. I've substituted freeware 767-200/300s from Project Opensky for those, using Lee Harrington's recent 'PICPOSKY2.zip' and 'PICPOSKY3.zip' (download the files B762 PIC/POSKYv3 Merge (for the 767-200) or B763 PIC/POSKYv3 Merge (for the 767-300) to integrate the Posky model and texture files with Wilco's panel and sound files. (Some excellent 757s are coming along that share the PIC panel too.)
Most of my flying is stand-alone, but flying with SquawkBox also influenced the flight planner choices I'll discuss here. Live ATC is of course SB's major attraction—a rough equivalent for stand-alone flying is the shareware "Radar Contact" product. But why not just use FS2002's built-in flight planner and ATC?
Which flight planning package is best?
Well, FS2002—as good as it is—is designed to appeal to the mass market. Its flight planning and ATC implementation is fine for most to enjoy a comprehensive flying experience, but there are shortcomings in each that considerably limit it for those seeking realism in air transport flying. That limitation has to do with DPs, STARs and IAPs. You can look up the needed VORs and intersections—to fly airport departures, terminal arrivals and then the approach to the designated runway—in charts and then manually record those in FS2002's flight planner, but the built-in ATC generally won't track these fixes (due to built-in fix spacing rules it simply vectors you directly to the IAP (but without knowledge of underlying terrain). Also, in real-world flying you're obliged to observe speed and altitude crossing restrictions at designated points in the DP and/or STAR; these aren't recognized by FS2002's flight planner (and hence its GPS) or its built-in ATC. One more thing: there are often 'holds' in real-world flying; you'll doubtless encounter these flying on-line with SB (and flying off-line with Radar Contact as well). These can be set up "on the fly" (so to speak!) using an add-on FMC, just as you can key in your destination airport runway (and find its ILS course and frequency) aloft as instructed by ATC.
Without going into the finer points of air transport pilotage, suffice it to say that you'll want a flight planning package that offers sufficient realism. In fact you may want more than one, as each offers refinements others lack. While there's a number of those out there, I'll cut to the chase—download Ernie Alston's freeware FSBuild and, for a modest $40 also get Helge Schroeder's FSNavigator 4.5. Why two packages? Well, while both will prepare flight plans for you, each has quite different strengths (and some limitations).
As a general consideration, any contemporary flight planner will 'auto-generate' a more-or-less reasonable flight plan for you. But the results aren't likely to reflect published routings; you'll get only an approximation. So I'll describe how each of these two planners assists you in creating 'real-world' flight plans—albeit manually. Each of these two planners have cleverly automated aids that help you create highly detailed flight plans.
Planning flights with FSNav…
In a nutshell, FSNav is a full-fledged planner; its principal feature is a 'World map' that scales down to individual airports, their runways and ILS data. As its underlying map details are scanned from your actual FS2002 scenery files (airports, VORs and NDBs); those will be accurately placed on the map. Also in its plan view you'll see a full complement of DPs (SIDs) and STARs; and on the map both high- and low-level airways (with their labels; any object types can be toggled on or off). You can see all the 5-character intersections within any area you select, and also airport Class B airspace with their altitude restrictions.
You create a flight plan by selecting your aircraft type and cruising altitude, then select and drag the desired airport departure runway from the map to the planning box, and then the arrival airport/runway. Next you open the SID list and select a departure route (from the choices provided for that runway) and drag that to your flight plan; similarly select a STAR associated with your expected arrival runway to generate its approach waypoints on the plan's arrival airport line. You can also select individual waypoints at an airway's entry waypoint, intermediate waypoints along an airway, and at the airway's departure waypoint (if these are different from the transitions already selected) and add these to your flight plan. It also picks up altitude crossing restrictions as published for the selected STAR. All navaids frequencies are included—as is the case with virtually any planner, except that FSNav will also dial in these frequencies for you as you transition from one fix to another if you so choose. But then so does the FMS, so for me this feature is redundant.
FSNav isn't an independent program; it runs as a 'module' from within FS2002—you call it up with the F9 key (or other key if you so choose), and in the simulator view you can see your aircraft overlaid on a 'moving map' at all times. Best of all, the moving map works in multi-player mode, so you can see where each person's plane is during flight! Also it can function as a flight management computer and fly the entire flight plan automatically—or you can opt to load the flight plan into your plane's FMC (as I prefer to do). BTW, the planner's moving map feature is one reason I'm using two monitors!
This last point brings us to the question, how do I get this flight plan into the FMS I'm using? Well, there's an 'export' function to place it in FS2002's flight folder where it can be loaded into either the simulator's GPS, or better yet into your plane's FMC—or perhaps not. We already know that some of the flight plan's details will be lost if we go with the GPS, and we won't be using FS' native ATC anyway. So what options does FSNav offer? You're in luck if you want to fly on-line with SB or off-line with Radar Contact, as there are direct export options for those. But that's about it. So for flights planned in FSNav, we have to print out the flight plan and re-enter it all manually into our FMS. (Of course, that plan can subsequently be saved by the FMS for future use.)
… And with FSBuild
So let's consider FSBuild, which includes export options to every known planner and aircraft FMS, as well as to SB and Radar Contact! The price is right, but there's no map feature. True, you can usually find and download (or at least print) DP, STAR and IAP charts (available from a variety of web sites—some resources are provided at this paper's conclusion) so that you visualize their orientation and easily choose the one(s) that best suit your planned route, but the convenience of having all this in one place in FSNav's map is compelling. So I use both.
Given that FSBuild's author, Ernie Alston, is a well-known VATSIM PC flight controller (Los Angeles Sector) his innovative flight planner is conceptually close to FAA practices. You can look up and enter a 'flight strip' much like the flight plan route you enter in SB: as a single line with departure airport, SID, transition, airway(s), transition, STAR, and arrival airport (each separated by a <->, except for transitions which include a <.>). For example, the flight plan from Los Angeles Int'l to Denver Int'l might look like this:
After you select your aircraft type and desired cruise altitude, the headings, distance, altitudes, speeds, fuel consumption, times, etc. are computed for you. FS Build will export the flight plan in the correct FMS format for the plane you're flying, to SquawkBox or Radar Contact if desired, and also to FSNav or any other planner that's currently checked in the export selection list—and that's it.
But what if you don't know what the correct routing is? Well, almost all the routes you're likely to want to fly have already been planned—based on published FAA 'preferred' routes (for North America) where available, and in many instances from actual airline flights—so you'll likely find it in FSBuild's database. How's that for convenience? Just type in the departure city and hit "Search by Stored FP City Name," then select the arrival city and it's done. All this takes only a few seconds!
Want to visualize the result? Ah ha, now you start FS2002, go to your departure airport, open your plane's FMS, and load the flight plan you've just created. After a quick look there to be sure all's well, put your panel Nav display in 'plan' mode and cycle the FMS through each fix-you'll see your route mapped on the CRT, together with those lovely programmed curves from your initial departure fix and to the approach localizer's ILS IAP.
And, of course if you ticked the check box for FSNav your flight plan will be saved there as well. You can see the route and its waypoints there, in context with surrounding ground features, airways and so forth—and by opening its map view while in flight you'll have a visual reference to your flight's progress if you like.
Well, that's the important stuff. There's more subtle nuances, like the fact that the flight plan FSBuild creates assumes you'll be flying with ATC in some form—as neither the departure runway nor arrival runway is specified (in the flight plan; though the expected runway information is used in selecting a valid SID or STAR). BTW, this is consistent with actual practice, as you won't know these details until you check ATIS and request clearance, and upon entering airspace near the destination airport—that's a function of current weather and traffic. STARs, by definition, have nothing to do with runway orientation (or even a particular airport for that matter if there's several in a terminal area). So that's where the plane's FMC comes in; just as in real life, you'll key in the assigned runway and perhaps select a different DP as well; similarly, you can program arrival details (and holds if you encounter those)—as you'll be following a Controller's instructions; he'll provide vectors to intercept the localizer anyway.
Concluding remarks (and some resources)
So the point is this: You'll need a flight planner even if it's as simple as FSBuild—to set up the initial flight plan—and you'll use your plane's FMC for the dynamic stuff, responding to controller's instructions (even if it's an imaginary controller; you still need to know both airport's current weather—Marc Philibert's FS Meteo is great for this).
Kind of as a 'post-script' I should mention that your navigation information needn't get out of date. There's an amazing website, Richard Stefan's NAVData (you'll need to register, but it's free) where you can download updated airway, intersection, and navaids files for specific planners; also there's current SID, STAR, and IAP files (by airport) for the 767PIC! Coverage is world-wide.
Another great resource is links to the flight sim ARTCC sites you can access at VATSIM's main page. Many of these offer scores of printable charts as well as a wealth of flight plans.
So there's a wealth of great stuff out there, especially to enjoy along with SquawkBox (see the SIDEBAR - Setting up SquawkBox for more). And in my next 'Contrails' article we'll look over Radar Contact. By the way, I'm sure I'll be hearing from many of you, mainly along the lines of "But what about... " (and an occasional correction <G>). Feel free to write me, or click on Feedback' below and post it there. I'll respond where I can (and perhaps update the article with the idea that this and subsequent articles might serve as a resource for others down the road). Oh, and if you find it helpful, I'd like to hear that too!
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