Flight Planning.

[Guest venquessa]

I am getting tired of the long method in flight planning I have used for a while with the NG, which is like so..- Pick an airway to start on that will take you in roughly the right direction that is long and you can stay on for as long as possible. Some of the UL-6xx range for trans-europe for example.- From the point you have to change airways, I try and again find the longest running airway in my rough direction. - Eventually I fly a couple of positioning airways to get to the start of the STAR for the arrival airport.Usually this ends up with the direct GPS distance + about 10%.The problem I have with this is that MyFSNav is out of registration and although I am toying with buying it, I still have to use the FS Map for flight planning.An example where it becomes really difficult is in the middle east, were the airways are not only changing, but they stop for every border! FS's default airac and the PMDG ones, have massive differences down around Afganistan and that area, FS has UV8xx airways, PMDG doesn't.I tried FSBuild, but, it has some problems, or at least my copy does. I asked it for a flight plan from EGLL to VTBD (Bangkok) and it came back with 6222nm. It's only 5200nnm by the default FS plan. I found it has in several places, flown to a fix hundreds of miles off course and back onto course in a huge spike. Therefore I don't trust it.Are there any suggestions as to an easier way to pick long routes through the airways?

[Guest zip]

Paul, have you asked Ernie on the FSBuild forums? He's pretty good about this.

[Vulcan 14]

Paul,Two major problems I have with the default FS planner are1) Map is too small to create any meaningful flight plan2) You cannot update the database so it will always be out of date with the PMDG data.I use FSNav a lot and have used it for years, I bought FSBuild2 but I prefer FSNav, probably because I have used it for so long.My method of planning.Go to http://rfinder.asalink.net/, click on 'free area' on the right of the main page.Enter your departure and destination airports and cruise level, tick the SID & STAR boxes, the RNAV equiped and the RAD boxes.You will get back a complete route in both long form and short form from which you can enter the details into the PMDG FMC.The only problems I have encountered have been entry and exit routes for the UK so I check these with the current UK Standard Route Document.If those entry/exit routes are incorrect I put the FP into FSNav and amend the plan to use the correct entry/exit routes.It does take some time but a lot quicker than your current method I suspect.HTHDave

[Balint 18]

Vulcan,OFF, but the site under this link is rather a mighty good utility. Thanks for sharing with us, who did not know it existed.Cheers,

[Guest venquessa]

Thanks Guys,I forked out for FSNav last night, Awwooch! 35EURO I thought it was cheaper than that. Oh well.Anyway, I downloaded the 0804 Airac for the PMDG and for FSNav, but I still have differences in the UK airways. The main route I fly, because it leaves from my home airport (EGAC) heading into England is the L10, BEL-IOM-WAL-HON, but FSNav has it called the UB3, the FMC has no UB3 and the only way to fix these differences is opening the FMCWP RTE file and search for fixes to see what the FMC calls the airways, which is not ideal.(Would it be possible for the FMC to have a selection for airways? Once you enter say, BEL to HON, the VIA column could be clicked and a list of possible airways come up?)I'll give that website a go for longer routes, also teh BAW virtual website can be quite good for IRL flight plans, to limited destinations.The other thing I wanted to say was that planning long international routes, or especially trans-europe, middle east etc is NOT easy to get it "as real as it gets", there are issues.Correct me if I am wrong in any of these.1. A lot of airways are broken up as they cross country borders, this is usually just a name change.2. Airlines would generally have to ask in advance about scheduling routes across various countries.3. Airlines need to stay current with the geo-political situation, especially in the middle east. For example, I would guess Iraq is currently not open for civil flight crossing. Similar things would be the case elsewhere in the middle east and possibly south eastern europe. There are countries in the middle east who probably wouldn't think twice about sticking a SAM up your planes *ss if you entered the wrong place and the wrong time.4. Countries have their own preferred entry and exit routes and crossing routes.5. Some routes, just don't have airways going in the right direction. For example London - Bangkok should probably go north over the Caspian Sea and then south east over Afganastan Pakasstan area, but there are very few East bound airways across Eastern Europe and Kasakstan, so you are forced south through central europe, yukoslavia etc. on one of the UL series.I also thought that maybe it's best to take a route that tries to minimize the number of countries you pass through. If one airway crosses say 10 countries and another nearby only crosses 5, it might be prudent to take the second, even if it's slightly longer.So... All in all, to plan long haul or holiday style flights properly is not an easy task at all.Any thoughts?

[Vulcan 14]

I think you have a problem with FSNav regarding L10 Paul.My version of FSNav does show L10 (a low level route) following the VORs you state.I think you have probably not run the FSNav database program after downloading the 0804 cycle.If you run the 0804 executable all that does is put the updated files into the correct FSNav folder, you then have to run the FSNav database program to aactually update FSNav.I will respond to your other questions as best I am able considering I am not involved in real World airline ops.1) True but not a problem if you use the web site I gave a link for.2) Airlines have dedicated departments to do the flight planning and my understanding is they often negotiate direct routings (not using airways) to keep the trip mileage down. This is not something we can easily do for flight simming unless you have access to RL routes.3) True again but they have far more resources and access to information we as simmers don't have.The other week I was flying to Israel and got 'routefinder' to give me a route. However as neared somewhere around Slovenia the VATSIM controller told me I couldn't fly the route I had planned because of restricted airspace. Something I think we have to accept when simming.4) Most of the time. If you look at the VATSIM web site for the country you will often find these preferred routes listed or linked to.These VATSIM and IVAO sites are a valuable resource for airport charts, procedures and routes.5) If you use routeplanner it should give you a reasonable route whatever the destination and should respect one-way airways.If you really want to get involved with correct route planning in Europe you an always validate your flight plan via the EuroControl web site but it is not for the faint hearted :-)It all boils down to how near RL you want to get given the limitations of FS and access to information.At its simplest level just fly direct form A to B, except don't try this if flying with VATSIM or IVAO ;-)Or you can check every detail of your flight plan with all the resources you can find such as EuroControl restricted routes and country specific details.HTH

[crvm 0]

You can also find some hard core fellows around with real world routing for particular airlines so ask around you might get lucky. Many of the Virtual guys have routes galore and I am sure would not mind sharing...Best Wishes,[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4][h3]P M D G's 747-400[/h3][h4]coming to a runway near you[/h4][/font color]Caution! Not a real pilot, but do play one on TV ;-)AMD 64 3200+ | ASUS KV8 DELUXE | GFORCE 5700 ULTRA @535/1000 | Maxtor 6Y080M0 SATA 80 GIG | 512 DDR 400 | Windows Xp Pro | Windows Xp Pro 64 |

[Guest venquessa]

I'm pretty much surrendering to trans-europe and international, and will just use the route planner you posted the link to.UK domestic routes and entry, exit routes are much easier the SRD on www.ais.org.uk covers everything you need for those.Thanks for the tip on updating FSNav, will try that now.

[Vulcan 14]

Paul,Considering your 'Present Interests' I think sticking to Trans-Europe is a good idea, in fact if your present interest develope you will be lucky to do Eupoean flights ;-)

[Guest Bpilot]

For Vulcan,Hello - I could not find the link you mentioned: http://rfinder.asalink.net/ - the server replies 'page not found'.Any clue? I

[falconno 0]

Try this one: http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/(There was a comma in the orig link)