Uploading waypoints from real world planner to the FS20

[Guest JonP01]

For some reason I had always thought the FS2002 GPS was forced to use only VORs, NDB or aerodromes as waypoints. Then I realised that you could manually add any waypoint in you like just through editing the .pln file.I have been using the real world Airnav flight planner for quite a while now, but only recently bothered to try it's in-built GPS upload function (I don't have a GPS unit, I just wanted to see what would happen). When I looked at the Airnav output file for the real world GPS (it uploads in OziExplorer format which can be used for Garmin units for example), I realised that it would only need a utility written to convert that output into an FS2002 .pln that will then upload into a standard FS2002 GPS. I tried it manually last night and got quite excited when I saw the exact same route on my FS2002 GPS that I had on the real world VTC printout in front of me!I'm just wondering whether other people are regularly doing this and if so, if there is already a utility to do this upload from OziEplorer?

[Guest JeanLuc_]

Hi JonP01,I'm not sure about OziExplorer, but note that Egbert Drenth has uploaded to avsim a database of more than 165,000 waypoints for the reality xp GPS. This unit not only allows one to add up to 200,000 user waypoints in its database (browsable, with user comments and that could be used in direct to mode or any other navigation mode of the GPS), but also reads any flight plan and treat not know waypoints (not in the database) as user waypoints too (but not browsable then).Hope it helps!

[ErnieAlston 33]

Sounds interesting, if you were able to do it manually then it shouldn't be much of a job to write a conversion utility.I'd be willing to write the conversion utility for you.Drop me an email with a few samples of the 'OziExplorer format' if you're interested.RegardsErnie.alstoer1@compuserve.com

[Guest JeanLuc_]

Actually, I did wrote my own personal EZLandmark database converter for my Flight Line Avionics GPS. Works pretty good! for my own use because of copyright issues. I would also be interested to have a look at this OziExplorer format. Could you send me a private message through avsim personnal messaging system?

[Guest The Ancient Brit]

JonPo1,"For some reason I had always thought the FS2002 GPS was forced to use only VORs, NDB or aerodromes as waypoints. Then I realised that you could manually add any waypoint in you like just through editing the .pln file."I can only answer the first part of your posting since the remainder is a bit too technical for me. Both FS2K and FS2K2 will accept the importation of waypoints, FS2K has a total limit of 1,000 waypoints per plan, but FS2K2 has no limit. When creating a flight plan I use the freebie utility

[Guest JonP01]

Thanks for the very helpful replies guys! Yes the manual conversion wasn't overly hard, as I just did exactly what The Ancient Brit did -that is I created formulas in Excel to convert the decimal coordinates to degrees, minutes and seconds. Then it was just a matter of doing the text file filling up the other bits of info and saving it as an FS2002 ".pln" file. The only other trick is that the real world flight planner has all the real aerodromes, whereas FS2002 is missing quite a lot. So you obviously can't create a real world flight plan from or to any aerdrome without first checking that aerodrome exists in FS2002. There was a third trick though - and that was that the first and last waypoints type "A" (aerodromes) need the elevation MSL inserted in the FS2002 pln file. I already had a database of these so that was OK.Ernie, your offer is extremely tempting as I haven't touched programming for about two years. But I might force myself to give this a go myself first up (as an Excel VB module in Office 2000) if only to help myself to remember how it is all done ;) I'll let you know if I run into insurmountable problems, but hopefully I will be OK!

[Guest The Ancient Brit]

JonPO1,There is a trap for the unwary in converting degrees from decimal to sexagesimal format in Excel since given certain data a result such as 30 degrees 60 minutes and 00 seconds (N30* 60.00') can be produced.. FS2K2 won

[Guest JonP01]

Thanks Dennis. I think I'm OK with it so far :-) I spent this afternoon doing the guts of the conversion utility (which is pretty much all the number crunching and writing the output text file in FS2002 format - but not the user interface). Since I was programming directly in Office VB (rather than using a spreadsheet), I wrote sub-routines to "calculate out" each waypoint conversion rather than rely on any preset or preconfigured conversion algorythm. I've been testing as many coordinate scenarios as I could over the last hour or so and so far (touch wood), my FS2002 GPS looks exactly like my paper VTC map and the plans are loading up OK. It actually bombed out at first if I tried a coordinate such as "S33* 00.00", "E144* 00.00" etc, so I had to change a few things to get around this sort of possibility. I'll naturally be testing quite a few more before I create my dialog boxes, etc.

[ErnieAlston 33]

> tried a coordinate such as "S33* 00.00", "E144* 00.00" etc, so I >had to change a few things to get around this sort of possibility. >I'll naturally be testing quite a few more before I create my dialog >boxes, etc.Hmmm FS should accept those coordinates, I never had a problem with that.It would be the '60' that Brit was referring to that would give FS a problem.Regards.Ernie.

[Guest JonP01]

FS2002 GPS is OK with them, that's right. It was my program that spat the dummy when I was testing my OziExplorer conversion routine :-( The reason was that the OziExplorer output came out in that example as a plain "33", when I needed it to be "33.000000". All fixed now :-)btw, does anyone know the relevance / ramifications of the waypoint altitudes in a .pln file for a GPS flight? For example, the departure and destination aerodromes have their elevation MSL listed at the tail of each waypoint record (for example "+000029.00,"). But NDBs, VORs or user waypoints all seem to be zeros for any plan I've seen. I've tried zeros for everything, including the aerodromes and it doesn't seem to matter. Can anyone confirm that it does matter?

[Guest The Ancient Brit]

JonPO1,I have used

[Guest JonP01]

Not mention the point that this exercise has shown just how many real world aerodromes are missing from FS. The first thing I check is whether the departure and destination aerodromes actually exist in FS2K2 or not!!! Looks like the next step after this is looking more seriously into third party scenery.