I have heard many great things about the 747-400, but for me flying with ATC, either the native FS9 version or Radar Contact is an extremely important part of the environment.So I wonder what the philosophy is behind releasing the 747 with no link to ATC [ ie incompatible flight plans and cannot import FS 9 flight plans] beyond being forced to buy an expensive ($USD 40) third party flight planner to export the files in two different formats to synch up with ATC.I guess I kind of resent having to purchase the flight planner add on which brings the outlay to $100 to enjoy this airplane. But maybe I am missing something.Greg

Greg,There is a freeware FS9 to RTE converter - http://files.fsnordic.net/?download=1529Please do a search next time before you accuse us of making you do something.The FS .pln format is extremely limited in its capabilities, which is why we do not use it directly. Most of our users are manually entering in real world flightplans off of www.flightaware.com or similar sites anyways. The RTE page is not difficult to use, even the longest route takes less than a minute to enter in if you understand how it works and use the airway VIA/TO functionality.

Super Flight Planner (SPF) which is free, does a great job of creating flight plans.It exports to:Abacus EZ-GPSACS-GPSCSVEFIS 98ES_GPS (X-Plane)Flight Director 98Flight Simulator 98Flight Simulator GPSFS Navigator 4.xHTMLMoving Map 2.4Radar Contact APLReal Weather GPSSquakBox FMSXMLSurely, you can make that work :)

>I have heard many great things about the 747-400, but for me>flying with ATC, either the native FS9 version or Radar>Contact is an extremely important part of the environment.If you have an Internet connection, you can always go live with VATSIM. You'll never use the lousy FS9 ATC again!

Ryan,Well I was missing something. Quite honestly, I have done a lot of research on this issue and asked similar questions on this forum and others and always got the same response, use something like FS build to create a flight plan and export it to multiple formats that can be read by FS9, ASV etc.No accusations intended, just asking an honest question on a topic that puzzled me. There are always reasons why something is done, I just wanted to understand them.Greg

>The RTE page is not difficult to use, even the longest route takes less than a>minute to enter in if you understand how it works and use the>airway VIA/TO functionality.Agreed, I always just manually enter my flight route.Jay

I use http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/ to give me a route and just program it into the FMC. If I have to make any changes to the route in the air, well, that's part of the fun of learning to use the FMC. Hope this is helpful to you :-)

To do that option, I used rfinder.asalink.net/free/ then cut n paste the route in fsroute, which you can save in the FS9 flight planner.But it is limiting cause the FS9 ATC don't understand the Sid /StarsMichael

>I use http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/ to give me a route and>just program it into the FMC. If I have to make any changes>to the route in the air, well, that's part of the fun of>learning to use the FMC. Hope this is helpful to you :-)Gavin you could also use flightsim commander, which save the route in FS9 and PMDG format.Michael

Just to clarify, current versions of Radar Contact use the FS8/FS9 .pln format. APL with it limitations is only used for backward compatibility and will be dropped.With the utility referenced by Tabs, any freeware, payware, or FS8/9 built-in planner should work.It would be nice if an RTE to PLN converter was available so plans created in the FMC can be saved and converted to FS9 format.

>>I use http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/ to give me a route>and>>just program it into the FMC. If I have to make any changes>>to the route in the air, well, that's part of the fun of>>learning to use the FMC. Hope this is helpful to you :-)>>Gavin you could also use flightsim commander, which save the>route in FS9 and PMDG format.>>MichaelThanks Michael, I'll check that out now.