FS Build (Upcoming) or FS NAV (v. 4.51)

[Guest]

I recently saw Vulcan

[Vulcan 14]

OK This is purely a personal taste thing and I don't want to upset Erine who has put a lot of work into FSBuild and done an excellent job.When I started simming back in FS98 days I asked existing simmers what add-ons they recommended, one was FSNav and I have been with it ever since.I mainly use it for flight planning where I find its auto generate route function does a pretty good job, sometimes it needs a bit of tweaking.I have also tried FSBuild and love the ability to export flight plans in various formats.However I have not had much success when I ask it to generate a route, especially in Europe where I mainly fly. It frequently produces strange routes and often flys the wrong way on one-way European airways.In correspondance with Erine he has said that FSBuild is not primarily intended to auto generate a route, more a case of using the included real world routes or using charts to manually enter a route and then convert it to the format you require. (hope I got that right Ernie)I have had success with auto generated routes in the US though where there are fewer one-way airways and less changes to them than happens in Europe.HTH

[Ian Mitchell 0]

Well for me the two product are indespensable but mostly used for different things.1. FSNAV for me is a superb moving map which provides immediate information on where I am, where I want to go, what intersections, VOR's, NDB's and ILS's, I am coming close to. Particularly at night or in high altitude, it is a fantastic aid to instruments indetermining where I am. In short it is like having charts for wherever I am.2. FSBUILD on the other hand is used for comprehensively planning a flight and producing flight plans in many differerent formats to feed Squawkbox, PIC767 FMC, PSS FMC, Radar Contact, FSNAV, to name a few.There is overlap in the fact that FSNAV can also produce flight plans in limited formats. FSNAV also has a facility to autofly some FS aircraft along the flight plan. This is not possible for the PIC767 and PSS aircraft that I use, nor would I want to as the FMC's on these aircraft are much more sophisticated.So in summary, I think both tools are essential. FSBUILD2 will release as shareware probably end March, and is a superb flight planner. There is talk of a new version of FSNAV (V5?), but not sure when this will release.Hope this helps.CheersIan

[Guest MB327]

Exactly what Vulcan and Ian said. Once you have and learn how to use them both, it's like asking which arm you could do without.Additionally, FSBuild 2.0 is a fantastic fuel planner and generates excellent professional flight plans. Take a look at the ones I made available at the last few PIC on VATSIM events.

[Guest]

WS-I

[Guest MB327]

Very well said Marc!To add to the ability to customize for add-on aircraft like 767 PIC, I just finished a flight on VATSIM from St. Louis to Los Angeles. The FSBuild 2.0 flight plan, updated with real time winds aloft called for the following fuel burn.(in pounds)TAXI---000772 (4 minutes)DEST---030834 (3 hrs, 21 mins in route)RESV---005814 (45 minutes reserve fuel)ALTN---002034 (15 minutes for the alternate field)HOLD---001938 (15 minutes for holds)EXTRA--002584 (20 minutes extra fuel on board)TTL TO-043205 (4 hrs, 56 mins fuel when starting take off roll)REQD---043977 (5 hrs, 6 mins total fuel to load on aircraft)The values for, TAXI, RESV, HOLD, and EXTRA, are defined by the user as either default values or adjusted from flight to flight. I swap them around a lot for testing purposes but normally try to land with around 1 hour 15 minutes of fuel for domestic flights.I loaded the REQD (required) fuel before start up in St. Louis and FS2002 did it's thing where it rounds up my entry to the next nearest whole percentage value. This resulted in a total fuel load of about 44,500 pounds. As I taxied out and received take off clearance on Roger Wilco from St. Louis Tower, I logged "439" on the "TAKEOFF" line on the space provided on the flight plan. When observing the overhead panel, you only see fuel in hundreds so from here on I will speak of "hundreds" of pounds. Next to where I wrote "439" I wrote "+7" indicating that I was taking off with 700 pounds than the flight plan called for.At each waypoint, or almost each one, I logged the fuel (as 3 digits)and added the plus or minus number that I was at crossing that waypoint. (they were all plus numbers on this flight.) As you fly with real weather, the winds often shift a bit between waypoints. On some segments you use more fuel than predicted, on others less.Finally to the end of this story. I shut down at the gate in Los Angeles with 132 hundreds of pounds, or about 13,200. Next I entered my plus/minus number, in this case +9. Now picture this, I started my roll with +7 and ended with +9. Put more simply, I flew almost 3 and a half hours and ended the flight only 200 pounds off my projected total fuel burn. And I have to add, that has become a pretty normal occurance. Overall for this flight my fuel calculation was off by less than 1 percent.I guess you can tell, I like FSBuild...

[PeteP 2]

I can put your mind at rest on that one, Vulcan. FSBuild2 is much improved in its handling of European routes and (if I've done my job properly ;) ) it should be particularly accurate over the UK.But it does many other things too. My favourite is its ability to handle real-world flight plans complete with airways, either cut-and-paste or typed in, and output them in just about every FS format including PIC and the various PSS formats. Give it a try when it comes out - I'll think you'll be surprised at just what it can do - and it's the perfect partner to FSNav's map features.Pete

[Guest]

http://195.35.145.44/marcbrodbeck/docs/757STLSNA.htmlHere's an old TWA flt plan, when I worked there a few yrs ago.

[ErnieAlston 33]

Hi Vulcan,No doubt we have talked about this issue before :) But regarding one way airways as I noted before Fsbuild 1.4 has the code to do this, it is just that when we went to semi regular Navdata updates we were not able to find a way to keep the one way airway information in the airway database. Though with NIMA/DAFIF making this data available it is possible to do this now, perhaps I will talk to Richard Stefan about it. Focusing on the 2.0 autogenerator Pete noted it is much improved which is true, but it is not perfect. But then even the commercial planners put up a strange route every now and then.The key difference with Fsbuild 2.0 is there is more flexibility. You can affect the autogenerators behavior in FSbuild 2.0. For example you can force the autogenerator to use a North Atlantic Track by selecting the track and using wildcard feature to have the autogenerator fill in the gaps between the Dep/Dest and the NaTrack. You can also customize preferred arrivals and departures for the autogenerator to use. Although as Pete alluded to, we have included a database of real world preferred arrival and departure routes with the program, but this is for a limited number of airports. The user can still customize these preferred routings for their favorite airports.Should the autogenerator plot a route you don't like, you can open that route in plan mode where you can using the map view manually adjust the route. You are not stuck with whatever routing the autogenerator comes up with. Another option is to embed a web based Flight Planner into the Fsbuild user interface For an example see the screen shot link below of Fsbuild 2.0 with the PMFlight Planner web site embedded into Fsbuild. You can use PMFlight Planner (as well as other flight plan or flight planning web sites) to generate the route, but then use Fsbuild to build the route and still make use of the fuel planning, and exporting features of Fsbuild 2.0.http://www.tecpilot.com/users/erniealston/pmfp.jpgThere really are a lot of features in 2.0 too numerous really to mention here, but I will say a lot of these features exist in 2.0 due to the great ideas and suggestions I have recieved from testers like Ian, Marc, Pete, Andreas F,and Mike B.The 2.0 features list can be found here.http://www.tecpilot.com/users/erniealston/fsb2_features.htmRegards.Ernie.

[Guest]

OK guys.. this is NOT fair... you all using FSB2 when us poor joes can't get our hands on it yet!When will it be available????Steve M

[Vulcan 14]

Hi Ernie,>No doubt we have talked about this issue before

[Guest]

Totally in agreement with Steve !This is TOTALLY UNFAIR :-lolWaiting for FSB2 like *:-*Bien amicalementMichelKSEA-AFR011

[ErnieAlston 33]

>Not all of us have access to real world routes so have to rely on >an auto-gen route, even though in the UK we have ready access to >routes once inside UK airspace.Hi Vulcan,This is the importance of FSB2's 'plan mode', the real world routes are displayed, Navaids, Airways, Sids, Stars, and also North Atlantic and Pacific Tracks. These all can be inserted into your Flight Plan via plan mode.You can build a realistic route manually from any two points without the autogenerator. Or build a partial route manually, and let the autogenerator fill in the gaps.See the plan mode tutorial for an example how this workshttp://www.tecpilot.com/users/erniealston/...ials/pmtut1.htmRegardsErnie.

[Guest ilh]

Wow. I can't wait to get my hands on this!Lee Hetherington (KBED)

[B777ER 2,558]

>It can take winds aloft data from fsmeteo and build a flt plan >based on correct ground speeds due to head/tailwinds which have >direct effect on time and fuel usage enroute.What about Activesky? Is that supported as well? Thanks