What is the most comprehensive and realistic flight planning software for the PC?Thank you

hello it depends on your budget but i think the best one is fsbuild...it will come with so many aircraft profiles and airways datas that you ll use so easy ...i dont have any royalties in this project but as some others helping a few ernie...now you can think about flitestar from jeppesen but that s not the same price and if you want to programm some aircraft for simming you ll need to get the datas or be able to pay more than 650 usd for one profile...hope this answer a littlephil

Hi Christopher,It's true (unfortunately) that money is in fact the largest factor. You can get great tools if you want to spend a lot of money.I've seen the Jeppesen flight planning software in action a few times and I'm not very fond of it, but that's just my opinion. Personally, I like Lido from Lufthansa best, but that tool is not avaiable for private use...However, if you only want to make flightplans for Flight Simulator, some more simple tools will also do. Two tools you can use are FSBuild and PMFlightplanner (http://www.pmflightplanner.com). The only problem with these tools is that you (in most cases) can't make flightplans that are 100% correct, so you have to correct the errors by hand. I can really recommend the IFPUV of Eurocontrol to check all the flightplans from, to and within Europe (http://www.cfmu.eurocontrol.be/chmi_public/ciahome.jsp?serv1=ifpuvs).If you only need a route from one airport to another, you can also use http://www.asalink.net/davideg/rfquery.html. I've used it a few times and I think the results are not bad when you compare it to other planners.I still make the most of my flightplans by hand however, because I think that's much more fun. :)Kind regards,Koen

Thank you Phil and Koen for the suggestions. I am so new at flight planning that I probably need something to do it for me for a while until I understand the process :D

Dear Christopher, I see exactly what you are saying with the fact that you may need something to do it for you, but what if it turns out that you want to make one, but your software doesn't seem to work? If you want to learn something about flight planning, you have to learn to do it by hand first. Then once you at least understand it, then let a program do it for you. Otherwise, you don't know the steps the program is going through, and you won't know how to correct any mistakes, as they mentioned above. I am just putting my $0.02 worth! (USD). And just take my advice; it's easy. Don't bother spending too much on software, at least until you are sure that you NEED it. Even if it's freeware, you may end up taking up a whole lot of space, and at least some extra time (installing it).>Thank you Phil and Koen for the suggestions. I am so new at >flight planning that I probably need something to do it for >me for a while until I understand the process :D ----------Tom Joyce