Just thought I'd pipe in here and say that of the flight planners I've used, I keep going back to FS Nav. I'm sorry the developer gave up on it, but I'm keeping it as long as I have FS9. FS Commander gets a lot of hype and is a good program (especially for Trans-ocean navigation) but FS Nav is far easier and has the options I like. I don't really care about the TACAS so much, as I can see the AI's if their close enough and I can hear ATC talk to them so it's not important I see their image on the flight planner. Just wanted to mention this in case someone was looking for feedback on flight planners.

I honestly believe that FSNav is the single BEST sim add-on ever invented -- and I've had dozens of add-ons in my sim career. I've used FSNav for 10 years and it's still as lovable and useful as ever. Never let me done, ever. Thanks to the late, great Captain Tarmack for introducing me to it.Hooray for FSNavigator!JS

I completely agree. I just bought and have started using FSBuild, exporting it's flight plans to FSNav and Radar Contact via FS9 .pln files and so far for me the difference in flight plans calculated between FSNav and FSBuild hardly justifies the extra time required. I'm sure there are others here who will disagree with me, but then again I'm not that big a stickler for total SID/STAR accuracy. The flight plans are remarkably similar, considering FSNav's age.A great product and it's a shame it won't be available for new users. I'm not sure what I'd done if FSNav weren't available when I started simming.There's a thread here that's 3 or 4 months old that I was involved with that discusses and speculates a bit on the "mystery" of what happened to the developer.<< http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=search >>

What I do as far as N. America flight planning is that I pull the REAL flight plans off of Fligthware.com and just input them into FSNav. That way, I'm flying the REAL plan as it was flown in the past few days or sometimes, even earlier that same day. For foreign flights, I find FSNav quite satisfactory in planning 'autoroutes' and I don't see a lot of difference between this and FS Commander, which also does a fine job. It's difficult to get flightplan for countries outside the U.S. and Canada but FSNav will plot you a pretty direct route if you give it the right parameters. Can't beat it. I do understand that FSBuild also downloads the N. Atlantic and Pacific tracks?

FSBuild also provides some very useful fuel burn and v1, v2 etc speeds, given the proper aircraft data input.

FSNav is essential for me.

Speaking of that, FS Nav is very good with fuel burn info if you input the right aircraft information. By testing and gauging a particular aircraft and its fuel burn through the various phases of flight, I can calculate to within 5,000 lbs the load that will be needed, understanding the winds have to be taken into account. FSCommander doesn't allow you to input exact fuel burn info but rather uses a more vague calculation involving the aircraft's projected range and weight.

I used to love FSNav, but over time it seemed that there were far too many sceneries which wouldn't work if you selected them when updating the database. It got so bad that I couldn't even get the database to rebuild at all. Not sure if others had this problem or it was just me.

I had the problem briefly, but I found if I went in a repeated the process, it worked. I have quite a few addons and they seem to show up just fine. I do have a problem with the 'Fly Tampa' Miami scenery in that the database doesn't show all the available runways and gate spaces. This scenery is quite complex. The FSNAV shows all the runways and their ILS freq. but they just don't show in the data window. This is an exception as I haven't run across it anywhere else yet.

As an addendum to this thread, last night I had to restart a saved flight from Radar Contact and because you can't restart FSPassengers I found myself not caring much if I descended a little too fast, touched down at 200 FPS or 450 FPS, made that turn onto the high speed at 30 or 10, or opening the door at all once at the gate.There's more to the program than the game element, that's for sure.

I have FSBuild but I'm flying the Cessina Citation X and it is NOT listed in FSBuild. Any workaround? Thanks jerrycwo4

Have you checked the FSBuild Website under additional aircraft? There might be something there you could "adapt" based on the Cessna's FDE<< http://www.fsbuild.com/aircraft_performance.html >>

I do have my registration code, and fsnav is registered and working fine for me.But just as a test today, I posted a SimMarket "trouble ticket" inquiry to see if they still have my fsnav registration on file, I don't need it but just am curious if they do keep these on file in case I ever lose it. Will probably hear from them soon. Over at fsnavigator dot com their front page says to everyone in general: "A REGISTRATION CODE BACKUP IS IN YOUR SIMMARKET SHOP ACCOUNT".

Mine wasn't. I sure hope nothing happens to my FSNAV.

Thanks a million for your suggestion. I went to their website and not only did they have my Citation X but a lot of other tutorials that I needed. Also info on how to obtain a free new version (Build 2.3) for registered owners. jerrycwo4