I'm looking for a gauge that I can use to see how far above the ground I am to avoid mountains, etc when planning a flight. Does anyone know if such a thing exists, or if there's a better way for me to accomplish this goal?Many thanks!

Charts. They tell you the MEA for areas you're flying through.

I'm looking for a gauge that I can use to see how far above the ground I am to avoid mountains, etc when planning a flight. Does anyone know if such a thing exists, or if there's a better way for me to accomplish this goal?Many thanks!

Reality XP's 430 and 530 WAAS Gamins have a 'Terrain awareness' page, just like the real deal.http://www.reality-xp.com/flightsim/gns530...ures/index.htmlOf course, that will not help you with a flight plan, but as Ed said, charts would help you there. The flight planner I use (real world Voyager) will also take into account the terrain, and will maintain/suggest flight altitude en route as required for avoidance. If you fly the published airways 'by the book' the minimums will always be at the altitude required for avoidance as well. Again, these are on both Low and High charts.

http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtop...p;#entry1676971

If you want to take the easiest approach, then dont bother with sid star etc just get dbs studio profile radar, it simply shows you a 2d graph of the ground x miles ahead relative to your current heading and altitude.Before getting the profile radar, everytime i posted about how to avoid high obstacles, i was told to go get sid , star charts, problem is i dont care about sid star, i just dont want to run into mountain. DBS profile radar solves that problem.On flight planner i would most recomend FScommander, not cause its the best flight planner , but cause its got a good flight planner , and it offers much much more, for example Fscommander moving map is now my taxi guide, i no longer use fsx progressive taxi. in the past even though i dont use fsx atc , i still had to clear with the fsx atc till it shows progressive taxi. Not anymore.My recomendations for you are1 - Dbs Studio Profile radar for terrian picture2 - FScommander for flight planner, and many other very usefull featuresOne day when there is a single website or source that offers sid star charts for all airports in the world, then i might consider sid star, till then ill use terrian profile radar to avoid the high ground.

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll research this further. I did find an FSX Ratheon ANR75 radar gauge that can be tweaked to display readout information over an existing window in a panel. I merged it into my Lear panel to test - and sure enough - it worked. The gauge doesnt give you a visual display of your terrain like the DBsim product does, but ifyou want to know your AGL, speed, etc, it works well. Again, not exactly what I'm looking for but a nice addon and it let me tinker with some code.Ideally, I'd like to be able to create flight plan that automatically knows how to avoid risky terrain areas like mountains and abnormally large mountain goats :)Time to roll up the sleeves....if any of you are interested, the gauge I just talked about is called Raytheon ANT_75.zip and can be found right here in Avsim's FSX File Library for Gauges. Maybe someone can develop a panel with it down the road.

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll research this further. I did find an FSX Ratheon ANR75 radar gauge that can be tweaked to display readout information over an existing window in a panel. I merged it into my Lear panel to test - and sure enough - it worked. The gauge doesnt give you a visual display of your terrain like the DBsim product does, but ifyou want to know your AGL, speed, etc, it works well. Again, not exactly what I'm looking for but a nice addon and it let me tinker with some code.Ideally, I'd like to be able to create flight plan that automatically knows how to avoid risky terrain areas like mountains and abnormally large mountain goats :)Time to roll up the sleeves....if any of you are interested, the gauge I just talked about is called Raytheon ANT_75.zip and can be found right here in Avsim's FSX File Library for Gauges. Maybe someone can develop a panel with it down the road.

Think i went through the stages that you are going through now in terms mountainous issues when flying.That i why i purchased fscommander, cause its moving map shows MSA, but that is not as user friendly as a gauge that shows a picture of the terrian ahead. So i went for the $14 Dbs Studio Terrian Profile radar.