Several questions:* Are there copies of commerical flight plans available on the Internet? Not just with depart/arr, but also waypoints?* Do commercial flight plans use navaids or GPS?* Do the commerical flights within add-ons like MyTraffic and UltimateTraffic use real-time waypoints or are just the depart/arr schedules "real"?* Can I know the flight plan of a commercial flight before I take that flight so I can in essence fly the same route on the PC as the plane I am riding in?Thanks,Joe

Hi,As far as Ultimate Traffic and MyTraffic go there are a number of differences between the two. Like UT is based on real flight plans. MT is not. Therefore MT is not as realistic as UT but has more traffic around the clock. UT has nicer looking(higher detailed) aircraft. MT has General Aviation and some Military traffic, whereas UT does not. Either one of these is worthy of spending the money on to have. But I recommend you read reviews about them at www.simflight.com and/or www.flightsim.com to learn more about the differences and what the reviewers thought of them. Personally, I prefer MyTraffic and use it. But that's why I recommend reading the reviews, as it comes down to personal preference.Cheers,Jim

Joe,Hopefully I can answer a few of these:1. Commercial airlines typically use a company routing, but that is often the FAA Preferred Routing. The FAA maintains a database of these routings at http://www.fly.faa.gov/Products/Coded_Depa...s_database.html This won't have every route, but many of the most travelled. I also like to use planners like FSBuild 2 and PM Flight Planners to get the most realistic airliner routes.2. Commercial flights navigate via high altitude (jet) airways. They're numbered like "J146" on charts and in routings, and are a combination of VOR's and intersections along a set path. So the flight plans use both VOR's as navaids and intersections along the airways. But, commercial flight crews don't actually use their VOR receivers that often--they rely instead on FMC units to guide them on their flights. 3. This was answered.4. The best advice I can give you is to use the FAA database I mentioned above or something like PM Flight Planner. You might also post in the AVSIM Flight Plan forum.Regards,MarcMarc Gibson

Marc,Thanks for this.I did use FSBuild2 on a recent flight from Heathrow to JFK. That is partly what prompted my question. Assuming the flight map shown to passengers in the cabin is correct, my FSBuild2 path looked like it crossed Nova Scotia and Newfoundland quite a bit to the east of where the cabin map showed. So I was wondering if my plane was following a different NAVAID set or jet airway.I took a look at your link. For example, for a KRDU-KORD flight, the FAA route is:RDU PACKK-DP AZELL HVQ J24 VHP OKK KOKOMO-STAR ORD. The FSBuild2 auto-generate route for this plan is:KRDU PACK5 AZELL PSK HVQ ROD FWA OXI3 KORDSo I am trying to understand if this is different terminology or a different route.Any thoughts?Thanks,Joe

>I did use FSBuild2 on a recent flight from Heathrow to JFK. That is partly what prompted my question. >>Assuming the flight map shown to passengers in the cabin is correct, my FSBuild2 path looked like it crossed Nova Scotia >and Newfoundland quite a bit to the east of where the cabin map showed. So I was wondering if my plane was following a >different NAVAID set or jet airway.Your plane was likely flying along a North Atlantic Track. These tracks are not airways, they change every day, and there are multiple tracks. The selection of the track varies of several factors including probably most important the forecasted winds aloft. >I took a look at your link. For example, for a KRDU-KORD flight, the FAA route is:>RDU PACKK-DP AZELL HVQ J24 VHP OKK KOKOMO-STAR ORD. >>The FSBuild2 auto-generate route for this plan is:>KRDU PACK5 AZELL PSK HVQ ROD FWA OXI3 KORDThe FAA route is what is called a 'Preferred IFR route', these are routes published by the FAA as more suggestions than anything else. Really the major carriers will have several routings between KRDU and KORD, and they will select the one they wish to use that particular day based on their own criteria. Often the FAA's preferred route will be less efficient on that particular day than the routing selected. This criteria will include weather, traffic, history, the aircraft type, the situation at the selected alternate, time of day etc, etc.For example an Airline like United Airlines may have 10 different routings between KRDU and KORD, each one is selected basedon the operational situation of that particular day. The selected route on a given day may appear when drawn on a map to be lessthan optimal, but for that particular day it may be the most effeicient routing. The FAA also has a alternate database of routes called 'Coded Departure Routes' or severe Weather routes. The FAA also published daily re-routes. Late a night with light traffic the routings available may be different than what is available during the day. So route planning is very dynamic to say the least. So really it is difficult to state a particular route is correct or incorrect. I think its probably better to say you can say is the route is typical or atypical.Now comparing the two RDU-ORD routes psted from the FAA and Fsbuild, there are similarities.The term 'PACKK-DP', and 'PACCK5' both refer to basically the same published Departure Procedure (DP) or SID (Standard Departure).The FAA knowing the version number '5' is likely to change, excludes the version number and refers to the procedure name 'PACKK' only. This of courses save on having to update the Preferred route when the change in the departure procedure is fairly minor. Fsbuild contains the entire FAA preferred IFR routes database within the programs user interface under the 'external Flight Plans' folder.In actuality the KRDU-KORD route from Fsbuild was not autogenerated, but simply retrieved from its stored routes database. Fsbuild2 will by default only autogenerate a routing if it does not find a stored route in its database to use first. If you do a route search in Fsbuild2, you'll find there are actually 4 stored routes between KRDU - KORD, and two of them with slightly different terminology are exactly the same as the FAA preferred route.KRDU.PACK5.AZELL..PSK..HVQ..ROD.J149.FWA.OXI3.KORDKRDU.PACK5.AZELL..PSK..HVQ.J24.VHP..OKK.OKK1.KORD <<***KRDU-PACKK-SID-AZELL-HVQ-J24-VHP-OKK.OKK1-KORD <<***KRDU.PACK5.AZELL..PSK..HVQ..ROD..FWA.OXI3.KORDI can also tell you that particular RDU-ORD route Fsbuild2 selected was an actual flight flown by an Commercial or Corporate carrierin early 2003. That is not always the case in Fsbuild2 WRT to stored routes, but in this case it was from an actual flight. Regards.Ernie.

Very informative, thank you Ernie.

Howdy,I just wanna say that I agree with Jorge, and that I found it interesting too.Thanks Ernie,Jim