As long as the latest NGX patch puts apart the export function in .rte format of SID, STARS and runway, or better , the utilization of those by 737 NGX, I have personally decided to avoid the latest update and keep on using external flight planners using the co route function at 100% hence with SID & STARS.

Vroute premium here as I enjoy the aesthetics more, nice lil pdf flight chart, weather, fuel load, etc. I use FSbuild only when Vroute doesn't have a route I want to try, but then I just enter it from FSbuild as a personal route.

FSBuild, for all my jets, for years.And it gives you much more data than just the route ... and the route is automatically exported to PMDG for you.See here for informationhttp://fsbuild.com/http://secure.simmar...fsbuild-2.phtml

FSim commander is the one I use. But I have read that you have to realise certain things when saving PMDG flightplans. See the post from Randazzo about Sp1b.I use FSC on my laptop and connect it with wideclient to my FSX pc.GrzPaul

+1THx Ian

I use http://www.edi-gla.co.uk/fpl/ and then import it into Vroute Premium for export again to PMDG and then for my fuel plan i use http://fuel.aerotexas.com/

Thanks guys, i'll let you know what one i end up going with. Going to read some reviews on them and see what one works bestGarry

Wait for PFPXEnviado desde mi GT-I9100 usando Tapatalk

Here's what I doI get the route from FlightAware or similarI use FSBuild to build and export the plan to FSX & PMDG (& Google Maps :) )Before I start Radar Contact I select 'Alt Restrictions' on the Controller Info page so I can fly a SID procedureOnce I get the departure runway from RC I add the SID to the route in the CDU (From the blurb on SP1b, this might explain why I've never had problems with the NGX.)On approach, I put the runway and STAR into the CDU when I'm assigned the arrival runway by RCWhen the prompt is available in RC, I select visual approach so I can fly the STARIt looks like PFPX might be replacing my FSBuild very soon..

Here's what I doI get the route from FlightAware or similarI use FSBuild to build and export the plan to FSX & PMDG (& Google Maps :) )Before I start Radar Contact I select 'Alt Restrictions' on the Controller Info page so I can fly a SID procedureOnce I get the departure runway from RC I add the SID to the route in the CDU (From the blurb on SP1b, this might explain why I've never had problems with the NGX.)On approach, I put the runway and STAR into the CDU when I'm assigned the arrival runway by RCWhen the prompt is available in RC, I select visual approach so I can fly the STARIt looks like PFPX might be replacing my FSBuild very soon..

Yes you could do it in that way.But you have both "Alt Restriction" and "No Alt Restriction" to choose from when flying your SID.The diffr. is that the 1 one tells you to go to a certain Altitude which could be lower or higher than you imitial in your plan.When flying a STAR you should choose IAP, not Visual, when he wanna vector you.Choosing Visual is what it says....no IFR and no STAR, but since RC shuts up you could fly your STAR anyway./ Leffe

Wait for PFPXEnviado desde mi GT-I9100 usando Tapatalk

This seems to be very useful hint. However, I'm using FSC9 at the moment and it works as it should. A bis advantage seems to me the possibility to view the chosen SIDs and STARs before using then.

As long as the latest NGX patch puts apart the export function in .rte format of SID, STARS and runway, or better , the utilization of those by 737 NGX, I have personally decided to avoid the latest update and keep on using external flight planners using the co route function at 100% hence with SID & STARS.

You're missing the point. The reason SP1b changed the way it reads routes is:1 - COROUTEs never include SIDs/STARs. Why? When the navdata is updated, and the COROUTE specifies the RAVNN3, but the navdata has the RAVNN4, it's not going to pick it up. Computers are powerful, but they are very, very dumb. RAVNN3 does not equal RAVNN4, which will result in an error, and now you have to enter the route by hand. Defeats the purpose, right?2 - SIDs/STARs are often somewhat runway dependent (in the United States, the procedure isn't runway dependent, but the way they get entered in as navdata, they somewhat need to be). If you set one or another and the weather is different (the only unchanging thing in the world is the concept of change), you're going to have to select a new STAR anyway. What happens when weather hits and there's a giant storm cell over one of the transitions of your departure?"Aww, dangit, clearance, we can't accept a re-route, because our co-route is set."United 962, clearance delivery, roger. Departures using your transition are being held here until the weather clears. Expect further clearance 4 5 minutes. Time now 1556Z."Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. We're going to have to wait out here until the weather clears because our co-route was set for us and we don't want to change it. ATC says about 45 minutes. We promise this won't be one of those 4-hours-on-the-ramp-things."(meanwhile, the passengers are all on their phones with their aunts/mothers/fathers/siblings outraged because they see other planes taking off through their windows, because those planes use co-routes like they're meant to be used)3 - If you (or whoever is providing you routes) are any good at what they do, your route will pick up at the end of a SID, and your route will dump you onto a STAR. The makes it all really easy. Click DEP/ARR, click [airport code], click SID, click [transition], click [runway] - EXEC. Go back to the index for DEP/ARR, click [destination airport code], click STAR, click [transition] - EXEC (note, I left off the approach and the runway, intentionally*).4 - It's just not done. I can't tell anyone here how perplexing this forum is to me sometimes. People here pay $70+ for a simulation of this aircraft, and yet they still insist on operating it like it's a glorified toy. If you want to load your flights with a route fully pre-loaded, you could've saved $70 by using the default 737 with an FS flightplan from any of the free route generators on the web. The built-in GPS would tackle that nicely.*A huge FS-ism is setting up the whole entire flight from the outset. Flights have an order. You don't get assigned an approach until you're in your descent, so you might as well just leave it until later. If you think about it, I could run through the entire checklist on the ground at my origin airport: set the plane up, start the engines, let em run for a bit, shut them back off, and power the plane back down without ever leaving the gate, but that doesn't get me anywhere does it? You're not supposed to shut down the engines until you're at your destination. There's a time and place for that. Same goes for setting the approach. The time and place is not at the origin, or 200nm out. It's in the descent.

3 - If you (or whoever is providing you routes) are any good at what they do, your route will pick up at the end of a SID, and your route will dump you onto a STAR. The makes it all really easy. Click DEP/ARR, click [airport code], click SID, click [transition], click [runway] - EXEC. Go back to the index for DEP/ARR, click [destination airport code], click STAR, click [transition] - EXEC (note, I left off the approach and the runway, intentionally*).

Some newbie questions here: how do you know which STAR to pick? Charts? And when you are descending and know which runway you have to land on, then what? Do you always get vectored to it? Or do you have to pick another STAR? Or another transition? Or...?I've been trying to figure out how to do a short hop from KSEA to KPDX with FSCommander but there isn't a STAR that brings me to the runway I want in a way that does NOT require acrobatic stunt flying...I've been thinking about giving Avliasoft (or whatever) EFB because that creates 'charts' on the fly and also includes SIDS and STARS: from what I've understood they aren't always realistic (?) but I suppose they are actually flyable... Main drawback is that you have to fly in windowed mode when you use EFB on the same PC... Then again, I might only use EFB for planning the flight and quit it before I start FSX. But then I would get into problems again when I have to select a STAR at arrival...Flight planning has been something I never really could figure out... Not even after all these years. Sometimes I thought I knew how to do it but then I'd always come across a flight that left me puzzled and clueless when it came to STARS... Maybe this also has to do with the fact that I usually do very short flights... I wish there was a program that would give me a complete flight and that would add SIDs and STARs at the appropriate time, fully automated!It seems to me flight planners still need a LOT data to be entered and a lot of manual input... I want a program in which I only have to type KSEA KPDX and then ENTER, after which I get a complete plan with all waypoints and all possible STARS that actually WORK...

You're missing the point. The reason SP1b changed the way it reads routes is:1 - COROUTEs never include SIDs/STARs. Why? When the navdata is updated, and the COROUTE specifies the RAVNN3, but the navdata has the RAVNN4, it's not going to pick it up. Computers are powerful, but they are very, very dumb. RAVNN3 does not equal RAVNN4, which will result in an error, and now you have to enter the route by hand. Defeats the purpose, right?2 - SIDs/STARs are often somewhat runway dependent (in the United States, the procedure isn't runway dependent, but the way they get entered in as navdata, they somewhat need to be). If you set one or another and the weather is different (the only unchanging thing in the world is the concept of change), you're going to have to select a new STAR anyway. What happens when weather hits and there's a giant storm cell over one of the transitions of your departure?"Aww, dangit, clearance, we can't accept a re-route, because our co-route is set."United 962, clearance delivery, roger. Departures using your transition are being held here until the weather clears. Expect further clearance 4 5 minutes. Time now 1556Z."Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. We're going to have to wait out here until the weather clears because our co-route was set for us and we don't want to change it. ATC says about 45 minutes. We promise this won't be one of those 4-hours-on-the-ramp-things."(meanwhile, the passengers are all on their phones with their aunts/mothers/fathers/siblings outraged because they see other planes taking off through their windows, because those planes use co-routes like they're meant to be used)3 - If you (or whoever is providing you routes) are any good at what they do, your route will pick up at the end of a SID, and your route will dump you onto a STAR. The makes it all really easy. Click DEP/ARR, click [airport code], click SID, click [transition], click [runway] - EXEC. Go back to the index for DEP/ARR, click [destination airport code], click STAR, click [transition] - EXEC (note, I left off the approach and the runway, intentionally*).4 - It's just not done. I can't tell anyone here how perplexing this forum is to me sometimes. People here pay $70+ for a simulation of this aircraft, and yet they still insist on operating it like it's a glorified toy. If you want to load your flights with a route fully pre-loaded, you could've saved $70 by using the default 737 with an FS flightplan from any of the free route generators on the web. The built-in GPS would tackle that nicely.*A huge FS-ism is setting up the whole entire flight from the outset. Flights have an order. You don't get assigned an approach until you're in your descent, so you might as well just leave it until later. If you think about it, I could run through the entire checklist on the ground at my origin airport: set the plane up, start the engines, let em run for a bit, shut them back off, and power the plane back down without ever leaving the gate, but that doesn't get me anywhere does it? You're not supposed to shut down the engines until you're at your destination. There's a time and place for that. Same goes for setting the approach. The time and place is not at the origin, or 200nm out. It's in the descent.

In all fairness though, when you are flying in the real world you have another fully qualified pilot sitting next to you, which makes a huge difference to your work load and the time in which you have to do it. Therefore it is reasonable to expect that things like arrival procedure set up in the FMS etc has to be done a little earlier than post TOD. At least when you get to my age you do.Regards,

It seems to me that a newcomer "Electronic Flight Bag" (AivlaSoft) could be a good flight planner for the 737NGX. I understood that the program has been received very well. Does anyone has experience?Regards,Edward

I manually enter the route and calculate fuel with FSFuel.