and what is life like without them?

err......What?, I dont understand the questionCheersDan.

Life with a flight plan:Capt: "Tower, request EIDW EGLL as filed"Tower: "Roger, buzz off, have a good flight"FO: "OK, Cap, where we goin'?"Capt: "Look at the flight plan. Read that chart, stoopid"Life without a flight plan:Capt: "Nice day, Fred. Where shall we go?"FO: "I dunno. Let's go up there and take a look".Capt: "Heck, what was that passed us?"FO: "Yikes. Looked big, whatever it was".Capt: "So now how do we get down?"FO: "Mmm. Dunno. Looks like an airstrip over there. Or is that the M4?"Capt: "Just between you and me .. do you think we're doing this right?"Hope this helps,Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

Life without a flight plan:>>Capt: "Nice day, Fred. Where shall we go?">FO: "I dunno. Let's go up there and take a look".>Capt: "Heck, what was that passed us?">FO: "Yikes. Looked big, whatever it was".>Capt: "So now how do we get down?">FO: "Mmm. Dunno. Looks like an airstrip over there. Or is>that the M4?">Capt: "Just between you and me .. do you think we're doing>this right?"Sounds like my last flying lesson :-lolHehehe, nice one Mark ;)CheersDan.

"and what is life like without them?"Mabye like flying an ultralight?

Reading throught Davidos words, i belive he was reffering to flying manually IFR, without the aid of GPS. Yes it is possible and quite challanging and requires some degree of experience when having a flightplan that not only has VORs and NDBs but also fixes. Keeping the right heading and an eye on the wind dirrection all the time is a must. Also the printed plan on your lap with the correct distances between waypoints, VOR and NDB fixes and runway info is more than helpful. Cheers!Luke SAS984

Flight plans enable two things:1. They establish a route that (a) appears in the GPS/map and (:( can be used to drive the autopilot in Nav mode. (Just make sure the Nav/GPS panel switch is set to GPS.)2. For IFR flight plans, they enable you to use the IFR features of ATC.Even if you don't want to fly IFR, loading a plan for navigation purposes is very helpful, especially if you don't have any other way (such as paper charts) to figure out how to get where you're going.Hope this is what you were looking for.

hehe, some of you guys crack me up :)what I am referring to is the downloads of flightplans available here at avsim...flightplans for Delta, or Volare, or whatever...

Ahhhhhhhh, you mean for AI traffic?, well they just add the particular airlines to the AI traffic system.Well, its actually a bit more complex than that, they need "compliing" with TTools, and you also need to "accosiate", I'll learn how to spell one day :(, aircraft to these flightplans, so you need to download the liveries too.Or.........the easiest way is to go to ProjectAI and download their easy to install packagesCheersDan.