It certainly looks like a nice program with some cool features, but I don't think it's worth an extra $70 if you already have a program like FSC9 or FSBuild.

 

If you want to plan flights around weather, sigmets, winds aloft and such, skyvector.com overlays all that information and it's free. I don't really worry about ETOPS because I pretty much always fly domestic US nowadays (sometimes Europe and elsewhere but not as often). If you do a lot of long haul, oceanic stuff, the ETOPS stuff could be useful. But again, I don't find it worth $70.

 

After planning on skyvector (or sometimes I just grab a RW route from flightaware) I pluck the route into FSBuild and it spits out a release with fuel calculations and such.

It certainly looks like a nice program with some cool features, but I don't think it's worth an extra $70 if you already have a program like FSC9 or FSBuild.

 

If you want to plan flights around weather, sigmets, winds aloft and such, skyvector.com overlays all that information and it's free. I don't really worry about ETOPS because I pretty much always fly domestic US nowadays (sometimes Europe and elsewhere but not as often). If you do a lot of long haul, oceanic stuff, the ETOPS stuff could be useful. But again, I don't find it worth $70.

 

After planning on skyvector (or sometimes I just grab a RW route from flightaware) I pluck the route into FSBuild and it spits out a release with fuel calculations and such.

Yea, the value of it goes down some if you already own a flight planner like fsbuild. For me since I didn't own a flight planner it was worth it, especially since I will be doing 777 long haul flights in the future using ETOPS. 

 

 

It certainly looks like a nice program with some cool features, but I don't think it's worth an extra $70 if you already have a program like FSC9 or FSBuild.

 

FSC9 gives all the elements of flight planning to pass on to PMDX and others, and it has a tremendous advantage over EFB and is that FSC9 is interactive: you pick a point on the map visualy, click on it and FSC adds it to the FP. You can also define Way Points by coordinates, etc etc.Ãlso can do SIDs STARs etc. EFB is quite nice looking, no doubt, but that's all..... .Its a bit short of practical functionality IMHO (for now).

 

I also feed AS2012 with the FP from FSC9 and that gives me Winds and weather for all the points and altitudes of the flight.

What other flight planners can create a *.rte flight plan so that it can be exported, and loaded into the PMDG 737NGX? I want to be able to skip the manual loading of waypoints into the FMC and would like for the planner to do this for me. I understand PFPX can do this, are there any others?

Thanks,

jim

Simbrief?

Vroute?

Simbrief?

Vroute?

where is the export .rte in simbrief? 

I was responding to the poster who indicated EFB is making flight plans on its own without third party applications. I don't use sim brief of vroute, but my understanding is those are decent alternatives to pfpx for flight planning. 

 

Its not making the flightplans on its own, it uses data from FSX and navigraph cycles. EFB feeds directly from FSX, and is updated via the navigraph cycles.

It creates the flight plan using that data, and does it all within the app, so you dont have to use other websites.

 

I guess you could say, its using FSX as the third party application to get its info, along with the navigraph data?

Its not making the flightplans on its own, it uses data from FSX and navigraph cycles. EFB feeds directly from FSX, and is updated via the navigraph cycles.

It creates the flight plan using that data, and does it all within the app, so you dont have to use other websites.

 

I guess you could say, its using FSX as the third party application to get its info, along with the navigraph data?

Here is an example of a flight I just did using pfpx to plan it to fly from kjfk to klas: KJFK RBV J64 SARAA Q62 BURNI J64 PWE J192 GLD J146 DVC KLAS. This flight plan does not include the sids/stars as those are usually given by ATC, although PFPX did recommend the granpa1 star for arrival. Without inputting stars and sids and using EFB without going to the websites mentioned does it give you a flight plan like this? If there is nothing other than the sids/stars your not getting a complete flight plan. If you are getting more than that then I'm missing something in EFB because it doesn't generate like this for me without going to the other websites. 

Its not making the flightplans on its own, it uses data from FSX and navigraph cycles. EFB feeds directly from FSX, and is updated via the navigraph cycles.

It creates the flight plan using that data, and does it all within the app, so you dont have to use other websites.

 

I guess you could say, its using FSX as the third party application to get its info, along with the navigraph data?

Actually, EFB doesn't create flight-plans.

And in all fairness, it's not supposed to.

 

EFB is a tool for the pilot to keep situational awareness (and to help us lesser mortals from getting lost at KJFK), and it does that job superbly, but a flight-planner it's not. If it was, there would be little need for its internal links to rFinder.

 

PFPX, on the other hand, is a wonderful flight-planner, but it does nothing for you once the flight is started.

 

Two different tools with two different uses.

Comparing them is like comparing a crowbar with a fountain-pen.

 

As for PFPX, I'd say it's not for the casual simmer, especially if you already own something like FSC9 or FSBuild.

It has a mind-numbing range of things it can do, but most of them will never be used by those who merely went to strap in and go.

It is, on the other hand, an excellent tool for e.g. VAs, since it can keep an entire database of flights stored, each set with a specific plane in the VA fleet.

After that, it is merely a question of letting it check the entire route-database against the new AIRACs to spot errors, or let you update your fleet without necessarily changing your flight-schedule.

You can keep a Winter/Summer database and switch between them in no time, and on and on......

And of course, it's a wonderful toy for the geeks among us who can't resist anything new and shiny. :lol:

 

Cheers,

Lars

Going to read a bag tonight. ^_^

 

Mark, since you are around, I think we need a Concorde profile in PFPX, eh?

 

 

im working on a profile for the SST Concorde so there will be one for sure ...

 

all the best.

 

Phil

That's great stuff, Phil. But mind you that I was thanking Mark for giving a hu on the great and free Concorde planner, namely Concorde Performance System. It also happens to be written by one of the PFPX devs, so the accuracy should be top notch.

 

Now if an extra PFPX profile helps to increase it, I'm all in. Just writing because I would like to avoid the extra work for you when there already might be a superb tool around.

That's great stuff, Phil. But mind you that I was thanking Mark for giving a hu on the great and free Concorde planner, namely Concorde Performance System. It also happens to be written by one of the PFPX devs, so the accuracy should be top notch.

 

Now if an extra PFPX profile helps to increase it, I'm all in. Just writing because I would like to avoid the extra work for you when there already might be a superb tool around.

 

CoolIP,

 

not a problem Pierre is a friend and we're in the same team about PFPX ...

 

there is already some requests on that and even Pierre but he doesn't have the time to everywhere as most of us too so i'm focusing for now on that profile.

 

we'll see how it goes too and im pretty sure the results wont be that bas as I already made for FOC 2003 ...

 

all the best.

 

Phil

You could argue that PFPX is more 'realistic', in that commercial pilots on the whole don't concern themselves with flight planning. At the start of the day they simply log into their company briefing portal and download all the PLOGs for the sectors they will do that day. They are, by and large, indistinguishable from the ones pumped out by PFPX and the fact that you can pretty much knock one up in less than a minute with a random payload is as close as you're going to get to the real thing.

 

EFB is a great tool but is cheating a little if you're flying something that doesn't have a moving map EFB. A Q400 pilot, for example will have some charts and the grey matter between his ears to figure out where he is on the airfield and in the air and I personally like that kind of challenge. If you don't want all the hassle of charts and the like however EFB is a nice all in one solution to give you pretty much everything you need.

You could argue that PFPX is more 'realistic', in that commercial pilots on the whole don't concern themselves with flight planning. At the start of the day they simply log into their company briefing portal and download all the PLOGs for the sectors they will do that day. They are, by and large, indistinguishable from the ones pumped out by PFPX and the fact that you can pretty much knock one up in less than a minute with a random payload is as close as you're going to get to the real thing.

 

EFB is a great tool but is cheating a little if you're flying something that doesn't have a moving map EFB. A Q400 pilot, for example will have some charts and the grey matter between his ears to figure out where he is on the airfield and in the air and I personally like that kind of challenge. If you don't want all the hassle of charts and the like however EFB is a nice all in one solution to give you pretty much everything you need.

I think not having a copilot to help us negates the cheating factor , we need a certain amount of automation to make up for no FO

Quite agree with you there. Until the shared cockpit of the next version of the Q400 comes along. *Then* it's cheating.

I purchased PFPX today and it is fantastic, definitely recommend it.