I just received my copy of Radar Contact and now I need a flight planner. Which one do you suggest that is free? I was thinking about Super Flight Planner, but I don't know where to get it. Every time I do a search, I get a lot of stuff that looks dangerous to download and does not appear to be Super Flight Planner itself. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Bob

sfp303.zip super flight planner is here at AVSIM as well as sfptools.zip which allows you to import navdata AIRAC cycles (maybe - those are now payware and SFP support is not listed. It used to be free at another site.).

 

SFP has "simple" auto-routing. I tried it years ago with FS8 as I recall but it always stalled on pulling the data from FS8.

 

There is an on-line free planner courtesy of VATSIM users you can try:

 

http://www.simroutes.com

 

It is for finding existing routes in their database. Just use the search for plan feature. When you get the route click on it for a detailed router that shows the waypoints. You can click the download button selecting the FS9 or FSX format and you'll get the .pln file to place in your flight simulator files folder under your documents.

 

These are modern routes but you can use it in FS9/FSX since the .pln file has the waypoint labels and coordinates.

 

I did not have much success with generating a route.

 

If you intend to advance I recommend you get the payware planners, two of which are flight sim commander and fsbuild. Both are international in nature. They are both supported for updating by navigraph.com and Aerosoft's NavDataPro. Get a one-off subscription for FMS data, about $10 in as many formats as you require that are supported for that one fee. If you get an advanced aircraft with an FMC/FMS proprietary data format supported by these vendors, then you can update the planner and your FMS to get the data synced between them as well as your .pln file. These planners run about $40US. Both planners can auto-generate a file.

 

 

 

If one end of your plan is in FAA territory you can get routes from flightaware.com This has 48 hours worth of FAA filed plans. If you have an updated planner then you can put those waypoints into the planner. For FSBuild I just paste the route into its route line window. If cordinates are listed (temporary waypoints for Atlantic crossings or custom positions) just remove the space between longitude and latitude as listed in the route on flightaware.com and FSBuild will generate the plan. I don't know about FSC.

 

If you are just starting out you can generate plans in FS's flight planner by dragging around the flight path. The waypoints will be the default ones in FS.

 

There are more details but this should allow you to make choices.