There's actually a major PFPX update coming!

[Dean_EGTC 57]

Also, PFPX is only as good as the person who-

a)  Created the Aircraft Profile

b) Checked the calculated route.  I've been given routes with up to 37% extra fuel use.  I always get the route from SimBrief and paste it into PFPX.I

 

[Kristiaan-D 2]

I still have an PFPX subscription running, but since a few months I have shifted over to SimBrief after getting some weird routings in PFPX. SimBrief does the work for me now, too much realism is too much for my simulator life. I want to simulate the work of an cockpit crew and not work done by the dispatch department ..

But great to see that the developers still continue to upgrade the program!

[MarkW 1,491]

Do you also need a navigraph sub to update airac data in simbrief?

[pete_auau 1,154]

Just now, MarkW said:

Do you also need a navigraph sub to update airac data in simbrief?

yes  you need  a sub  to upgrade  your  data  in simbrief  just like  you  do  with  any  other  addons that requires  navigraph

[Iceman2 110]

58 minutes ago, Dean_EGTC said:

I've been given routes with up to 37% extra fuel use

Don’t forget flight planners and flight dispatchers are highly trained in their jobs and use tools just like PFPX. I’m not a dispatcher but I have witnessed their hardwork many times before being handed our flight briefing package prior to walking onto the aircraft. There’s actually a bit more involved than just hitting the auto route option. Things like winds (jet streams), storms, local preferred route rules, NAT Tracks, restricted airspaces, just to name a few things all play a big part of how a route is chosen. 

The auto/find route is not what is done in RL because it simply try’s to use airways or direct to points that may not work for your desired destination. However in some cases this option will work just fine. Europe is one of those places where the auto route function works best since there are oodles of airways criss crossing the sky’s.

My suggestion is to skip this part of the dispatchers job and go grab the route from FlightAware then past and build it into PFPX. If you are flying live with one of your favourite airlines the route should show up in FlightAware an hour before takeoff.

If however FlightAware or Flightradar24 is not showing a flight to your destination then you’ll need to get a bit more creative and build your own, in which case the auto route option maybe your best bet.

A RL Flight Dispatcher (with any luck) may chime in here and offer some tricks of the trade, but I’ve seen some pretty clever routes over the years mainly over the pacific where they’ve avoided storms, massive headwinds, military exercises, turbulence, volcanoes or flown on a jetstream to get the best tail winds. 

All good stuff and very smart people.

IM

[Bobsk8 12,586]

4 minutes ago, MarkW said:

Do you also need a navigraph sub to update airac data in simbrief?

You can always use a legacy version of Navigraph, only if you want to keep everything up to date, do you need a subscription. 

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

You can always use a legacy version of Navigraph, only if you want to keep everything up to date, do you need a subscription. 

Correct. Take note though that if you are like me and only take a one month Navigraph subscription whenever you need a new AIRAC (which only happens in my case whenever I buy a new addon that needs an AIRAC and I hence have to bring everything up to date) and download the manual installers (I never use the Navigraph manager but always the manual installers because they can be reinstalled even years later), make sure to unlock that AIRAC on Simbrief BEFORE your subscription has ended! Once that AIRAC on Simbrief has been unlocked (with an active subscription) it will remain active even after the subscription has ended. You can NOT activate that specific AIRAC on Simbrief anymore when the subscrition has ended!

The latest AIRAC I bought was 1712 and whenever I login to Simbrief 1712 is the active AIRAC. Well, it actually says '1712 - OUTDATED → (Unlock or select updated navigation data)" but there is no need to do that as long as all your addons share the same AIRAC. 😉

Edited October 20, 2018 by Guest

[JRBarrett 3,050]

13 minutes ago, Iceman2 said:

A RL Flight Dispatcher (with any luck) may chime in here and offer some tricks of the trade, but I’ve seen some pretty clever routes over the years mainly over the pacific where they’ve avoided storms, massive headwinds, military exercises, turbulence, volcanoes or flown on a jetstream to get the best tail winds. 

I fly mostly in the US, and typically get my flightplans from FlightAware for use in either PFPX or SimBrief.

There are “preferred routes” between US city pairs, which can be found on one of the FAA’s web sites. If you look at flightplans on Flightaware for heavily-travelled routes (like LAX -JFK), you will see (on a “typical” day), that almost every airline is using the identical routing, which probably comes from one of the FAA preferred routes.

It is on days where there may be bad weather enroute that you will see the airline dispatcher’s handiwork in play. I recently flew a simulated UAL flight from DEN to EWR. On most days, these flights all use a flightplan whose waypoints closely follow the most direct great circle path between the two airports.

The other day though, there was a large storm system near Chicago, with a trailing cold front with a lot of thunderstorms. On this day, the routing was carefully chosen to send the outbound flights on a more northeasterly path to avoid the line of storms. It probably added at least 300 nm additional distance to the normal route, but would have avoided subjecting the aircraft (and passengers) to the dangers of flying through, or near, a strong line of storms.

Since I always use real weather on my sim flights via Active Sky, I chose to use the modified flightplan that day.

Other times, especially on flights from the east to west coast, I have seen flightplans on FlightAware that a first glance appear to make no sense - with a proposed track heading far north of the great circle path - (almost to Montana), before turning south to approach California from the northeast.

The logic was apparent though when looking at a chart of current winds aloft, and seeing that the more direct “preferred” route would have had the aircraft flying into the the teeth of a 140 knot jet stream headwind for much of the trip, whereas the more northerly route avoided the jet stream, with corresponding fuel and time savings.

 

[fluffyflops 1,848]

5 hours ago, Iceman2 said:

 

A RL Flight Dispatcher (with any luck) may chime in here and offer some tricks of the trade, but I’ve seen some pretty clever routes over the years mainly over the pacific where they’ve avoided storms, massive headwinds, military exercises, turbulence, volcanoes or flown on a jetstream to get the best tail winds. 

All good stuff and very smart people.

IM

Ive a qualified dispatcher for 10 years next year and currently work for a well known long Haul airline.

Ill agree 99% of flightsimmers don't understand the full complexity of flightplanning, especially long Haul across the Atlantic, as much as I don't understand the full complexity of flying an aircraft. 

From start to finish, a transatlantic flight from Reading notams, checking weather, working out the routing, chasing for an payload, Checking etps, ralts, take off alts, drift down, then you file it and spend your time dealing with cfmu issues, rerouted, suspended slots, missed slots, unnotam airway closures, the list is endless...  It can take over an hour easily, sometimes 2 if it's a proving or techinal flight, or on a temporary air worthiness cert. 

Then you give it to a skipper who asks for it to be rerun avoiding this or that, or asking for another 4 tonnes. That's after he's had to have a wake up call because he's can't possibly work that out himself... 

Then you go on twitch on days off and see a unqualified teenager, hospital radio dj, City banker, or computer programmer telling the watchers how to dispatch a plog.  They are clueless to the reality of it. Its incredibly frustrating. 

Finally the unsung heros in an OCC are not the dispatchers, its the crewing officers or airport liason officers who deal with crew being arseholes  or the outstation handlers /ticket desks being muppets 

Alas As always if anyone ever wants to visit my companies iocc in london at the weekend when the bosses arent there you are more than welcome, you will find it eye opening and jaw dropping listening to what goes on a daily basis...there's alot of shouting and swearing but great teamwork and commadeary.  Youve got to be a tough cookie to beable to keep up with the stress and pressure, but I love it. 

Alas You'd probably never get on a plane again after spending a day in a busy iocc like mine hearing the stuff that goes on, you'd also never look at pilots the same way again, (especially if you work with kids)

 

Edited October 20, 2018 by tooting

[DrumsArt 270]

7 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

I fly mostly in the US, and typically get my flightplans from FlightAware for use in either PFPX or SimBrief.

 

 

Hi,

Please, how do you get a flightplan from FlightAware?

I have searched on the site but I do not see any flight plans to retrieve or create/request when entering a departure and arrival airport. For the moment I use PFPX, LittleNavMap or Simbrief.

Thank you and Regards,

Richard

[fluffyflops 1,848]

You search under callsign 

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ACA617

 

For example and it will give you a route string 

[JRBarrett 3,050]

43 minutes ago, DrumsArt said:

Hi,

Please, how do you get a flightplan from FlightAware?

I have searched on the site but I do not see any flight plans to retrieve or create/request when entering a departure and arrival airport. For the moment I use PFPX, LittleNavMap or Simbrief.

Thank you and Regards,

Richard

I normally access FlightAware using my iPhone. I enter a flight I am interested in - such as UAL 576 from DEN to EWR.

It will bring up the flight in question. On the iPhone version, it displays the type of aircraft, scheduled departure and arrival times etc. Scrolling down shows “Flight Details” including the flight plan (listed as “route”) and cruise altitude.

Flight Aware will typically show the flight plan only for flights in the US. It will usually have the scheduled times for flights outside of the US, but flight plan info is often not available.

[Dean_EGTC 57]

I hope I didn't give the impression that i expect to be given my 100% on the button FP, every time I hit that Auto Route icon.  I fully appreciate the work Pete and the other Dispatchers must have to do in trying to keep all parties involved happy.  A big question - Who are the hardest to keep happy; the Bean Counters or the Pilots?

[Dean_EGTC 57]

On 10/17/2018 at 11:17 PM, cavaricooper said:

 I have always maintained that with a carefully created PFPX profile it is entirely possible (not permissible) to flight plan an actual 747-436 to the far reaches of the globe and arrive with appropriate fuel remaining.

When I was with the Level D outfit,  Ernie Alston and others, created a FS Build B763ER Profile that was accurate, IIRC to 2% of it's real world counter part.  We had a RL 763 Pilot on the team and he would take a laptop with the latest beta on his flights and re-run them on his stop-over.

[DrumsArt 270]

1 hour ago, tooting said:

You search under callsign 

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ACA617

 

For example and it will give you a route string 

 

41 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

I normally access FlightAware using my iPhone. I enter a flight I am interested in - such as UAL 576 from DEN to EWR.

It will bring up the flight in question. On the iPhone version, it displays the type of aircraft, scheduled departure and arrival times etc. Scrolling down shows “Flight Details” including the flight plan (listed as “route”) and cruise altitude.

Flight Aware will typically show the flight plan only for flights in the US. It will usually have the scheduled times for flights outside of the US, but flight plan info is often not available.

Thank you, understood (I think)....these are real flights that already exist, I thought I could create one by simply entering the airport of departure and arrival. Interesting, it also allows you to make flights that you don't necessarily think about. If I'm not mistaken.

Regards,

Richard