Hi, I'm starting to get more serious about learning IFR and ILS and plan to use the modded A320 for my international flights.

I'm vaguely aware of various flight planning tools like SimBrief, NaviGraph, ForeFlight, SkyVector, FltPlan.Go, AirMate, and many others.

What I don't know, is what I need exactly...

Here's what I think I might need...

- International IFR Flight Planning?

- ILS approach plates?

- Load and Fuel planning?

- Nice map view of where I've been?

Does anyone have any experience to share with what makes a good flight planning app and whether there's anything out there that would be a good piece of kit?  I'm ok paying a bit for good tools, but as this is a hobby, I'm not going to pay commercial grade prices.

1 Instrument Procedures Handbook (IPH)  or FAA Flight Planning Information or here New Pilot Resources - Welcome Aboard! <-Has very good resources, haven't checked all. Some countries have their own IFR rules and procedures, many can be found on the web. See Eurocontrol IFPS.

2 Charts and plates for the USA at Skyvector, for international airport charts Navigraph. MSFS uses Airbus NavBlue data,  perhaps later on we will be able to subscribe and download. or Free (some outdated) are usually fairly easy to find in the web.

3, 4 Check the ones You mentioned and also Little Navmap.

Edited August 27, 20205 yr by RamonB

26 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Hi, I'm starting to get more serious about learning IFR and ILS and plan to use the modded A320 for my international flights.

I'm vaguely aware of various flight planning tools like SimBrief, NaviGraph, ForeFlight, SkyVector, FltPlan.Go, AirMate, and many others.

What I don't know, is what I need exactly...

Here's what I think I might need...

- International IFR Flight Planning?

- ILS approach plates?

- Load and Fuel planning?

- Nice map view of where I've been?

Does anyone have any experience to share with what makes a good flight planning app and whether there's anything out there that would be a good piece of kit?  I'm ok paying a bit for good tools, but as this is a hobby, I'm not going to pay commercial grade prices.

As many many things, there are many choices, so I'll just share my personal choices.

SimBrief is a no brainer - it is free and powerful. I don't know if there's a profile up yet for the MSFS Neo, but if there isn't, there soon will be. In the meantime, you can use an existing A320 profile and be 'close enough'

Simbrief will give you all the flight planning basics, including flight planning, load planning, fuel planning, ETOPS planning, etc. It has worldwide coverage. If you have a Navigraph subscription (more on that in a bit), it will integrate with that and use the latest AIRAC cycle. There's a bit of a question mark about which AIRAC cycle is in the sim right now, but in all honesty, it doesn't matter all that much - you can always work around any fixes or procedures that might be missing or slightly different.

Navigraph Charts is the best and easiest way to have global charts and approach plates. It isn't free, but it is the most comprehensive. It will also connect to the sim via simconnect for a moving map feature if you so desire; I don't use this feature, but it exists and is cool if you like that. Once the simconnect bug is fixed in the impending update, it should work without a performance hit.

I use SimBrief and Navigraph.

FltPlan.com (and go) is also good. I use it sometimes for real world filing, along with Garmin Pilot. Fltplan.com is a real world flight planning website used by real pilots and corporate flight departments to plan and file. You can setup an account and use all its features. The fltplan.go app is also free. The downside is that they don't have coverage outside the US and Canada. On the upside, they have VFR charts which Navigraph charts doesn't, though they say we'll have VFR charts any day now...so that may change.

Skyvector is the best, totally free, global tool that lets you see VFR and IFR charts. It is nice as a quick reference, but can be more of a challenge to plan a full flight on. It is only a website, not an app. But you can easily copy/paste your route from simbrief in there if you want to quickly visualize your route on VFR or IFR charts. Skyvector only has procedures for the US I think. There is not international coverage for procedures/plates.

Bottom line:

Plan your flight with simbrief - it will suggest a route, but you can amend that manually. Tell it how many pax, cruise altitudes, reserve fuel, etc - or let it decide all that for you.

Then you can load that plan into MSFS on the flight planning screen and you can also one-click import it directly from simbrief into Navigraph Charts.

Everything you need for your flight is in Navigraph Charts.

Edited August 27, 20205 yr by cwburnett

@cwburnett As usual, your input is fantastic... thank you! @RamonB Thank you kindly for the links... I'll check those out.

Thoughts on SimToolKitPro?  I saw something that it brings everything you need together.

Also, another tool I've heard of is projectFLY.

I wish there was a review site for this stuff. 😄

 

SimBrief has a MSFS option. The only thing to watch out for is once you have loaded it into the sim and change to a gate it changes your flight plan back to default 

 

17 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

@cwburnett As usual, your input is fantastic... thank you! @RamonB Thank you kindly for the links... I'll check those out.

Thoughts on SimToolKitPro?  I saw something that it brings everything you need together.

Also, another tool I've heard of is projectFLY.

I wish there was a review site for this stuff. 😄

 

I tried out SimToolKitPro. It was kinda cool, but it isn't really a full flight planner and charts app like I think you're looking for. It is neat to see where you've flown and where you are on a map. STKP and projectFly are both cool from a logging, streaming, etc standpoint, but aren't what I'd call flight planning tools.

29 minutes ago, cooperwarner8 said:

SimBrief has a MSFS option. The only thing to watch out for is once you have loaded it into the sim and change to a gate it changes your flight plan back to default 

 

So how do you use it then?

35 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

So how do you use it then?

Interesting, I hadn't actually tried one from the gate, because I just wanted to test it. But I could see two possibilities. The easy way would be to slew to a gate. The harder way would be to maybe save a flight plan from MSFS, see how it refers to the gate, then save simbrief, manually add the lines to the file for starting at a gate? Or, manually enter the flight plan into the MCDU old school style.

Hopefully they'll work around this somehow.

2 hours ago, cwburnett said:

I tried out SimToolKitPro. It was kinda cool, but it isn't really a full flight planner and charts app like I think you're looking for. It is neat to see where you've flown and where you are on a map. STKP and projectFly are both cool from a logging, streaming, etc standpoint, but aren't what I'd call flight planning tools.

So I watched a video and downloaded SMTK and from what I can see, it appears to be a more elaborate version of the flight planner in MSFS.  You enter your start and end point and then it uses your SimBrief account to fetch a valid route.  You can then customize the departure and approach, etc, do your load and fuel planning and export it in a variety of different ways.  It has a direct link to Navigraph, Activesky, Chartfox and a few others for charts, depending on what account info you provide.  It seems like a nice integration solution. It also has a nice log by the looks of it.  How well it works with MSFS is another matter. I was able to export to MSFS which produced a PLN file, however, I suspect this suffers from the same issue as SimBrief we were just discussing above.

ps. the other benefit is that it runs on my MacBook which I use daily which is a benefit for planning flights outside the cockpit... my gaming PC is reserved for gaming. (But I suppose that's true for all the web-based solutions like SimBrief.)

Edited August 28, 20205 yr by Virtual-Chris

7 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

So I watched a video and downloaded SMTK and from what I can see, it appears to be a more elaborate version of the flight planner in MSFS.  You enter your start and end point and then it uses your SimBrief account to fetch a valid route.  You can then customize the departure and approach, etc, do your load and fuel planning and export it in a variety of different ways.  It has a direct link to Navigraph, Activesky, Chartfox and a few others for charts, depending on what account info you provide.  It seems like a nice integration solution. It also has a nice log by the looks of it.  How well it works with MSFS is another matter. I was able to export to MSFS which produced a PLN file, however, I suspect this suffers from the same issue as SimBrief we were just discussing above.

ps. the other benefit is that it runs on my MacBook which I use daily which is a benefit for planning flights outside the cockpit... my gaming PC is reserved for gaming. (But I suppose that's true for all the web-based solutions like SimBrief.)

I know the SMTK dev is constantly updating, so could be some new capabilities since I used it before. You still have to setup simbrief and navigraph if you go that route. I'd say, try the different platforms and see which interface you like best. Definitely no right answer, all personal preference. The only hard and fast rule is that the only way to see worldwide approach plates is with Navigraph charts.

2 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

I know the SMTK dev is constantly updating, so could be some new capabilities since I used it before. You still have to setup simbrief and navigraph if you go that route. I'd say, try the different platforms and see which interface you like best. Definitely no right answer, all personal preference. The only hard and fast rule is that the only way to see worldwide approach plates is with Navigraph charts.

Yes, it seems like a Navigraph subscription is a must-have.  At least it's reasonable.  Do they also have ILS approach plates for airports?

EDIT: There was also talk of charts being available in the sim from NavBlue, but there's been no news on that.

Edited August 28, 20205 yr by Virtual-Chris

2 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Yes, it seems like a Navigraph subscription is a must-have.  At least it's reasonable.  Do they also have ILS approach plates for airports?

EDIT: There was also talk of charts being available in the sim from NavBlue, but there's been no news on that.

Yup, Navigraph will give you full arrival, departure, approach, airport diagrams, info pages, the works. For every airport with published procedures.

 

Edited August 28, 20205 yr by cwburnett

2 hours ago, cwburnett said:

Interesting, I hadn't actually tried one from the gate, because I just wanted to test it. But I could see two possibilities. The easy way would be to slew to a gate. The harder way would be to maybe save a flight plan from MSFS, see how it refers to the gate, then save simbrief, manually add the lines to the file for starting at a gate? Or, manually enter the flight plan into the MCDU old school style.

Hopefully they'll work around this somehow.

 

2 hours ago, cwburnett said:

Interesting, I hadn't actually tried one from the gate, because I just wanted to test it. But I could see two possibilities. The easy way would be to slew to a gate. The harder way would be to maybe save a flight plan from MSFS, see how it refers to the gate, then save simbrief, manually add the lines to the file for starting at a gate? Or, manually enter the flight plan into the MCDU old school style.

Hopefully they'll work around this somehow.

Well I have to start from the runway which i really hate as i much prefer cold and dark or I deal with the default flight plan until there is a fix.

I stil use sim brief to plan SID/STAR and can set this properly in the sim, just the in between route is off

Edited August 28, 20205 yr by cooperwarner8

6 minutes ago, cooperwarner8 said:

Well I have to start from the runway which i really hate as i much prefer cold and dark or I deal with the default flight plan until there is a fix.

I stil use sim brief to plan SID/STAR and can set this properly in the sim, just the in between route is off

Yea, I totally agree with you, actually. I have been using simbrief, but entering the route in manually in MSFS for the few IFR flights I've taken. And in all honesty, sometimes we get crappy annoying routes in the real world, but in the sim, there's absolutely no shame in a simple route. Take this route for example, just the first one I pulled up from a flight I (used to) take often. Almost 1500nm across the US and only two enroute fixes and no airways. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SKW5685/history/20200828/0045Z/KORD/KBOI

 

12 hours ago, cooperwarner8 said:

SimBrief has a MSFS option. The only thing to watch out for is once you have loaded it into the sim and change to a gate it changes your flight plan back to default 

 

This is actually an annoyance. Currently no third party generated .flp files seems to be able to include a stand or gate as departure so you always have to start from the active runway.

Little Navmap and others are working to be able to parse the MSFS scenery data and should be able to get to the point.

Simbrief and all other tool working on navdata only will have to wait for Asobo eventually changing this behavior (resetting the entire flight plan when selecting a departure spot)