When you create a flight plan in MSFS and you can see the departure airport, and all the waypoints in the plan to the final destination, HOW do you determine the number of miles between each of the waypoints in the plan?  Also, I always start my descent too late because I am not aware of the actual distance to my destination airport when in the flight.  So, is there a toggle or button I can press to see remaining miles for the whole flight?  This is usually happening when using the Garmin 1000 or 3000.  I probably just need to keep learning the intricacies of the device, but I'd appreciate a clue on this or a video that shows the answer to these concerns.

Edited September 11, 20205 yr by spilok

47 minutes ago, spilok said:

When you create a flight plan in MSFS and you can see the departure airport, and all the waypoints in the plan to the final destination, HOW do you determine the number of miles between each of the waypoints in the plan? 

Many things in the MSFS G1000 are not currently simulated.. this is one of them.

In the real G1000, the FPL page will give you that information.

You could use the Nav Log (N key or use the dropdown menu) to show you the times to each waypoint, giving you some idea when to descend.

1 hour ago, spilok said:

When you create a flight plan in MSFS and you can see the departure airport, and all the waypoints in the plan to the final destination, HOW do you determine the number of miles between each of the waypoints in the plan?  Also, I always start my descent too late because I am not aware of the actual distance to my destination airport when in the flight.  So, is there a toggle or button I can press to see remaining miles for the whole flight?  This is usually happening when using the Garmin 1000 or 3000.  I probably just need to keep learning the intricacies of the device, but I'd appreciate a clue on this or a video that shows the answer to these concerns.

I do my flight planning graphically at Skyvector. I then use a method described in another topic in this forum to use Littlenavmap to first read the route description then create the flight plan.  I have Littlenavmap save that to a .pln file that can be read by MSFS.  I save it into the location used by MSFS.  I also use Fltplan.com and their iPad app Fltplan Go (they have an Android app as well).  So I also paste the Skyvector plan line in at Fltplan.com, recreate the flight plan there and save it in their system.  That makes the flight plan available to me in their Fltplan Go app, which includes among a bunch of things a nav log and moving map.  I can the follow my progress on the iPad and via the map and monitor the nav log see what distance I have for each leg and total remaining distance.

I know!  Sounds very complex, but it actually is not and goes quite quickly.  I can start and finish all of the steps for most flights in about three minutes, about the amount of time it takes MSFS to load and get started.

Will be better by far when we get some quality 3rd party avionics...

Edited September 11, 20205 yr by fppilot

19 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Will be better by far when we get some quality 3rd party avionics...

A single GTN750 will resolve this nicely. 🙂

Just hoping it comes to MSFS, and if it does, it does so soon.  Would render the default Gamin units obsolete in my aircraft.

50 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

Many things in the MSFS G1000 are not currently simulated.. this is one of them.

In the real G1000, the FPL page will give you that information.

Ahh!  Thought so.  The only way it can be "somewhat done" (after a flight I just had from CYUL to KABE) was to change the FPlan when in the sim to a "direct to" flight, put in the NAV1 frequency of the runway you wish to land on, and the destination mileage is pretty close to where you can plan a "decent descent". You can then change from FMS to NAV1 and hit the ILS if you're on a relatively straight line.

Having been around the innards of the flight plan system on both the G1000 and CJ4 mod projects, the flight plan system in sim is extremely fragile at the moment.

Ad hoc planning, inserting and deleting waypoints, direct-to and changes in direct-to, approach changes, they all totally break the routing in unique ways in every situation.

We'll see what changes the patch brings, but right now, it's a pretty static thing only.

Hi Spilok

After a few "missed approaches" in the 787 because I had relied on ATC to instruct descent and it always seemed to be too late, I was also looking for distance to destination.  I think I have found it in the FMC under "progress" (PROG).  This gives you the distance to the next two waypoints and also seems to give you the distance to the arrival airport with an estimate time of arrival (UTC as set on departure if adjusted).  In practice however, this was hopelessly inaccurate and still showing a considerable distance to the airport after landing.  Sorry I don't know if this appears in the Garmin version or works properly. 

As 109Sqn says, you can also use the NavLog which shows distance and time between the waypoints as planned although I don't think this changes dynamically to suit actual progress like the FMC does.  It would be useful if the NavLog were simply a repeat of the flight information in the FMC, then it would contain planned height and speed at each waypoint, and it would also adjust dynamically with actual progress.

Edited March 27, 20215 yr by jorgon

On 9/11/2020 at 5:37 PM, spilok said:

When you create a flight plan in MSFS and you can see the departure airport, and all the waypoints in the plan to the final destination, HOW do you determine the number of miles between each of the waypoints in the plan?  Also, I always start my descent too late because I am not aware of the actual distance to my destination airport when in the flight.  So, is there a toggle or button I can press to see remaining miles for the whole flight?  This is usually happening when using the Garmin 1000 or 3000.  I probably just need to keep learning the intricacies of the device, but I'd appreciate a clue on this or a video that shows the answer to these concerns.

If you use the Working Title G3000 mod (not used the G1000 yet, but probably the same) then you can select which fields are displayed DTG being one of them - absolutely hate flying without knowing how far to go !!!

Hopefully this will get rolled into the next update, as WT are now working with/for MS/Asobo....

G