I've been kind of frustrated thinking about how many apps we need in order to get all the features we'd like, rather than having a single flight planning app that includes everything. I started out by purchasing PFPX back in the day, which was quite expensive. Only to find out that it's not being updated anymore. I've been using that extensively for my IFR flights. Everything worked well. However, there are a few things that I've been waiting to see and hope that a 3rd party dev or even MS/Asobo can make happen, and that's to make a flight planner that includes everything. One app to rule them all. As of currently I find that I'm using aivlasoft EFB, navigraph charts, and a mix between MSFS buiilt-in flight planner, PFPX and Little Navmap for my typical flight planning needs.

How I wish all of these apps can be combined into 1 app to give us everything at our fingertips. I would love to have the Jeppesen charts and visual flight path showing us which departure/arrival procedure will connect to our waypoints from Navigraph with the moving map from aivlasoft EFB, the flight planner from PFPX, the VFR planning of Little Navmap and the intuitive and simplicity of the built-in flight planner inside MSFS.

I really like the built-in flight planner and think it has a lot of potential if Asobo/MS will continue to make it better. Wouldn't it be nice to have it as part of the core sim? That way we can always have access to it if we need and have all the settings sync nicely to our current flight and aircraft. What I really like about the built-in flight planner is how visual it is. You have access to the entire earth, just simply spin the globe, zoom in to the area you're interested in and start clicking to create your flight plan. They need to make it where when you zoom in, that you can see the actual satellite imagery, that way we can precisely see and plan our exact route, especially useful for a VFR flight plan. Another thing to add is the ability to manually drag the lines to create our flight plans just like in LNM and then for the SID/STAR procedures, have it like Navigraph Charts app where you can see all the possible paths to where that SID/STAR will connect to. Making it hasslefree to create a flight plan that will work. I often struggle sometimes creating a flight plan only to find out that during my approach phase is wrong and my plane goes off course, simply because I chose the wrong transition or whatever. Having some sort of validation before it accepts the plan would be nice so that we can avoid problems like that during our flights.

Edited October 21, 20205 yr by captain420

2 hours ago, captain420 said:

I really like the built-in flight planner and think it has a lot of potential if Asobo/MS will continue to make it better. Wouldn't it be nice to have it as part of the core sim? That way we can always have access to it if we need and have all the settings sync nicely to our current flight and aircraft. What I really like about the built-in flight planner is how visual it is. 

It's not bad I agree.  It's a far cry better in most but not all ways over the old one.   I don't know if you know this but you can input flight plans in the MFD in G3000 equipped models like the TBM.  Sometimes I will takeoff from departure, land at arrival, park and shut down the plane, then return hours later and start another session w/o going to the main screen, and input a new flight plan directly into the MFD.  Then, ATC will read what I've entered and can then do another IFR FP w/o the need to go back to the flight planner accessed thru the Welcome screen.  Very cool!

2 hours ago, captain420 said:

I often struggle sometimes creating a flight plan only to find out that during my approach phase is wrong and my plane goes off course, simply because I chose the wrong transition or whatever. 

I recently discovered one way to address is before you load the approach you selected you should remove other waypoints in the flight plan you will encounter before entering the approach fixes (talking in the TBM's MFD Flight Planner).   Not 100% sure but I've had good luck w/ that for both ILS and RNAV GPS approaches.   Then when you use FMS NAV you will start to track the approach rather than head in another direction.   I need to play around to be sure that's correct but I think it is from two recent flights.