PMDG 737 in game flight plan not loading?

[M3Stang 27]

Welp, I was not going to buy it, but then I watched some videos and said, what the heck. Now I may be shunned for this, but I am not really a "study level" person. I just play the sim, fly around the world and more or less sight see. I finally did figure out how to get the 737 to be fully ready to go upon launching a flight with the FMC setting set to "RUNWAY". Great for me, as it makes it more like the base model planes in the game as far as loading up and going. One thing I can't figure out is why the flight plan in game does not seem to load into the FMC. The base planes and even the DC Concorde, which I have been flying a ton load up so that when I turn on AP and press the LNAV button it just follows the flight plan I made at the world map. Is there a setting for this on the PMDG? Would be super annoying to have to type a flight in each time.

[CaptainNick 575]

It uses its own navigation data. So just loading up and having the FMC filled out is not going to happen. 

You can type in the flight plan you did on the MSFS plan screen into the FMC manually but you are also going to want to know aircraft weights, fuel weights, temps if able etc.

The default style planes (dc Concorde etc like you have been using) have a basic fms that doesn’t do half the cool things the 737 can.

[David Mills 4,763]

I have the new PMDG 737 and I love it. But I must agree with the OP that it's both disappointing and annoying that you can't load an MSFS-generated flight plan into the PMDG 737 for MSFS. This is ridiculous. Hardcore simmers could still of course enjoy doing things the realistic way. But there needs to be another option for simmers who don't want to type in "aircraft weights, fuel weights, temps if able etc." I have watched perhaps a dozen videos on YouTube about programming the FMC, and most of them are so convoluted as to be useless. If anyone reading these words knows of some good, beginning-level YouTube tutorials for programming the FMC just to follow a flight path, please post the links below. I'd genuinely appreciate your help. But I'm personally not interested in watching a two-hour lecture on fuel weight before the flight path is even discussed.

Edited May 16, 2022 by David Mills

[David Mills 4,763]

I did manage to create a flight plan and download it with the SimBrief Downloader that both shows up on the World Map (when loaded off your hard disk into the World Map) and also populates the FMC in the PMDG 737. The 737 will then follow this flight path reliably. But this is still too complicated for the average user. Some of you guys remind me of the early competition between Windows and MacOS. Mac users were impressed by how intuitive and easy-to-use their computers were. Hardcore Windows users, by contrast, took pleasure and pride in having to hand-edit system configuration files at the DOS prompt in order to get their computers to function. Remember the book Real Men Use DOS? 🙂

Edited May 16, 2022 by David Mills

[MDFlier 2,031]

M3stang, have you tried Simbrief and the Simbrief downloader?

If not, you may want to take a look at it. You can type in the airline code, flight number, departure and arrival airport, then select the departure time, flight time, and cruise altitude. Then you click a button and the plan is all done for you including all of the numbers ready to go. The downloader, if set up properly, will automatically download the flight plan and weather files to the correct locations where the plane can find them.

The entry of the data isn't too complicated once you get used to it. There's a page (or two) for each phase of the flight. Each page only requires 2-3 entries. Fill them in in order using the numbers provided and you're good to go. 

[MDFlier 2,031]

David - Does Simbrief work for flights in Europe?

Yes. Real men use(d) DOS. Until we got bored and moved on to Unix. It was then that we got into it with the Windows crowd. 

[David Mills 4,763]

7 minutes ago, MDFlier said:

David - Does Simbrief work for flights in Europe?

Yes. Real men use(d) DOS. Until we got bored and moved on to Unix. It was then that we got into it with the Windows crowd. 

I don't know whether Simbrief works for Europe or not. I'm wondering whether flight plans created in Little Nav Map will populate the FMC when loaded into MSFS like the Simbrief flight plans do. I need to experiment. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by David Mills

[CaptainNick 575]

24 minutes ago, David Mills said:

I have the new PMDG 737 and I love it. But I must agree with the OP that it's both disappointing and annoying that you can't load an MSFS-generated flight plan into the PMDG 737 for MSFS. This is ridiculous. Hardcore simmers could still of course enjoy doing things the realistic way. But there needs to be another option for simmers who don't want to type in "aircraft weights, fuel weights, temps if able etc." I have watched perhaps a dozen videos on YouTube about programming the FMC, and most of them are so convoluted as to be useless. If anyone reading these words knows of some good, beginning-level YouTube tutorials for programming the FMC just to follow a flight path, please post the links below. I'd genuinely appreciate your help. But I'm personally not interested in watching a two-hour lecture on fuel weight before the flight path is even discussed.

Let me start this by saying I am not one of the PMDG Uber fans with whom they can do no wrong. In fact I skipped the double dip they did to us with p3dv5. The fact they still havnt finished the 64bit port of their greatest plane, the js41 make me want to cry like a little girl.

This product is not marketed/made for those who want to just load up flight sim. Put a from and to in the msfs flight planner, load up and go. By design it’s meant for the simmer who wants to, and enjoys role playing as an airline pilot which includes things like determining zero fuel weights, hydraulic systems, psi of air pressure put out by the apu etc etc etc.

The great thing about the great flight simulator ecosystem is we have different planes for different types of simmers. For all the word not allowed Carenado gets, there is a large market for their type of add on. Or the DC designs fighters. They are not my type of add on, but I understand there is segment of buyers who want that and they sell.

With that being said, I can’t hop in the f18 in msfs and expect to be able to pull up all the different menus and modes available to a “study level” one like in DCS. Nor can I expect an addon designed to work like the “real thing” to allow me to “dumb it down” for lack of a better expression to make it easy.

[David Mills 4,763]

I do think that, whether Carenado or PMDG, they should explicitly state in their sales material that the MSFS flight planner will NOT work with their product. That's only fair. I remember years ago buying a Carenado business jet for P3D. After realizing that flight plans could not be imported, I never loaded the Carenado aircraft a second time. 

[MDFlier 2,031]

45 minutes ago, David Mills said:

I don't know whether Simbrief works for Europe or not. I'm wondering whether flight plans created in Little Nav Map will popular the FMC when loaded into MSFS like the Simbrief flight plans do. I need to experiment. 

Can you find any where in LNM where you can save or export your flight plan as a *.rte file? If so, then you can load that into the 737

27 minutes ago, David Mills said:

I do think that, whether Carenado or PMDG, they should explicitly state in their sales material that the MSFS flight planner will NOT work with their product. That's only fair. I remember years ago buying a Carenado business jet for P3D. After realizing that flight plans could not be imported, I never loaded the Carenado aircraft a second time. 

That's a valid point. Those of us who used it before already knew that, but PMDG should alert everyone else.

[darshonaut 237]

2 hours ago, M3Stang said:

Welp, I was not going to buy it, but then I watched some videos and said, what the heck. Now I may be shunned for this, but I am not really a "study level" person. I just play the sim, fly around the world and more or less sight see. I finally did figure out how to get the 737 to be fully ready to go upon launching a flight with the FMC setting set to "RUNWAY". Great for me, as it makes it more like the base model planes in the game as far as loading up and going. One thing I can't figure out is why the flight plan in game does not seem to load into the FMC. The base planes and even the DC Concorde, which I have been flying a ton load up so that when I turn on AP and press the LNAV button it just follows the flight plan I made at the world map. Is there a setting for this on the PMDG? Would be super annoying to have to type a flight in each time.

It does not which is the main reason I have not bought it yet. There's propably technical reasons for all that. Who knows and who cares.
But I use my VFR flightplanning in LNM and my IFR and VOR to VOR flightplanning from the worldmap.
Plane doesn't do that? Plane won't be bought. 

I mainly fly bushplanes, so not bothered about missing out on an airliner.

btw, I got the BAe 146 instead. Wonderful fun flying VOR to VOR. And it can use Flightplans from the worldmap without a problem, also for GPS flying.

 

However, now that you have bought it: you could try this. Save flightplan from worldmap. Import .PLN in LNM. Multiexport from LNM in the PMDG format to the correct folder. 
No idea if that works well though. LNM seems to do funny things to my IFR flightplan approaches from the worldmap at times.

Edited May 16, 2022 by darshonaut

[David Mills 4,763]

2 minutes ago, darshonaut said:

However, now that you have bought it: you could try this. Save flightplan from worldmap. Import .PLN in LNM. Multiexport from LNM in the PMDG format to the correct folder. 
No idea if that works well though. LNM seems to do funny things to my IFR flightplan approaches from the worldmap at times.

Thanks. I'll definitely give that a try.

[YMMB 234]

1 hour ago, David Mills said:

Thanks. I'll definitely give that a try.

You may or may not be aware, however if you create your flight plan first in Simbrief, and use the Simbrief Downloader program (separate program) you can with one click export the flight plan in a file format MSFS2020 can use as well as the PMDG 737 through it's CDU. You just need to set the pathway of SimBriefs exported files correctly so they can be loaded into MSFS2020 directly from the flight planning tab and the PMDG CDU.

[YMMB 234]

2 hours ago, MDFlier said:

David - Does Simbrief work for flights in Europe?

Yes. Real men use(d) DOS. Until we got bored and moved on to Unix. It was then that we got into it with the Windows crowd. 

SimBrief works for anywhere in the world.. ...as long as you know the airports international code in 3 or 4 characters e.g. YMML or MEL.

[a321 207]

2 hours ago, David Mills said:

I don't know whether Simbrief works for Europe or not. I'm wondering whether flight plans created in Little Nav Map will populate the FMC when loaded into MSFS like the Simbrief flight plans do. I need to experiment. 

Why would Simbreif not work in Europe whan it is built and maintained in Europe? To assume this without even trying it is just beyond anything I have ever read. And why would you buy a $70 add-on and then just want to sight see in it? When you have default AC for that. 

 

Simbreif is free, it works globally it takes less than 2 mins to make a plan and download it, and even less time to load said plan into the plane!