I have combed the internet and this forum about this and am shocked that I am apparently the first to report that a flight plan built with P2A and then exported simply cannot work correctly once it gets loaded by the World Map in MSFS.  The reason is P2A has no capability (that I know of, hope I'm wrong) to specify a parking spot at the end points.  The DepartureLLA that P2A creates is interpreted as a "custom" waypoint by World Map and insanely elevates that way point about 1,000' in the air!  Not only that, instead of the departure and arrival airports having their proper names,  WM calls them "CUSTD" and "CUSTA".

As an experiment, I used Little NavMap to create the simple KRDU->LIB->KGSO VFR flight plan as closely as I could to what I did with P2A.  The difference is, and it IS THE DIFFERENCE,  LNM allows you to set your parking spots as the end points of the flight plan.   The LNM FP works perfectly but the P2A one is a disaster.  I edited the P2A .PLN file and modified the <DepartureLLA> and the <WorldPosition> tags to the coordinates used by LNM and it worked just fine so I know for sure that this is the problem.

There is a lot of potential for finger pointing here.   Dave can easily point his finger at Working Title for not implementing the Catalog File Import page on the otherwise feature rich G1000nxi.  🙂  Had they done that, none of this would be an issue at all (aka X-Plane).  I visited the WT support forum and they make a huge deal of not entering tickets about enhancements but only want you to report bugs.  So much for that!

A more serious problem is that World Map thing apparently written as a freshman computer science 101 project.  That needs to be dropped in the bit bucket and completely replaced.  Sorry,  I'm trying hard to contain my rant.

So, Dave, I appeal to you to allow entering a parking spot at the Departures and Arrivals so WM will place the plane on the ground cold/dark.  I assume you must read the airport data and know where all the parking spots are.  I know how to do this in xplane but haven't had the courage to plow into this MSFS monster.

Again, I am amazed that no one else is complaining about this.  Even though, using Little NavMap is a reasonable workaround,  it is a pain to have to bring up yet another utility,  create a FP, import it BOTH into P2A and MSFS.   I love the P2A interface and hate not being able to create my flight plans there.

As always,  thank you Dave for your great support!

-mark

Gates are not part of a flight plan.

In MSFS, just set you departure gate or parking postion before you load the flight plan.  Then, after you load the flight plan and Begin your flight, the aircraft should be positioned at the specified ground location.

Dave

No go!

Ok, I guess I truly am the only one with a defective copy of MSFS, particularly the World Map.

What you told me made sense as I had not thought to set my parking spot before I actually load the flight plan.  Sorry to say that made no difference as you can see from this video, the departure shows CUSTD rather than KRDU and it is AIRBORNE!

Here is the flight plan I created in the video:  https://snomhf.exofire.net/data/p2a/KRDU-KGSO.zip

 

Just in case you are going to say I didn't actually enter the plane (at some 1,400 feet), here is a snap of the flight plan in the G1000nxi showing the airport names called "CUSTD" and "CUSTA":

 

Edited August 7, 20232 yr by snomhf

I just tried loading a VFR plan, thinking that might make a difference, but it worked.  However, I loaded the plan first, then selected the departure location as one of the ramp positions at my departure airport.  When I pressed Ready to Fly, it loaded the aircraft on the ground at that location and displayed the flight plan correctly in the MSFS map.

In the video, it looks like you have a waypoint between the departure and arrival airports, but I couldn't see what that was.  If it was a VOR, NDB or named intersection it should work ok.  User defined waypoints don't seem to work.

If you send me the flight plan you were using in the video, I'll try to see what might be wrong.

 

Hi Dave,

Wow!  If you tried this and it works then I really do have a bum MSFS.  I thought MS kept us all up to date!  How can mine be different?  I don't have any addons that would interfere with this I don't believe.

The waypoint you see is the LIB VOR between Raleigh and Greensboro.  Not user defined.  You can see it in the flight plan.  I've tried a bunch of things, IFR, VFR, only airports, waypoints, etc.  Nothing works for me.  I always get airborne with CUSTD and CUSTA airport names.

I included the flight plan.  You just missed it in all my verbosity:

Here is the flight plan I created in the video:  https://snomhf.exofire.net/data/p2a/KRDU-KGSO.zip

Thanks for giving me attention on this.  Fun ain't it?

 

Do you have the latest beta of P2A installed?

I tried loading the plan you provided the link for and got the "custom location/airborne" issue.

I then validated and Exported with the latest beta and it worked fine.  There are some kinks in the Import of MSFS.pln files in the latest beta that will be fixed in Beta 6 so try creating a new plan and entering the waypoints, then export it with the latest beta.

Dave

 

I think so.  I have 2.7.0.0B5   Isn't that the latest?

Ok, just discovered Beta6A and installed it.   FP built with P2A still does not load properly with MSFS (airborne and CUSTD/CUSTA issue) BUT I discovered I can build a fp with Navigraph 8 and export it to both MSFS and P2A!   That's moving in the right direction and certainly workable.  The little trick of selecting a parking spot works just fine with the Navigraph fp too.

Thanks for giving attention to this Dave!