6 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

I do not use SB but Little Nav Map .

 

+1 for LNM, I'm a huge fan of it. I did look at SB and didn't like it although I do appreciate the realism of its plans, specially for gamers who like flying the tubes following RW procedures. The generated flight plans from SB have a kind of old skool feel to them like from an old printer, I liked it!

LNM is amazing, have to pinch yourself to realize its free.

6 minutes ago, ThrottleUp said:

 

+1 for LNM, I'm a huge fan of it. I did look at SB and didn't like it although I do appreciate the realism of its plans, specially for gamers who like flying the tubes following RW procedures. The generated flight plans from SB have a kind of old skool feel to them like from an old printer, I liked it!

LNM is amazing, have to pinch yourself to realize its free.

So, you like and dislike SB?  

I should point out I’m mostly flying the Longitude for IFR and mostly 1hr flights or so.

It seems the main value of Simbrief is the more realistic flight plans?

The problem is, I wouldn’t know a realistic vs unrealistic plan so theres no real value there for me. I’m not sure it’s worth having to use another App in my case. 

Can you use Simbrief in a way that allows ATC to assign the take off runway when you request clearance, and the the approach, and landing runway on arrival? That is important to me.

I dunno… the built-in WM planner has weights, fuel, cruise altitude, and couldn’t be more convenient. 

11 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

The WM is a great UI idea poorly implemented, cumbersome to use and often recommending weird parameters (altitude, route).  

 

I don’t find it cumbersome at all. And I haven’t really yet encountered any parameters I would consider weird but then I’m typically using it for 1-2hr flights in the Longitude so not long haul. 

59 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Can you use Simbrief in a way that allows ATC to assign the take off runway when you request clearance, and the the approach, and landing runway on arrival? That is important to me.

Your flightplan really shouldn't include any runway info as it is. That is all issued by ATC. Simbrief will assist you in "planning" your runway selection as well as the sid/star but those are both tools for ATC to use.

 If you like it though, then by all means use it.

Edited August 13, 20232 yr by Dave_YVR

15 hours ago, Tierborn said:

So, you like and dislike SB?  

I like how it looks even though it doesn't feel the most user friendly with its WOT but I guess thats how it is IRL (?).

But dont like it as much as LNM which I find happier.

 

20 hours ago, ThomseN_inc said:

I can tell that you won't get any closer to real world briefing packages as you get with the ones prepared with simbrief.

Agreed. 

I’ve tried to use the built in planner for some more complex routes and gave up because I just couldn’t get it to work. That could be my lack of understanding of how to use it, though. 

LNM is great for GA. Simbrief is fantastic too, but I think it really comes into its own with airline type operations. It plays the role of the dispatcher providing a dispatch release that is largely overkill for GA. For realistic airline ops, Simbrief is a must IMO.

7 hours ago, ThrottleUp said:

I like how it looks even though it doesn't feel the most user friendly with its WOT but I guess thats how it is IRL (?).

But dont like it as much as LNM which I find happier.

 

One look at the UI for LNM, was enough for me. never used it for any thing. 

On 8/13/2023 at 2:04 AM, Virtual-Chris said:

What am I missing?

To be fair to WM, you are not missing anything IF you just want to get in the plane and fly a predefined route, VFR or IFR.

BUT if you are like many that likes to do pre-planning by the book (or as close as possible) with all the bells and whistles just like a real pilots do, then SB is the way to go. There are a lot of flight calculations that SB does that WM does not, not even close. I personally fly IFR with BlackSquare's King Air and the B58P and all I use the Navigraph, the only time I use SB is when I fly PMDG's 737, SB lets me export flight plans that I can then import into the FMC.

 

Edited August 14, 20232 yr by CarlosF

1 hour ago, CarlosF said:

To be fair to WM, you are not missing anything IF you just want to get on the plane and fly a predefined route, VFR or IFR.

BUT if you are like many that likes to do pre-planning by the book (or as close as possible) with all the bells and whistles just like a real pilots do, then SB is the way to go. There are a lot of flight calculations that SB does that WM does not, not even close. I personally fly IFR with BlackSquare's King Air and the B58P and all I use the Navigraph, the only time I use SB is when I fly PMDG's 737, SB lets me export flight plans that I can then import into the FMC.

 

That makes sense. I can see Simbrief playing that role of the dispatch for an airliner. However, someone mentioned it does weights and balances… that doesn’t make sense to me as something you would get from dispatch. Wouldn’t that be done by the pilot during boarding? You don’t know the exact weight of baggage until then. So those using it for weight and balances can’t exactly play the “it’s more realistic” card right?

4 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

That makes sense. I can see Simbrief playing that role of the dispatch for an airliner. However, someone mentioned it does weights and balances… that doesn’t make sense to me as something you would get from dispatch. Wouldn’t that be done by the pilot during boarding? You don’t know the exact weight of baggage until then. So those using it for weight and balances can’t exactly play the “it’s more realistic” card right?

I may be wrong, but I think the weights and balance is given to the pilot by the dispatcher, and the pilot checks it to make sure it is accurate.

Weight and balance can be handled a couple of different ways depending on the company and connectivity. At my company, when we have connectivity on the ground via ACARS, we can punch the passenger and baggage numbers (or more often than not, it is submitted electronically by the customer service rep and ground crew) and the W&B and runway performance numbers come back via ACARS. Otherwise we may have to to a “manual” manifest via EFB to get W&B and look at runway performance numbers in the dispatch release based on some assumptions of planned takeoff weight. But, yeah, W&B is rarely done without some electronic input and runway/takeoff performance is provided as part of the release. 

9 hours ago, snglecoil said:

Weight and balance can be handled a couple of different ways depending on the company and connectivity. At my company, when we have connectivity on the ground via ACARS, we can punch the passenger and baggage numbers (or more often than not, it is submitted electronically by the customer service rep and ground crew) and the W&B and runway performance numbers come back via ACARS. Otherwise we may have to to a “manual” manifest via EFB to get W&B and look at runway performance numbers in the dispatch release based on some assumptions of planned takeoff weight. But, yeah, W&B is rarely done without some electronic input and runway/takeoff performance is provided as part of the release. 

Yeah, that makes sense. No way the dispatcher building the flight plan can know the weight of my wife’s bags. 😝 

OK guys,

Let me try and break it down a little easier.

Simbrief gives you "planned weights"  for use in "planning the flight"  

Your "actual" "numbers" (weights, etc.) would come from the ramp agent, dispatch, whatever, through whatever means just before takeoff.  You bounce those final numbers off your flight plan to make sure you're still in the ballpark and call still complete the flight.  

Your actual "performance" numbers are entered into the aircraft's FMC/FMGC or whatever.  If for whatever reason your actual numbers differed by too much, then you might need to re flight plan to make sure you can still make it.  

Now, why do we like SB so much in flight sim?  It's because we can up and downlink from SB to the aircraft's (FMC) and our other apps (charts, GSX, flight trackers-logbooks, and whatever else that can read simbrief).  It makes things a lot easier and turnkey.  We also have aircraft specific profiles for SB for the aircraft we fly.  We can prefile on our favorite on-line network when flying online.  This is just to name a few.

If you're just tooling around in small aircraft, you might not need or want to use it.  For me because I fly tubeliners I don't just need it for proper flight planning, but a lot of times I might be running numbers right on the bubble.  It really helps to see if I can even make the flight in the first place.  

EDIT:  If you guys ever want to see my "flows" when doing a flight, feel free to join my discord and I'll stream it for you.  I often do group flights with friends.  Haven't streamed much on twitch lately but have been flying about 200 hours this month already...lol.  I'd be happy to show you guys how easy it makes things and why these things are important and how easy it really is.

Getting ready to land in PHX now then doing another to LAX.

 

Edited August 15, 20232 yr by Jeff Nielsen