Can someone please reccommend the best flight planner that works with RC. I am willing to pay the price for SIDS and STARS

be sure you understand the handling of sids and stars in a RC context, before making a planner's purchase. you may pay more for a planner with sids and stars. the reality of how they are handled in rc may be different than your expectation.there is a section in the manual all about this, might be useful to read that for some perspectivejd

Thanks JD, as usual you look out for us. By the way can you provide me a link to makerwy. The one in another post didn't work.

http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.htmlScroll down a bit on the left of centre in blue. You'll see it.Don't scroll too fast or you'll scroll by it. I always do.It's called MakeRunways 4.16JimCYWG

Thank you sir.

I hate to contradict the boss. :)I use FSBuild which includes SIDS and STARS. By including these procedures in FSB when exporting to FS9 for RC and maybe your favorite FMC plan format, these procedure names get converted to ordinary waypoints in your plan files. This will allow RC to _partially_ use these waypoints since part of SIDS and STARS can fall within the jurisdiction of the ATC Center controllers.There are two recent threads where I discussed this. Look at the thread "Long Terminal Procedures" about twenty topics down.In one response I pasted the plan doing a text copy from an r/w flight found on flightaware.com (FAA airports only) into the FSB route field. In some cases there is a minor difference in a SID/STAR title between r/w and the name in the FSB database but that is easy to correct.I think jd is referring to the SID/STAR databases in the FMC which waypoints will not be in your plan sent to RC and therein lies the conflict.There are a couple of discrepancies at times in FSB but I prefer it. Others may prefer something else.The site tutorials cover an earlier version but look at www.fsbuild.com.

Well now that you have contradicted him I can admit that I bought and downloaded FSB while at work today. Will install later. Again thanks

FYI in the www.fsbuild.com page you will find the ability to download an AIRAC to update its navigation database. There is no charge for this. Follow the instructions on install and after doing this in FSB Options find your way to rebuild the navigation database index, then restart FSB to make the changes effective. I always copy the entire FSB folder to another one to have a protection copy of all the index and database files before doing an AIRAC update.It can come in handy when using r/w plans. In some instances it may not match your FS scenery in terms of navigation labels but all you care about in its exported plan to FS for RC is the waypoint location anyway and it will use those waypoint labels in the plan.One more consideration is that in the case of autorouting you may find an error causing an error deviating from the intended route. In the waypoint/route table if you click on a row it will highlight it on the map allowing you to determine the errant entry. The most common reasons are duplicate waypoint names in FSB's database. In most cases you can just delete the line and select (each time for each FSB session - it is not sticky) under build options the build from route table entry and then rebuild. Sometimes the errant route is created from the expansion of a SID or STAR into the waypoints in the table. Use this if the errant waypoint is not in your route displayed in the route list field above the table where you can delete it there and just select build. Always proof your route displayed on the map to catch any direction spikes.Take your time to learn FSB and I think you will find it most useful.

I have recently purchased FSBuild as well. How can you tell if FSBuild has the latest AIRAC? When you download this AIRAC from FSBuild, do you simply save to a tempory folder and then unzip. After unzipping, does one simply "RUN" the update or is it a manual job?Thanks.

The AIRAC from www.fsbuild.com is a zip file that as you say you put in a temporary folder. You might want to create a folder to store these files since each one is dated in the file name. This way you can go back to an earlier download data set if needed. You just extract it into the main fsbuild folder you setup allowing overwrites of the existing files. The zip filer does not include nor need any folder names.I then start FSB and under the Folder Items select Options. On that page select the NavData tab. I then click on button to create FSBUILD2 NavData Indexes. Restart FSB for those to take effect. This is just a recommended safety issue on my part to make sure the .idx files are updated.It is also suggested to backup the entire fsb folder before doing a version and/or airac install but copying that whole folder to another one.

RonThanks for your informative and helpful reply. Much appreciated.