X Flight Planner Serial 69
Aquilino Neadstine
upper Left corner of the screen is the option to change Direct to GPS or Airways, when you select airways it will give you more options for Departures and Arrivals ect, you do need an arrival airport to have the option show up though.
To bring this post back to the orginal topic, has anyone figured out why the flight planner is only displaying direct departures, arrivals and approaches? I have tried loading tried and tested old flight plans into MSFS but they still appear a stunted direct IFR flight plans. Is this a random issue or widespread?
Hello
I am using FS X SE and XPlane 11.41
I am looking for flight planner ; in the past I was using FSNavigator for FS9, it has been replaced by FSTramp
FSNavigator was a wonderful tool for flight planning (automatic or manual) and had the capability to fly the flight plan automatically like a FMS/GPS, VNAV LNAV, speed...autopilot until the landing if you wish.
I believe fSTramp has the same capability, but it is expensive (recurrent fee per year).
I have noticed that some other flight planner exist but I am unsure of their capabilities: FS Commander, LittleNavMap, Plan-G.
If you use one or several of these flight planners, could you indicate me:
Simbrief is great, especially for airliners. A little less useful for small aircraft. But, simbrief has a desktop app that will pull the flight plan from their system and put it where your x-plane and/or aircraft needs it to be.
Having autopilot fly the flight plan is really dependent upon building the flight plan in the FMS, setting all the performance, N1, takeoff parameters that need to be set, and if you do all that right then you have LNAV and VNAV and can engage AP to fly the route.
It is hard to have a very realistic and good experience flying an advanced modern airliner without a navdata subscription through either navigraph or aerosoft.
Using a flight planner able to manage FMS/ autopilot is an easy way to fly more , but not realistic I agree. I have read the Laminar documentation but they are not enough for practicing. I searched tutorials on internet, but not a lot of what I found is good ! If you can advise me of good tutorials, I will appreciate. thanks again.
@PAWE, check the flight school section of the forum, there are some nice Navigation tutorials there that helped me. I found the FMC easy enough to figure out, and there are some good videos on that. The GPS were a little harder for me to grasp (and I am no stranger to GPS units) So many nested functions, seems like just practicing hands on helps.
Study of ndb/vor navigation is a good base for moving to gps. Vfrmap.com Is a good source for US sectionals, I believe at the avitab site there are links to some European charts. Otherwise, simbrief and navigraph work well together, visual SID, STAR and approach function on navigraph is great for seeing the different STARs and approaches and matching them up.
I use this too. There's a sort of auto generated flight plan if you are feeling lazy (I often use this!) or you can get your hands dirty with SIDs, STARs, waypoints etc if you want to go into more detail. The choice is yours. It does ATC too. There used to be something like a 10 day free trial period so if it's not for you, you don't have to buy.
I did do a video on this within the past couple of weeks. =tvwmYrj_ZQE
It does have a learning curve, but trust me once you tackle that curve and are on the other side of it, you will look back and laugh -- because it isn't that hard..... when viewed some the other side of the curve. It is quite hard to learn -- especially if you have no prior knowledge of avionics, navigation, etc.
By the way, your original post talks about a desire to fly vnav AP, but now you mention the GNS 530/430. Those don't really have a rich vnav set of autopilot features. I consider the vnav in those units to be more of a descent calculator.
Don't expect an aircraft with GNS530/430 to fly a flight plan completely, with throttle and altitude following SID/STAR and following the VNAV profile of said procedures.
And don't forget to put the nav mode in GPS and the autopilot in GPSS mode (push the "NAV" button twise on the AP control) LOL!
That is the biggest mistake pilots make using these models, and one I oftne make when I go back to a GNS530/430 equipped aircraft.
Little Nav map is could control by users for every step. It allows you connect with your XP and give you radar postion of your air craft and even IVAO other online aircrafts. In Little nav map you can see your Endurance and TOC and TOD points. I am fly with my every flight with LNM (Little Nav Map) it is best for XP
Today I practiced the KLAX KSFO Flight which is in the PDF FMS of Laminar. I entered all datas in the FMS. Then I used the FMS To navigate. All went well until reaching TOD, it did not descend. Is there any input To do in the FMS To confirm the descend phase?
Did you give before TOD the target Altitude? Which is mean before TOD point you have to set your ALT to where you want to descending. In this B737 example. LNAV and VNAV on your in criuse altitude let says 38.000ft. and before TOD according to your Chart. You have to tell the Aircraft desc to FL180. You have to use ALT knob and adjust it from 38.000 ft to 18.000ft. Othwerwise aircraft doesnt know which Flight Level you want to fly. Please remmber FMC or FMS doesnt control all aircraft steps. Pilot must be adjust in every steps of flights for correct flights confort and fuel saving. This is not realistic you are program the FMC from begening and you are not touching any panel untill end of flight.
The 737 has a modern, fully featured FMC and AP that can automate all phases of flight. But to get that to happen, you have to program it right. I know following written and video guides it will seem like a lot, but it isn't. Especially if you are flying the default 737, because that FMC is watered down and simplifies the process quite a bit.
The key thing though, it understanding what the ALT in the MCP panel does. Think of it as an override. One your climb and departure, if you program the FMC right and command AP LNAV and VNAV, it will climb as per the flight plan. Usually you put the MCP ALT equal to the cruise ALT and forget it. Then then when T?D is approached, it doesn't descend.
That is because you need to reset the MCP ALT to whatever you are descending to -- before you pass T/D.
Why? Because the MCP ALT is an override. When you climb on departure, ATC will often give you your clearance altitude, and that may not be your desired cruise. They may step you up. They will do whatever is needed to keep you separated from others. The way the FMC works, and the MCP ALT, you use the MCP ALT to set to the cleared altitude, and that will keep you at that lower alt and you don't have to re-program the FMC.
Likewise on the descent. Before the top of descent is reached, you set the MCP ALT to whatever altitude you've been cleared. When flying without ATC, you just put it to the final descent altitude -- which is where you r departure ends and the approach begins.
So what if you miss the T/D? LOL. I do it all the time. How you handle it will depend on how long after passing T/D you became aware you forgot. If you catch it quickly, when you lower the MCP ALT the descent will start. But if you don't catch it quickly, it won't.
Why, because you've already reached a point where the descent rate is outside what the AP will do. In that case, you have to turn VNAV off, and set VS mode to on, and select a descent rate of like -2200. Then after that descent is established, you can hit VNAV mode and it will continue.
Please keep in mind, it has been a long time since I flew the default 737, and I use the Zibo 737 a lot. So it may not work exactly as I described, but the main ideas are common across 7373 variants -- and even across airliner models.