This needs to be addressed immediately. Immediately. Flight planning is absurd in this new update. I’ve been trying to plan a flight plan now from Rome to Tokyo for over 40 minutes. I watched every video I can find on YouTube about how to do this with the new update and every single person is reviewing how to put a Sid and a star in but they are choosingbairports so close to each other so they line up perfectly without dealing with the waypoints in between, or just glossing over the whole subject of adding the important stuff in between the two procedures. It’s like a rocket science to find exactly where these points end and make sure your points don’t overlap. I had a arrival and an approach into Tokyo but because the arrival is not correct in the simulator, I I deleted a few points which led to it not being classified as an approach so when I added the other waypoints in instead of me being able to move them up I was trapped.
On FPLTOIF.COM it is unclear if I’m still supposed to add the procedures or not because I’m just going to have to delete them in the end anyway. I think this feature is awesome and it’s going to add to the realism of the simulator but it needs to be done in a better fraction. I have read all the threads, watched all the videos, read the reading guide and I still don’t understand this. Something needs to be done immediately about this.
Maybe I’m just not seeing something and in that case I would love it if a staff member could contact me directly and maybe clarify things. I’m willing to take any help at all because seriously after 40 minutes of fighting this it’s driving me insane. And I’m begging you guys in advance please do not troll this post I’m not in the mood
When generating a simbreif FPL, only copy the waypoints after and before the SID/STAR
Load your FPL in IF
Add the SID you will use and move it to the top of your FPL
Since Rome to Tokyo is 12 hours + leave yourself some room in terms of waypoints and their distance from Tokyo or any destination, that way when you are an hour away from Tokyo, you can load the appropriate STAR and it won’t disrupt your FPL
Hopefully this helps, its weird at first, but you’ll get the hang of it!
Thank you for the advice. But this in itself brings up two questions for me.
When you make even just a simple Flight Plan without adding any procedures, doesn’t sometimes the website put in them for you without you asking? How do I know if they are in and/or where they stop?
Wouldn’t the basic flight plan interfere with the SID? Like if the flight plan has a few waypoints close to the airport and then you put a SID in there, it would really screw up the overall plan fast?
Check your map! There’s not a lot of difference in how waypoints are added or deleted. Look along the flight path and delete conflicting waypoints if there are any.
It shouldn’t if you deleted the SID when copying it from simbrief to IF, otherwise you can delete them if it gets duplicated and its no big deal.
now, provided, I’ve always built my FPLs the “old fashioned” way, manually adding each waypoint individually, so this update actually makes my process much easier, but I think i see what you’re talking about.
Often times you can get a lot of information from the name of the SIDs/STARs, for example, LEINY 6, A SID at KMSP, ends at fix LEINY.
Same with HESTIN 4 for example, the SID is named for the fix up to the transition. You can cross reference the fixes off the suggested sid from FPLtoIF which is the one it puts in the flight plan.
Actually there is a better way though. For any short flights, you can actually just plan SID, then immediately followed by STAR, maybe with just a few waypoints in between. The rule in the US for realism is minimum one waypoint per FIR. I use skyvector and I don’t even bother with FPLtoIF these days, unless it’s a super long flight.
Sounds good to me! Again, it takes getting used to, but it makes people slow down and take flight planning more seriously. These improvements were needed big time, and we all just have to adjust and learn them.
Also FPL’s are very malleable, you can change them even en-route, or whenever; don’t think you have to have it perfect before you start your pushback!
A rule-of-thumb tip for STARs:
On FPLtoIF, your ‘top of descent’ (TOD) is usually gonna be a latitude/longitude number, such as 3010N4050E. Copy and paste until that point. Anything past that, as a general rule of thumb, can be assumed to be part of a STAR. All you have to do then is find the correct STAR! And that’s usually mentioned in the flight planning page when you generate your flight plan.
This is a rule of thumb though, and there will be exceptions. Always check your flight plan every time.
Howdy! I know others have shared their thoughts but for an easy way to do it, this is what I recommended to DLVA:
Add your departure airport > add SID > input flight plan (FPLtoIF or other) without airports, SID, STAR, or approach > add STAR > add approach > add destination airport.
Luckily, you can type in a string of waypoints and add them to your flight plan now instead of them automatically overriding everything.
I hope this helps. If you have any questions I’d be more than happy to help.
another easy way to tell where SIDs and STARs end of FPLtoIF you will typically have your top of climb and top of descent coordinates at the end and beginning of the SID or STAR
I feel your pain brother. I’m in the same boat, but trust me, it’s going to take time. The luckiest thing we’ve got in regards to learning this crazy new update is that we have a fantastic community to help :)
Hey, I recorded many videos since the update came. Here is one unedited of me doing a flight plan.
I use simbrief.com, that’s why I do nothing for 5min while I’m creating a FPL. You can use anything you want for your route though, here you just get the spirit. However everything I did was explained in the tutorial (use the brackets to move your procedures in the flight plan).
