SimBrief and/or SkyVector

[Rich Heimlich]

Much has changed during the 3 years I took off. Today it seems a lot of people use one or both of these sites for the flight planning.

 

I found SimBrief to be lacking until I renewed my Navigraph access and linked it.

 

I like SkyVector because it puts all the charts within easy reach.

 

What do you guys think of these two? Is there something better yet? A couple videos I watched of flights had both being used (not entirely sure why). Can you get the charts in SimBrief (and thus potentially use just it)?

 

Thanks for any insight.

[Steven Perry]

I view these as complimentary sites. Simbrief does the flight planning, briefing, and filing a sim flight plan. Once I get in the sim, Skyvector is for my charts.

 

SkyVector must not be used for briefings or filing VATSIM flights!

 

Besides, Simbrief does a lot better job at planning fuel burns, optimal altitudes etc than Skyvector for the typical VATSIM flight in an airliner.

 

To my knowledge Simbrief has no charts.

 

A site that I've used for ~15 years that does a good job with both flight planning and charts is FltPlan.com. It's not as accurate with airliners as is Simbrief, but it does have some profiles built in that do a better job than Skyvector's simplified methods. It's free and it works well with VATSIM if you do not file. I use the (also free) companion app on my phone and/or tablet to pull up charts.

[Rich Heimlich]

Might be good to have charts on my Android tablet. Hadn't considered that option previously. FltPlan definitely would work there.

 

It seems like such a strange oversight with SimBrief to not have charts. At least it seems like an obvious next step so maybe it'll happen.