Danny Janman 1435217 Posted November 30, 2019 at 07:35 PM Posted November 30, 2019 at 07:35 PM Hey guys, I have been flying for many many years both online and in RL but I am looking to return to online community flying and making all these sim hours feel like they are worth it by flying with a VA! As its 2019 and a lot is outdated I thought I would throw something up here! Basically all I would love to know is exactly where should I head to for Flight planning software that is free or online etc so I have something workable that fsx, PMDG 73NGX myself and Vatsim controllers will all understand without me having to plan lots and lots I like nice simple departures and arrivals and simple routes along the way even if long lol Also if anyone has some recommendations for some VA's that would be great. Im hyper proficient on most boeing Jets and really dont want to fly for days and days in an embr jet just to be able to fly my 73 haha Also I use FSp[Mod - Happy Thoughts]engers so something compatible would be great I have thousands of hours on it! And finally any other helpful tips or pointers for getting back into this hobby would be highly appreciated. I stress I really want to fly with a VA soon so want to sort this asap! Thank you all and I can't wait to get back in the skies with you all really soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Pryor Posted November 30, 2019 at 10:33 PM Posted November 30, 2019 at 10:33 PM Welcome back! Can't help you with VA's, but I can recommend LittleNavMap for flight planning. You can find it at https://albar965.github.io/ Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Janman 1435217 Posted December 1, 2019 at 12:19 AM Author Posted December 1, 2019 at 12:19 AM Welcome back!Can't help you with VA's, but I can recommend LittleNavMap for flight planning. You can find it at https://albar965.github.io/ Ken Hi Ken I will check it out, thanks for the reply! I have had a couple of people recommend SkyVector what do you think of that? I really just want to be as streamlined as possible not just for myself but for the ease of the controllers I feel more nervous here than RL as I want to make sure I'm getting it right for how it's done on Vatsim haha But thanks a lot for replying! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Pryor Posted December 1, 2019 at 01:46 AM Posted December 1, 2019 at 01:46 AM SkyVector is great! Meant for real world flying, but it's definitely useable for us too. The good thing about LittleNavMap is you can use it to create a flightplan and export them to the sim of choice so you can load it in an FMC or GPS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tobias Dammers Posted December 2, 2019 at 01:39 PM Posted December 2, 2019 at 01:39 PM Heads up; skyvector can also export flight plans in a variety of formats. They are aimed at RL FMS systems and the like, but they will also work with many flightsims. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Shearman Jr Posted December 2, 2019 at 06:05 PM Posted December 2, 2019 at 06:05 PM My usual flight planning process (within the US, that is) is to check the FAA PRD followed by FlightAware IFR Route Analyzer to see whether there's a real-world preferred or frequently filed route between my origin and destination, then put that into SkyVector to see it plotted on the chart and start turning it into a flight plan. I punch it into the FMC by hand. SimBrief isn't bad for creating routes and automatically exporting into FMC, and, will help with fuel planning, pulling NOTAMS, weather briefing, etcetera too. A bit complicated but once you get the basics down it's a pretty nifty tool. If all of the above have failed, I'll just pull up SkyVector, put in origin and destination, and start looking through the SIDs at origin and STARs at destination to figure out which ones make the most sense for my direction of travel and aircraft type. I use the FAA's Digital Terminal Procedure page to pull these, but AirNav and SkyVector have them too. Then I'll use the IFR High charts on SkyVector to construct a route via airways which connect the two. I then use my own personal custom-created Excel spreadsheet to calculate estimated flight time and fuel consumption. The last link is a video explaining the math I use, for anyone who cares to see -- although, there are as many methods for making those calculations as there are pilots, it seems. Links: https://nyartcc.org/prd/ https://flightaware.com/statistics/ifr-route/ https://skyvector.com/ https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_products/dtpp/search/ https://www.simbrief.com/home/ Cheers, -R. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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