Navigation in FS2004

S

Sid2008

Charter Member
Hello me hearties, have a happy new year.

This new year I resolve to continue to suffer through my irrational love of flying. How about you?

I am trying to get a program that will give me some nav guidance in flying to bush airports. I know, i know, I can make a GPS flight plan and let my autopilot do it for me, but it is so much more fun to find out where you are going based on a flight plan without the aid of moving maps.

So my buds, where can I procure an addon program for FS9 that will allow for this??

I thouight about copilot pro from Abacus, but Abacus makes flying unrealistically easy. Like I said, I am not looking for easy but fun in navigation, perhaps somthing more realistic.

Thanks for any and all help.

Sid
 
A couple that come to mind (other than FSNavigator, which I think 90% of the flying community has, lol) would be the payware FSCommander and the freeware "Plan-G". The price for Plan-G is definitely attractive since it's free, lol. You can find it here:
http://www.tasoftware.co.uk

Written by Tim Arnot for his own personal use originally and it has expanded into a very nice flight planning system among other things.
 
Get some sectionals, look at the maps and do it VOR to VOR... That's how I started navigating back in FS 98...

As for sectionals, stop by your local FBO. The Sectionals expire every 90 days so you might be able to score some that are being thrown out if you tell them you are using them for flightsim. Back when I worked for an air charter company, the chief pilot would give me all the outdated sectionals from the flight planning room.


Brian
 
Loads of sectionals can be found for free at various resources including the usual flightsim libraries. In addition to the info shared already, I wouldn't be without my Atlas & Gazetteer topo maps by DeLorme. They are available on the net ($20) and are invaluable for the recreationist and FS pilot.

Zoom in and look at topo's here (and hybrids)...print them out, too.
http://www.digital-topo-maps.com/


EDIT: BTW, most of the sectional charts are still downloadable at avsim library. Search: Matt Fox
 
Hey All,

Plan G is good but here is the problem I have with it. FS9 and Plan G don't agree on where KRED is. Also the representation KRED and the landclass of the area is terrible in FS9 even with Justin's landclass. Who is right on the location? I bet on google. Still it is a good tool.

-Ed-
 
Boy, that looks familiar, not that particular airport, but the relative distance it's off from the correct site. I've been doing a ton of photoreal scenery lately for FSX and more than half the airports I've done were moved at least that far and some even farther in order to get them situated correctly.

For my money, I'll take satellite imagery positioning over default FS any time.:salute:
 
part of that is probably the FS9 'tubular world' and some is likely due to the degree of accuracy that MS used in plotting the points for the airport reference.

Mind you, if you're using something "not certified for navigation" to hit a runway you should expect a 1500ft error :icon_lol:

To replace a airport using Google Earth images would force the choice of relocating it and possibly the terrain as well or just using the FS9 co-ordinates. Obviously all navaids etc. would have to be relocated too..

Here's Plan-G, GMap and FSNav of the same location.

Rob
 
It's too bad there isn't some way to produce sectional charts specific to flight sim. Using real sectional charts will give less than perfect results as the FS airports are not always were there are in real life. If there were a way to create FS specific sectional charts, depicting the airports in their sim locations, that would be really neat.

OBIO
 
I usually find that between the default planner and FSNav, I can come up with some pretty decent course planning. If you do a VOR-VOR plan, you can print the "Nav-Log." It contains the heading and distance of each leg, along with the frequencies of the navaids along the way.

If you build your plan in FSNav, you can print from there, save it as a text file and print that, or export it to FS in pln format and print the Nav-Log while you're loading it into your GPS.
 
Bush flying?
What are VOR's? 7 years of working in the north and northwest showed me that a) most bush strips aren't near VOR's and don't have NDB's on the field; b)the guys who fly there do so mostly without navaids anyway; c) don't like spending $$ on sectionals and if they do it's mostly for the terrain and handy things like a compass rose on the map. (or the nearest place to buy them is 200 miles away in the wrong direction)

So, you're a bush pilot.. get any map that works and draw a line, figure out the heading and distance and look for alternate routes in case you have to follow rivers and valleys.

A trip from Dease Lake (CYDL) to Muddy Lake BC (BD7) (won't find them on the SkyVector page as it's limited to the US) is not to difficult with Google Earth. Go to each airport (in FS) and get the lat/long from Shift-Z. Note them down and switch to Google Earth. enter one into the "fly to" (in the form of 58 25.47N 130 0.93W) It will be close but not spot on due to the the differnce in format from GE's lat/long format. Put a bookmark on the CYDL airport ( and name it for future reference). Do the same for Muddy Lake (you'll see the strip). Now, click the "ruler" and measure from CYDL to BD7 and it will give both heading and distance ( see picture). Without closing the ruler switch to the 'path' tab and click a set of points to follow valleys and around the lumpy spots in case the wx closes in (noting the distance). now you have your map! save it as a .jpg and/or print it. If there are nearby navaids (which you can find in the FS map function, stick a bookmark in the general area if you want them. showing the ident and frequency in the bookmark. If you are nervous about the wx, make nots of the distance to each turning point (pic#2)

Save the bookmarks to "my Places" and you'll eventually build quite a reference . esp. if you fly to 'bush strips' in Peru, Brazil or any other place you might want to explore.

You are now a bush navigator. Either pop up the pic or tape the printed view to your desk or wall and go. All you need is a compass and a clock (both required aircraft equipment)

For more sophistication, you can do the same with Plan-G or GMap -- either one will allow you to turn off the moving map function.
 
I usually go to FlightAware.com to get ideas for flight plans between two airports I am interested in (check out the "route" box for a specific flight), and sometimes for a particular aircraft type. This helps with selecting typical flight levels/altitudes for the aircraft I am going to use, waypoints, etc.

I also will use www.AirNav.com to view or print PDF copies of the departure procedure and/or STAR I am planning on using if my origin and destination airports have them (you will see the download links toward the bottom of the page for a given airport on that site).

Then I will go to www.SimRoutes.com to plug in the departure proc, route (either J or V, or GPS direct), FL, STAR, aircraft type, etc. to generate an FS9 copy of a flight plan. SimRoutes has many flight plans on file, but they are usually not where I am going (I might start from a class C airport, but end up in the boonies), so I build my own.

Then end result is a realistic flight plan that I can open in FS and fly by the numbers!
 
Thanks for all the good responses.
For you Radio Range folks, is there a website that gives you the A-N beam angles for every airport in RR 4.0??
Thanks
Sid
 
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