Fsbuild-2 Flight Planner

Hi folks,

I just plan to fly WJA1874 from CYVR to PHLI. From flightaware I found
CASDY J500 YAZ DOLFF KANUA 4400N13500W 4000N14000W 3600N14500W 3200N15000W 2700N15500W ZIGIE
for today's flight to PHNL.

So I add the rest MAGGI V12 KEOLA V16 NAPUA and put it into FSBuild2.0 bought yesterday (2.4.0.18 build 267).
I push build and get nicely:
CYVR KIN1.CASDY CASDY J500 YAZ DOLFF KANUA 4400N13500W 4000N14000W 3600N14500W 3200N15000W 2700N15500W ZIGIE MAGGI V12 KEOLA V16 NAPUA PHLI

... and the message 'Create FSX.pln (xml) file c:\user\...\CYVR-PHLI.PLN'. Also I find the file in the usual directory. It is about 9k small.



When I start FSX and try to load the pln file, nothing happens, ie. neither origin, nor destination, nor waypoints show up at all.

Other pln files work totally fine, eg. todays LOWI-EHAM.PLN.

What's going on?

Thanx in advance.

Pecker

I've played with the XML until I'm blind and I can't see a darn thing wrong with the file, but it absolutely won't load. However, there is a work around. If you have FS9 you can export the file in FS9 format and it works perfectly. If you don't have FS just go to your "Documents" directory and create a "Flight Simulator Files" subdirectory and the file will go there. Remember to set the "FS2004\FSX" option in the export menu. I'll continue to work with the XML when I can see again and see if I can figure out what's happening... or maybe Ernie will come by and point it out.

DJ

Yes, I see the same behavior that you do. The generated XML looks just fine and will load into tools like Plan-G. I've changed input formats for the lat/lon points, renamed them, and even removed them completely and the plan still will not load. The next step would be to remove all the waypoint data and then test load, add the first, test load... you get the idea. As I get some time I'll play with it and see if I can track it down. The FS9 format plan does load in FSX with no problem so there is something else wrong with what FSX is expecting to see from the XML. As noted, I have no idea what it is.

With regard to formats, you will find two documents in the FSBuild\User Guide subdirectory that will give you all the info - "Latlon waypoint formats2.pdf" and "FlightPlanFormats2.pdf".

DJ

Hi DJ, Ernie,

if I strip away everything to only CYVR..PHLI the pln file is 2k now, AND cannot be loaded into FSX.
So we are down to origin and destination (which in the graph are nicely connected, so FSBuild knows both).

CYVR-PHNL does not work, CYVR-KLAX neither.
KLAX-KJFK does work, KLAX-CYVR, too.

So, it is the CYVR code as origin ICAO code, which FSBuild or FSX don't like here.
But why?

As I built the pln CYVR...PHLI on my own within FSX and loaded it afterwards, it can only be quirk of FSBuild, can it not?

Please help. CYVR is one of my favourites...

Pecker

OK, I tracked this down and it's really pretty simple to fix. For whatever reason, CYVR assigns GATE 7 as the departure gate; that gate doesn't exist within FSX CYVR. If you open the file fsb_pref_rwy.txt that is in the main FSBuild directory you will see the line: "CYVR 26L 26R GATE 7 -- GATE MEDIUM". Change that line to read "CYVR 26L 26R" by deleting the "GATE 7 -- GATE MEDIUM" part and save the file. That will take care of the problem with CYVR.

Going back to your original problem with this route "CYVR KIN1.CASDY CASDY J500 YAZ DOLFF KANUA 4400N13500W 4000N14000W 3600N14500W 3200N15000W 2700N15500W ZIGIE MAGGI V12 KEOLA V16 NAPUA PHLI" ... the difficulty was actually two problems. The first problem was the gate assignment as above, the second problem is that FSX will not accept waypoint ID's longer than ten characters. Your plan generates 11 character ID's. This can be fixed by reformatting the lat/lon strings as noted in the document I referenced earlier - for example 4400N13500W is also 44N135W. That will generate a seven character ID and the plan loads just fine.

DJ

Ubersu2,
many thanx!
Pecker

You're welcome - I learned some things too!

DJ