I have a question regarding the MSFS flight planner. If I select both airports and the straight line is drawn, I know you can then drag it and add waypoints. But from what I have seen on videos, those waypoints can be only other airports, VORs etc. But is it possible to drag the line and create a waypoint somewhere else (for example over a lake, forest or town)?

And one more thing - is it known already, which external flight plan formats are accepted by the planner?

5 hours ago, Kenjiro75 said:

I have a question regarding the MSFS flight planner. If I select both airports and the straight line is drawn, I know you can then drag it and add waypoints. But from what I have seen on videos, those waypoints can be only other airports, VORs etc. But is it possible to drag the line and create a waypoint somewhere else (for example over a lake, forest or town)?

And one more thing - is it known already, which external flight plan formats are accepted by the planner?

Yes, you can also put arbitrary locations into the flight plan.

Hey... I bet I know what they forgot to add in...an E6B calc!  Very useful for VFR planning. That would have been too good to be true!

...or is wind correction headings/timings already built-in to the output plan?

Edited August 10, 20205 yr by hangar

3 minutes ago, hangar said:

Hey... I bet I know what they forgot to add in...an E6B calc!  Very useful for VFR planning. That would have been too good to be true!

Available as "DLC" from Amazon and others for under $30 for the aluminum version. 🙂 

I bought mine long ago, don't need another.

Hook

you know what? I had one back in my Flightsafety days...dunno where the heck it is now!

They have digital version online for free now anyway I guess.

Edited August 10, 20205 yr by hangar

Cant say anything but here's a video of IFR planning so you can see the tool

 

 

 

Hi, I'm a long time reader and finally signed in for my first question. 

I also tried to add custom POIs to my VFR flight plan, like in one of the tutorial missions. But I have no clue how to do it. Any tips?

The video above is for ILS, not VFR.

Thanks!

Edited September 7, 20205 yr by sunmils

31 minutes ago, sunmils said:

I also tried to add custom POIs to my VFR flight plan, like in one of the tutorial missions. But I have no clue how to do it. Any tips?

Find the latitude and longitude of the POI you wish to see, and simply enter them in the "search" box on the flight plan page.  You can then make it your departure, arrival, or simply an enroute waypoint.

To get the waypoint to show up, the lat/lon must be in decimal format with a space in between.  In the western hemishere, put a minus sign in front of the longitude.

To fly over Niagra Falls, put the following coordinates in your search box........

43.0788 -79.0799

If you set it as your departure, you will start in the air right over that point. 

When I try to input multiple waypoints using the decimal format GPS coordinates only the first one shows up on the map but they all are listed if you click on the NAV LOG button. Once you're in the flight using the VFR map panel only the one point that was on the plotting map shows up also. Any idea how to get multiple points to show on the VFR map? I know there's a few add on programs that allow you to track your flight using google maps and sending that panel to a tablet or other monitor but from what I understand about them you have to be on the same network (I assume Wifi) to do this. I have my computer on a ethernet cable instead of using the Wifi as I find the download speeds are much faster this way.

Well, I get multiple GPS points.  I made myself a GPS routing to Lukla airport in Nepal.  I started at one airport for departure, and then made Lukala my arrival.  I entered the GPS coordinates in the search bar and when the point showed up on the map, I selected ADD.  Now I had a line from departure airport, to custom waypoint, to destination.  Then I simply repeated the procedure and added a second custom waypoint.  Now my map showed four waypoints, Departure, Custom, Custom, Arrival.

When loaded, they showed up on the aircrafts navigation system, the plane flew to all waypoints properly also.

Just try it again and make sure you click ADD.

 

You can add arbitrary points on the map by putting the Long/Lat. (get them from google maps for instance of your house) and putting them in the search field.

@LarryD

That worked. Thanks!

21 hours ago, LarryD said:

Well, I get multiple GPS points.  I made myself a GPS routing to Lukla airport in Nepal.  I started at one airport for departure, and then made Lukala my arrival.  I entered the GPS coordinates in the search bar and when the point showed up on the map, I selected ADD.  Now I had a line from departure airport, to custom waypoint, to destination.  Then I simply repeated the procedure and added a second custom waypoint.  Now my map showed four waypoints, Departure, Custom, Custom, Arrival.

When loaded, they showed up on the aircrafts navigation system, the plane flew to all waypoints properly also.

Just try it again and make sure you click ADD.

 

That's exactly how I entered the multimple waypoints. On the world screen only one added point besides the departure & arrival airport show up with the line connecting the three. All the waypoints are listed in the NAV LOG screen but not on the map screen. I'm flying the stock Cesna 152 so there's no GPS screens built into the plane control panel so I bring up the VFR map panel and only the airports I chose and the one waypoint listed as "custom" show up on the map panel. What setting are you using (the box under the photo of the airplane selected)? Mine is set to "VFR (Direct - GPS)".

17 minutes ago, Humbler66 said:

 What setting are you using (the box under the photo of the airplane selected)? Mine is set to "VFR (Direct - GPS)".

Just like you, VFR (Direct - GPS)

Try this step by step, all in the MSFS world flight plan editor.

Departure Airport: KSBN       Arrival Airport: KMDW

You should now have a line from South Bend to Midway.

Now in the search area, simply put 41 -87 (space in between).  You should see the box expand immediately under where you type and you will see the word CUSTOM and below in the coordinates in North/West format.  Click those coordinates and your map will zoom.  Click ADD.  Your map should now be a three point triangle.

Now in the search area, simply put 41 -88 (space in between).  You should see the box expand immediately under where you type and you will see the word CUSTOM and below in the coordinates in North/West format.  Click those coordinates and your map will zoom.  Click ADD.  Your map should look like a 4 point bucket under Lake Michigan.

Works every time for me.

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 20205 yr by LarryD
typo

On 9/8/2020 at 7:24 PM, LarryD said:

Just like you, VFR (Direct - GPS)

Try this step by step, all in the MSFS world flight plan editor.

Departure Airport: KSBN       Arrival Airport: KMDW

You should now have a line from South Bend to Midway.

Now in the search area, simply put 41 -87 (space in between).  You should see the box expand immediately under where you type and you will see the word CUSTOM and below in the coordinates in North/West format.  Click those coordinates and your map will zoom.  Click ADD.  Your map should now be a three point triangle.

Now in the search area, simply put 41 -88 (space in between).  You should see the box expand immediately under where you type and you will see the word CUSTOM and below in the coordinates in North/West format.  Click those coordinates and your map will zoom.  Click ADD.  Your map should look like a 4 point bucket under Lake Michigan.

Works every time for me.

 

 

 

I tried to enter multiple GPS coordinate waypoints again and it does work now. I'm wondering if the recent update fixed an issue with it. I hadn't tried it since before the update but it does work now. The only problem I see is when entering many (5-7) points it kept changing the "route" I was trying to plot out. It was like it would rearrange one or two points to make it the most direct line instead of the order I wanted. I'd really like to use one of the apps available to cast the aircraft's GPS position on Google maps but from what I'm gathering reading about them the device you're casting to has to be on the same network and I'm assuming that means Wifi. My computer is wired to the modem and doesn't use Wifi. I have Wifi available but I see a drop in internet speed using it.