Does flight plan correct for wind?

I created a flight on the east coast of the US today with a couple of legs about 15mins long. However the headings given wern’t correct as I was being blown wildly off course. I thought the plan corrected for wind. Quite new to the sim, so maybe I’ve got this wrong??

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When you set up a flight plan, the wind cannot be taken into account, as the flight plan needs to be valid indefinitely. For example, taking off for a five hour flight, how would you know what the wind will be when you arrive at your destination, especially if the flight plan was set up some time before you set off? And the wind will of course depend on what your flight level is, and this will change in flight.

As I understand it, the heading in the flight plan is what you are aiming to achieve when flying, and to achieve it you will need to adjust the heading you set accordingly, using GPS, navigation aids etc to check what course you are actually on.

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The autopilot should correct your heading to satisfy the flight plan track.

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Thanks for your reply. So the headings you get on your navlog are just headings to your destination. If I wanted to correct for wind I would have to use some third party flight planner like skyvector.

A flight plan is like a drawn line on paper with a pencil. Only your skills or the autopilot keep you on track. The interesting question is: Will the destination runway heading always be the one in the flight plan regardless of the actual wind direction.

Explains it nicely and simply :slight_smile:

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No, You, or the autopilot corrects for whatever wind is present. But there is currently some kind of problem with the coordinates used in the map, and used in the sim. Your HSI needle will report you being perfectly on track. But in reality you aren’t. At least according to the map.


In this case, I was flying a missed approach. the HSI reported that I was perfectly along the 210 radial the whole time. But the in game map showed me being off by as much in FltPlanGo

Here is the map showing me being off by the same amount by the time I read the VAUGN fix.

Remember, that during the whole time, the HSI needle reported being perfectly along the 210 radial. Either the map display, or how the nav system use the game’s coordinates are incorrect.

When I corrected to the left to properly overfly the VAUGN fix, the HSI reported me as being left of course.

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No, you need to adjust your heading in flight. Assuming you’re not using the autopilot (which does it for you) you need to adjust your heading as you fly to keep on your flight path, as indicated (for example) on the cockpit Garmin. There is no way you can plan your exact course beforehand and expect to get to your exact destination.

This is of course part of the skill of flying.

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