I had an unfortunate incident with a mountain range in career mode, and need to figure out altitude and have a few questions of how to use EFB.
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Interesting set of questions. While I don’t claim to have the answers, I am looking into this for us right now and here are my thoughts.
Looking a a short route that I flew in 24 referring both to my Navigraph charts and those in the web based planner, I don’t see a way to see the terrain elevations in the 2024 charts. In Navigraph, I can see terrain elevations and minimum safe altitudes on FAA sectional charts. If you can find a way to get to the FAA Sectional Charts in 2024, that will help you plan your route.
Ok, if you know the altitude you want for each waypoint, I think you can input that on the planner by clicking on the ellipsis […] to the right of the waypoint where you can enter airspeed and altitude. I have not used this yet, but something for you to check out to see if it helps.
While I have entered my cruising altitude in the planner, I have not bothered to track how that is used in the resulting flight plan. This could be buggy or incomplete at this time? IDK.
See #2 above. Hope some of this helps, I am still learning how the planner and EFB work (or don’t) together and there are a lot of inconsistencies and missing bits of function right now.
To your questions;
1. Is there a way to see the height of the ground along a planned route?
Yes, there are a couple of ways, but it’s not as directly integrated into the EFB’s route view as you might like:
VFR Map (Enhanced):The in-game VFR map has been significantly improved in MSFS 2024. It now offers detailed terrain information.
Zoom and Pan:After creating your flight plan, open the VFR map and zoom in along your route. You’ll see contour lines and color shading that represent elevation changes.
Clicking for Details:You can click anywhere on the map to get a precise altitude reading for that specific point. This includes along your route
Terrain Awareness Overlays (Future Update):Asobo has mentioned plans to add more advanced terrain awareness overlays to the VFR map. These could potentially show color-coded terrain height directly on your flight path for easy visual reference.
World Map during Flight Planning:Before starting your flight, while still in the World Map, you can use the filters (likely under something like “Navigation” or “Terrain”) to show terrain elevation contours and shading. You can also click the map for specific altitude readings. However, this isn’t overlaid on the EFB during the flight.
Currently, the EFB in MSFS 2024 doesn’t directly display the altitude of each waypoint in the flight plan list. as far as im aware
Workaround: VFR Map Check: You have to manually check the altitude of each waypoint by switching to the VFR Map, locating the waypoint, and clicking on it to see its elevation.
Potential Future Improvement: Asobo might add waypoint altitude information to the EFB’s flight plan view in a future update, as it’s a logical piece of information to have readily available.
You’re correct. The “100 ft” you see in the EFB is likely a default or placeholder value and doesn’t directly correspond to the altitudes in the automatically generated flight plan.
Automatic Flight Plan Generation:When you create a flight plan on the World Map, the system attempts to generate a route based on various factors, including:
Departure and Arrival Procedures: It might use Standard Instrument Departures (SIDs) and Standard Terminal Arrival Routes (STARs) if applicable, which have their own altitude restrictions.
Airspace Restrictions: It avoids prohibited and restricted airspace.
Terrain:It generally tries to avoid terrain, but it doesn’t always do a perfect job without manual adjustments.
Aircraft Performance: It might consider your aircraft’s climb and descent capabilities, but this is limited.
VFR Flight Plan Considerations: For VFR flights, the system is more flexible and may not adhere to any specific altitudes beyond basic terrain avoidance. The goal is often to maintain a relatively low, safe altitude while following visual cues.
In the current version of MSFS 2024, you cannot directly specify the altitude when manually adding a waypoint in the EFB as far as Im aware.
Manual Adjustments in the World Map (Limited):.You can do limited adjustments to altitudes in the World Map planner before starting your flight, but only when IFR flight plan is active. You can select a waypoint and potentially adjust its altitude. However, this level of control might not be available or as precise for VFR flights.
Workaround (Manual Flying): After adding a waypoint, you’ll have to manually fly to the desired altitude using the VFR map for reference, or by using other instruments or by looking at the outside view. You can also use autopilot altitude hold feature.
Desired Feature:Direct altitude input for waypoints in the EFB is a feature Asobo is likely considering, given its importance for flight planning, especially IFR.
In summary, MSFS 2024’s flight planning tools, especially within the EFB, are still evolving. I love the EFb and the flight planner WT developed but each to their own
Since my post of 9 days ago, I have noticed that there are map options in the web based flight planner that are not on by default, as one would expect when opening up any traditional map. These may have been there all along and I didn’t notice them, or perhaps the flight planner was improved along with the patches, either way one has to click on the sidebar menu options to see various map features, some that would inform choice of altitude, etc.
If one has access to the web based flight planner either outside the sim, or before launching the sim, I highly recommend taking advantage of it. For example (and not that anyone needs to do this), I plan my route on a laptop or tablet first. That same route can be brought in via the EFB (a bit buggy, but it works after a few tries). Then I have a map outside the sim to follow along, as desired. YMMV of course but we have more options now and that requires more time to digest all the new features. There is still more I’ve yet to explore in 24 for flight planning!