Hi everyone. Just wanted to let you know that some time ago started to work on application to manage and track bush trips outside FS. I’m not very happy in how bush trips mode works currently so I was looking to have something that will allow me to fly it without any restriction (free flight) but still be able to track progress. Below some few screens from current progress and information about implemented features and one in roadmap. I’m writing it for myself but once I finished and use for a bit to fix bugs (unless will have some beta testing volunteers) will drop it on flightsim.to.
Implemented features
1. Bush trip import
You can import any bush trip created for FS. I tested it with multiple default trips and some from flightsim.to. Getting it right is a bit pain as I found multiple variations in formatting so probably over time will be more. Pretty much I’m converting FS bushtrip into format that my app is operating.
2. Flight Plan generation
At start I wanted to use SDK functionality to load and save PLN and FLT directly with sim but I found that that is broken atm. Plans not loading at all and FLT is loading but is not loading navigation at all and I can’t track flight. I opted for solution to generate PLN based on chosen leg. That works pretty simple. On Bush Trip detail view (Is in screens below) you can choose what leg you want to start. When you hit “Start leg button” app will generate PLN from chosen leg to last leg of trip. You can then load this plan in sim, choose starting position and from this point application will track your trip after flight is loaded.
3. Trip tracking (Partly implemented)
This is biggest mode of the application. So far I managed to track plane location and distance from each waypoint. Tracking will be configurable but for now is hardcoded to 3nm radius to mark waypoint as finished. Logic is not limited to follow exactly each waypoint if you decided to fly airport to airport it will mark all waypoints as finished when you reach destination airport. I’m not going to limit leg completion to land and stop plane if you want continue to next leg waypoint without stopping it will start new leg as soon as you get far enough from airport. I’m also not limiting to what is starting leg you can load any leg from bush trip and fly. I decided to do it in this way as I like flying Baron and is not suitable for airstrips but only way to finish leg in FS is to land stop. Also I like to fly only specific leg because of nice views but in FS is resetting all progress if you choose to repeat earlier leg.
- Weather and airport information (Partly implemented)
I’m loading some of the information available in SDK to determine weather in destination and departure airport including runways information and pattern altitude. I found having really handy to have those information to plan landing without googling weather and elevation. Currently I’m not able to get wind on destination unless you get closer but I hope will find something.
In progress work
1. Trip tracking
- Working on reliability of data from simconnect.
- Adding teleport feature. Small cheat to teleport aircraft to waypoint location maintaining current speed and altitude in case of being lost.
- Progress calculations
- Calculating ETA
2. Weather and airport information
- Elevation data for airport and accurate runway informations + facilities
- Accurate wind information further from destination airport
3. Other features
- Text to speech for waypoint information. When you on the way for next waypoint it will read out information. I love BushTalk radio.
- Saving aircraft state. I was hoping to use FLT for it but doesn’t work with SDK as I would like so I’m thinking about storing state of plane so you can start when you left it including mid-flight.
If you will find this app will be useful for and you have some ideas what will be good to add to this let me know below. I will try to keep it this updated with progress. I don’t have a loads of free time to work on this one but I hope before Xmas will have it on flightsim.to.
And that was reason I started to write it to have better way of flying bushtrips