Online Flight Planner Default Planes duplicated with Incorrect Specs Prevents Entering Fuel & Payload

[GimbalAxis]

ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue: If you try to use the EFB to create a flight plan and load fuel, cargo and passengers, there are a series of issues that prevent it.

• Most Default Planes are duplicated with no consistency of naming conventions. There is no indication of which of the duplicates is for 2020 or 2024.
• If you compare the specs for the duplicates, they are different, but in some cases completely wrong (eg 787 Max Passengers “0”)
• When the specs are wrong, it prevents proper use of the Fuel and Payload (eg, unable to enter ANY passengers when Max is “0”)
• There is no apparent way to load fuel
• It is very apparent that nobody on the Development side has tried to use the EFB as a User would, or the broken workflow logic would be fixed.

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)? Every time.

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

1. Go to planner.flightsimulator.com and just look at the list of default planes: duplicates, but not together because “787” and “B787” in an alphabetic sort don’t appear together.

2. No indication of which is 2020 or 2024

3. The Details of each duplicate reveal different specs, which are either incomplete or wrong

4. The wrong specs (eg, Max Passengers “0”) prevents use of entering data in Fuel & Payload

5. There is no place to enter fuel properly

YOUR SETTINGS

Settings are irrelevant - this is the web planner, but the issues exist in the EFB in the sim as well, regardless of hardware specs.

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

What peripherals are you using:

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it?

[PC, MSFS 2020 Only] Are you using DX11 or DX12?

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use?

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share?

MEDIA

[Bishop398]

@GimbalAxis

Trip fuel is a prediction, not an entry. If you want to enter fuel outside of this prediction, you can use any of the other fields (reserve, extra, tankering, etc).

[Bishop398]

@GimbalAxis

For legacy planes that do not have this data, you can simply use the Payload box above this. There is no functional difference between the two. The passengers box is just a shortcut to adding weight to the aircraft for performance profile calculations.

[BigCow74]

@Bishop398

Trip fuel is a prediction, not an entry.

Is trip fuel = 0 in this case because presumably there has not yet been a flight plan created on which to calculate?

[Bishop398]

@GimbalAxis

efb-default-duplicates1526×2412 319 KB

While I agree that a more consistent naming convention would be helpful, the flight planner cannot control how the aircraft.cfg in the aircraft package has been defined, and even if the default planes were harmonized (which would include having to alter 2020 planes), it doesn’t prevent third party planes from using whatever other convention they see fit.

Because of this limitation, we have provided the search box in order to help users filter the aircraft.

If there are specific planes that you feel have erroneous naming, those bugs should be filed in the respective aircraft threads and not here with the flight planner, as the data does not reside with the planner, but in the aircraft packages themselves.

[Bishop398]

@BigCow74

Is trip fuel = 0 in this case because presumably there has not yet been a flight plan created

It could be many possibilities:

• There is no flight plan yet created to calculate the trip fuel
• The plane has no performance data or none has been entered
• The entered performance or loadout data does not permit a valid vertical plan and subsequent performance calculation

We now have an alert at the top of these screens to indicate if no vertical plan is able to be computed for the entered data, so hopefully that helps folks!

[GimbalAxis]

@BigCow74

Is trip fuel = 0 in this case because presumably there has not yet been a flight plan created on which to calculate?

Nope, I just tried to create a flight plan, with the 787, then the Longitude, KLAX to KORD, auto-selecting route, FL, everything, then went to Fuel & Payload, nothing.

Again, I don’t think any of the developers are using this to plan flights, or they would see the issues. Sorry Matt, you guys are great, but there is too much “friction” in this part of the EFB currently.

[BigCow74]

So the summary here is pretty much all of the friction and issues are because this is a 2020 plane that is not “forward compatible” with the new 2024 EFB and aircraft performance feature(s).

I appreciate that there are reasons and explanations for what the user is seeing. Matt always goes above and beyond with support.

However, it’s pretty frustrating to see just how poorly the overall compatibility of all 2020 assets (not just planes, but scenery add-ons, etc…) is just barely being held together by bubble gum and match sticks. I would be immensely confused as a new user trying to understand all the machinations.

[Bishop398]

@GimbalAxis

Again, I don’t think any of the developers are using this to plan flights, or they would see the issues. Sorry Matt, you guys are great, but there is too much “friction” in this part of the EFB currently.

We use the web flight planner daily, as well as the EFB Planner App. In the web flight planner, I am not able to reproduce your issue using the 2024 Longitude (the one that indicates it has performance data):

I would ensure that you are selecting an aircraft that has performance data. Aircraft that do not have it will have a triangular exclamation point icon (which gives you a tooltip indicating what it means if you hover over it).

If you are not selecting an aircraft with performance data, then you must enter your own in the performance section.

[GimbalAxis]

Yeah, and I’m not sure the 787-Dreamliner is 2020… I think it’s the 2024 one.

And Max Pax “0” is just an entry in a config file somewhere, so it should be fixed, and having to add payload to add Pax begs the question, why have a Passengers section if we can’t use it for a premium default plane like the 787.

It’s too much nonsense for me. It’s a new purpose-built EFB, it should work intuitively as advertised. If Fuel is “predictive” it should state that clearly.

Sorry but it’s just too frustrating, I’ll leave the bug report and go back to Simbrief.

[Bishop398]

@GimbalAxis

It’s too much nonsense for me. It’s a new purpose-built EFB, it should work intuitively as advertised. If Fuel is “predictive” it should state that clearly.

I’m not trying to be combative here, but we do have what we feel is a fairly consistent design language regarding user editable vs not user editable fields: the user editable fields have a box around them that can be typed in, while the non-user-editable fields do not and are just text.

In addition, there is a tooltip next to the entry indicating that it is the fuel required for the planned route.

Is there a specific indication that you would have felt would be clearer to you to avoid the confusion that you’re facing? It’s always good to have user opinions.

@GimbalAxis

Yeah, and I’m not sure the 787-Dreamliner is 2020… I think it’s the 2024 one.

And Max Pax “0” is just an entry in a config file somewhere, so it should be fixed, and having to add payload to add Pax begs the question, why have a Passengers section if we can’t use it for a premium default plane like the 787.

The aircraft in question is the 2020 one. The 2024 one has the correct number of passengers.

The technical reason for this is because the passenger graph did not exist in MSFS 2020. There was no max number of passengers definable in the aircraft anywhere in the aircraft load stations then either. That being said, we might be able to try and detect this case somehow and allow the user to add whatever number of passengers they want, I suppose.

[GimbalAxis]

@Bishop398

The aircraft in question is the 2020 one. The 2024 one has the correct number of passengers.

How do we know which is 2020 and 2024?? There is no indicator!

I entered a flight plan in the 787 Dreamliner, all auto filled route, etc. No fuel prediction. So if this is because there is currently no performance data, then it should allow manually entering fuel and pax… (again, from a user perspective). I really respect the work WT does, but I don’t have the energy to defend the bug report. I’m giving my honest feedback about frustration and pain points that I hope you will consider - obviously it was designed differently than I’m undestanding.

[Bishop398]

@GimbalAxis

So if this is because there is currently no performance data, then it should allow manually entering fuel and pax… (again, from a user perspective).

Maybe I’m not totally understanding the conundrum, and it would certainly be helpful for me to. If you don’t have performance data, I’m not certain I understand the necessity to add passengers or fuel. Adding those things will not change anything about the flight plan or predictions, since there are no predictions. Adding passengers and/or fuel won’t change your flight times or anything else about the plan because there is no performance data in the first place to plug those weights into to come up with a computation.

That being said, if you follow the tool left side menu from top to bottom, the performance tab is after the route tab and is intended to be checked after the route is plugged in. On that tab you can see what performance data you have, and if manual data is required, which data is still missing.

@GimbalAxis

I really respect the work WT does, but I don’t have the energy to defend the bug report. I’m giving my honest feedback about frustration and pain points that I hope you will consider - obviously it was designed differently than I’m undestanding.

I certainly hear, respect, and am genuinely sorry that you have some pain points, and I’m not intending to make anyone defend the bug report, only show what we feel are bugs vs conscientious design choices. I would agree that it is designed differently than it is being understood, and I think a lot of that stems from folks coming from SimBrief, where the goal isn’t so much designing a flight plan as it is receiving a flight plan, in a sense.

SimBrief has the luxury of building into their tool a limited set of in-house crafted performance data, which may or may not necessarily match the aircraft being flown in-sim. The MSFS Flight Planner does not have this luxury; it must support two generations of aircraft both default and third party, and therefore aircraft which have a wide variety of differing features and limitations. As such it is necessarily more complex, because it has to support a number of outs in which the user can supplant those missing features with their own entries.

Examples of this are as I described before: if a legacy plane has no passenger graph, you can always add weight straight to the payload, if a plane has no performance data, you can always enter some manual data to get predictions, if you want to add your own planes and performance data (in a much more complete way than SimBrief) you can do so and even share those with other users.

Many of the pain points you describe are down to this need to support whatever thing you might have in your Marketplace inventory, but we feel that to not have those outs to be able to support anything any everything, we would instead just be a tool for solely tubeliner folks expect to receive a plan, as opposed to users of any kind of aircraft looking to design a plan, and that’s not what we really intended the tool to be. We wanted it to be equally possible to build yourself a plan no matter what the state of your plane, no matter if it is old or new.

[GimbalAxis]

Matt, I’m only using MSFS 2024 Premium Deluxe, only 1st party aircraft.

The point remains that you need a filter for 2024 stuff.

My purpose in using the EFB is the same as it was the World Map on Xbox in 2020 - to load the plane. I liked the idea of the immersion of filling it in on the EFB and sending the flight plan to the avionics, loading the passengers and fuel amounts, so I could see the calculations - for the default 787.

I’m just trying to load the plane.

But now, between the wrong config data, the inability to distinguish which duplicate to use, or input pax or get fuel predictions - and this exchange, I’m just dropping it. I won’t use it. Thanks for you help. cheers.

[Bishop398]

@GimbalAxis

But now, between the wrong config data, the inability to distinguish which duplicate to use, or input pax or get fuel predictions - and this exchange, I’m just dropping it. I won’t use it. Thanks for you help. cheers.

Understood, no worries.

For folks reading along, who might have similar confusion:

@GimbalAxis

liked the idea of the immersion of filling it in on the EFB and sending the flight plan to the avionics, loading the passengers and fuel amounts, so I could see the calculations

• The web flight planner does not sync payload, passengers, or fuel to the sim EFB. The route load function only loads the route, not any other items from the web planner.

• This triangular exclamation point icon (and corresponding tooltip, if you hover over it) indicate that a plane does not have performance data:

  

• The pane menu icons on the left side of the screen are intended to be used in sequential order from top to bottom. For example, the Performance pane will show this for either of the 787s (which, as indicated by their triangular exclamation point icon, do not yet have performance data):

  

  You can enter the minimum required data on this page to get at least a vertical path and resulting altitude computations in the OFP and VSD. If you also want predicted fuel, you can enter the fuel burns (and optionally speeds) as well. For example, here’s some super ballpark 787 manual performance numbers:

  

  And now I get a fuel prediction:

  

Hopefully that helps any other folks who may have been confused on the topics brought up here! And as always absolutely appreciate everyone contributing.

[BigCow74]

Maybe a dumb question, but is cruise speed (you entered 220 kts) entered as IAS, and then based on your flight level, it will determine TAS/Mach for trip calculations? Or is that field intended to be your cruise TAS? I ask because 220 kts cruise for a B787 seemed odd.

[Bishop398]

@BigCow74

Maybe a dumb question, but is cruise speed (you entered 220 kts) entered as IAS, and then based on your flight level, it will determine TAS/Mach for trip calculations?

Not a dumb question at all! Yes, the speeds are IAS, since wind, ambient pressure, and ambient temperature at altitude are applied along your flight path across the flight time, based on the flight date and off-block time provided in the Flight Detail pane.