[Released] Bush Trip Manager

[darth0dan]

Hi all,

I finally found a time to finish and fly couple test bush trips using tool I was working on in recent months. I’ve written it for myself to get some better bush trip experience and now I think is in enough good shape to share it. I posted about it here [In progress] Bush Trip Manager

Below is overview and short documentation how this app works.
I just pushed it to flightsim.to so should be soon available here https://flightsim.to/file/73575/bush-trim-manager

Overview

Main purpose of Bush Trip Manager is to move bush trip experience outside from MSFS giving opportunity to fly bush trip plans unrestricted by Bush Trip mode in MSFS. From MSFS perspective every flight tracked by Bush Trip Manager is a free flight following loaded flight plan. Is not integrating with MSFS Bush Trip mode therefore progress will be tracked only inside application not MSFS. Flight sim log book will be filled as for normal flight. Application can import bush trip package into internal structure for tracking. Is working with default flight sim bush trip and also 3rd party created. Application is integrating with MSFS using SimConnect for fetching flight information data and also for injecting aircraft position.

Features:

• Bush trip structure import
• Storing and tracking multiple bush trip
• Live flight progress
• Saving and loading last parking position for every leg
• Flying multiple legs without need of landing after each leg
• Text to speech for next waypoint instruction
• Displays metar information for departure and arrival airport (limited by free API)
• Displays nformation about airport elevation and runways
• Displays current conditions during flight

Installation

Application is packed as simple zip file. After downloading unzip to desired location.

First start

On first start application will create directory structure for storing bush trip files and plans also for internal database. Structure will be created in:

C://Users/[yourUser]/AppData/Roaming/BushTripManager

It will create 3 directories
bushTrip – contains imported data for bush trip (pictures, legs data etc)
plans – contains flight plan generated for each bush trip to load into MSFS
internal – contains database created for application.

Do not modify manually any of this files it may cause application to not work correctly.

Main screen

1. Sim connect status
2. Importing bush trip
3. Coming back to list of loaded bush trips
4. Shutdown app

Loading first bush trip

1. Click on “Import Bush Trip” button.

2. It will bring selection window where you can navigate to bush trip you would like to load.

For default bush trips

C:\Users[YourUsername]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Official\OneStore

For community loaded:

C:\Users[YourUsername]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Community

Bush trip can be loaded from any location doesn’t need to be loaded into MSFS first.

3. After loading you should see like below.

Selecting legs

1. Click on selected bush trip this will bring legs selection view
   a. Bush trip description loaded from bush trip package. Flight duration is calculated based on avg 150kts ground speed.
   b. List of legs bush trip contains that can be selected as starting point. You don’t need to start from first leg. Flight plan will be generated from selected leg onwards. Progress will be tracked for selected legs only.

2. Select leg you would like to fly from list 1b
   a. For some of the airports metar will be available. I’m using free metar API which not always has metar mostly for a small regional airports or airstrips. If Metar is not available this section will be empty.
   b. Start leg button will generate and store flight plan for selected leg and store in plans directory in app roaming structure. Will load active leg screen.

Load plan in MSFS

Flight plans are stored in C://Users/[yourUser]/AppData/Roaming/BushTripManager/plans directory. Easiest way to load plans from Bush Trip Manager is to create sim link for MSFS plans storage. MSFS stores flight plans here:

C:\Users[YourUserName]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState

Create shortcut for C://Users/[yourUser]/AppData/Roaming/BushTripManager/plans in this directory so you will have easy access to all plans generated from Bush Trip Manager.

All plans are named with bush trip name and directions

Loaded plan should look like below.

You can select started position for a flight either runway or parking position. And start flight

Active leg screen

1. Active waypoint panel. This panel displays waypoint information and controls. Waypoints are reached within 2.5nm radius so you don’t need to fly directly above them.
   a. Waypoint directions with heading and distance from waypoint.
   b. Text to speech play button for current information
   c. Continues text to speech for information. It will play automatically on waypoint next waypoint
   d. Jump to next waypoint. This button will teleports you to next waypoint with heading for another. Mostly if you completely lost or just want to speed up
2. Current conditions. This data is fetched from MSFS data in this panel depends of your weather settings inside flight sim.
3. Information about departure airport with runway data. (Runways Ids, length, elevation, surface) This data is also fetched from flight sim
4. Metar for departure runway. As mentioned above is free API so data can be not available.
5. List of all waypoints for this leg. This is collapsible list so you can check information for each waypoint on route
6. Load location button. This button will your last saved parking location. Location is saved with application for every leg if needed that will let you start from where you finished last flight.
7. Information about next coming leg. To judge you want to land or have a time to continue to next one
8. Information about arrival airport with runway data.
9. Metar for arrival. Is empty in this case as free API didn’t have metar for this location.

Mid flight

Application will continue tracking your flight during leg from waypoint to waypoint. You don’t need to follow exact flight plan. You can skip waypoint and flight straight to next or your arrival airport. Skipped waypoints will be marked as done. Only mandatory is to fly over arrival airport to load next leg if you want to continue flying without landing.

Waypoint panel will show direction to next waypoint after reaching previous. If you skip POI7 in this case and reach POI9 POI10 will be loaded.

Flight plan will be loaded in plane as usual with free flight. Plan is generated always from selected leg to last destination of bush trip. If you would like to take whole trip in one go you can.

Around 3nm from arrival airport next leg button will show. You can use to skip landing and fly next leg directly or you can decide to land. Next leg panel will give indication how long is next leg and if you have enough time and fuel to continue. If you decide to continue it will load and start track next leg.

If you decided to land and after parking in your spot hit save location button. Save button will show when your speed is below 5kts. (Could get reliable reading of parking break set for all aircraft was testing but it could change in updates)

This will store your current location against leg. You will be able to start from exactly same spot you parked your aircraft for a next leg. Hit the next leg button to finished current leg.
You will have new leg loaded with load location button. From this point you can taxi back to runway and continue or just stop and comeback next time. If you load your flight from following leg you can hit load location button and you plane will be loaded to your parking spot with cold and dark state.

Happy flying

[GregP7617]

This looks incredible and I’m excited to try it out soon. I don’t see any mention of it above, but does your tool have the ability to change the plane that you fly? In the past I had messed around with some of the other bush trip tools in order to do this, but it was always a fairly manual process.

[darth0dan]

In flight sim is just free flight. You load flightsim choose whatever weather plane and other settings you want and load flight plan generated by app. Rest is tracked by application and MSFS doesn’t know anything about it. Thats the reason I wrote it to fly bush trip how I want without any restrictions from flight sim. Bush trips at beginning were OKish for me still was annoying that you need to land after each leg even if leg was 10mins in fast plane. Final blow that pushed me to write this one was starting every leg from runway with engine on completely broke magic of bush trips for me.

[GregP7617]

I just tried this with the default Austria Tyrol High Mountains bush trip and everything worked exactly as described! I absolutely love this program - thank you so much tor helping to make the bush trips more user-friendly and so easily configurable. I’ll be using this quite a bit from now on after having mostly ignored the bush trips these past 4 years. Incredible work!

[Giannino2]

Awesome! Thank you so much for this program .

[J1mb0G5751]

Wow! You are the saviour of Bush Trips! Used to be my favourite part of the MSFS until they ruined them… I will be trying this later to rediscover the joy of bush trips.

Big Big Thank you.

[JWVDH33]

Have you been able to test this with the A2A Comanche? I have found that the Comanche will not move when starting a bush trip that I modified with other utilities to use this aircraft.

[darth0dan]

Thanks guys for really kind words. That was exactly why I written this app to enjoy bush trips again and is great that you enjoying bush trips with this app again

[darth0dan]

I didn’t test it with Comanche as I don’t have it but this app is not touching bush trips is just free flight in flight sim. If you can load Comanche and fly in MSFS it will work with this app. I’m not sure if saving and loading location after landing will fully work with this plane. It will teleport you to saved location but cold and dark state may not fully work. I’m using standard simconnect commands for shutting down plane. Have a go and let me know if everything works if not I can get one and update for Comanche.

[TheBlackWind977]

@darth0dan

Is not integrating with MSFS Bush Trip mode therefore progress will be tracked only inside application not MSFS.

Just to be clear, this means that the % on bush trips inside MSFS won’t increase/change?

[SparksFlying707]

This is a terrific app! Bravo!

[darth0dan]

Thats correct. It works like bush trip mode outside MSFS with own progress tracking. I was trying to find a way to bush trip tracking inside MSFS but is no interfaces for it. I don’t think it will be possible without some reverse engineering of MSFS also progress is stored in azure so even if that will be somehow possible another problem with synchronisation will appear

[TheBlackWind977]

Ok, thank you.

[darth0dan]

Hi all,

I pushed update just now. Mostly I added controls for volume and rate for text to speech. I wanted to add output device but I can’t get Speechsynthesizer to work with different device even from Naudio. C# is not my native language I mostly learned it only to write this app so if here is any experienced C# dev and willing to give some hints how to solve this issue will be great I found workaround to force it to go through different device instructions below.

1. Open application and set for a flight
2. Play instruction for firs waypoint (this is important otherwise sometimes is not appearing in mixer)
3. Go to System->Sound

4. Click on Volume mixer

5. Find BushTripManager and change output device to one you want. (I usally running it through headphones with bushtalk radio)
6. Restart BushTripManager again for some reason is not reacting for default output runtime only app restart works.

I will update app once will figure out how but for now above does the trick

[darth0dan]

Hi All,

I just pushed new update for integration with avwx api. This api allows me to find nearest station if airport or even airstrip doesn’t have one. Now metar will be always provided but in some cases in may be station few km away.

I added new field to indicate where the metar is from.
If station is on airport away will simply be no.

If station is not on airport it will show how far away is so you can judge how accurate weather is on destination or departure.

To use it you need to create account on https://account.avwx.rest/getting-started and use free access. This will give you around 4K request per day so quite a lot. Once will get token copy it in settings.

Happy flying

[AskedPenguin815]

MS says Bush Trips are about sightseeing, but then they throw in piloting challenges, make you fly planes you’re not interested in, and take away slew mode.
If sightseeing is the goal, they missed the target by a lot.
They should buy this from you and use it to make dual mode Bush Trips … Piloting or Sightseeing.
You have completely changed my simming experience. Thank You.
I couldn’t find you on Discord. Is there some place I can buy you a cup of coffee and scribble on the wish list?
Rest assured though, even if you never touch the code again, you have my eternal gratitude.
Well done!

[BegottenPoet228]

Looks really cool! Thanks.

I’ve been getting more into bush planes and self-directed bush trips, and I think this app will be a favorite. As we all know, the sim’s built-in bush trips has some serious limitations that this app fixes.

[darth0dan]

Hey thanks for a kind words. That was my idea for this app to get bush trip as I want to fly with no limitation I created discord link is here BushTripManager and also posted in in flightsim in description of app. You have couple channels there including suggestions. I have couple ideas for what next but busy with with other things. CU7 completely destroyed performance for me and was fed up with it and took a break from FS but I will have a bit more time for this app maybe. I have slideshow flying 737 but still kind of works for my bush flying.

One idea I started to work on is http server. I want to have information from on ipad but don’t have a time really to rewrite it fully to mobile version. Idea is to set webserver and you can load website on ipad or phone from app and display info you need during flight.

[darth0dan]

Hi All,

Thanks to comments in flightsim.to I realised that I selfishly locked bushtrips to english only. English is not my native language so I don’t know why I didn’t think about it earlier. With new update I change importer to choose different language to import with bush trip if avaiable.

When you click on import and choose folder where bush trip new window will popup with language selection. Some of the community made bush trips may have mutliple language to choose but each language may have same translations as I saw so far.

I added also new option in settings to choose different voice for text-to-speech. This will list all voices installed in your system so if you need different one you need to install it in windows and will be listed there.

More updates in coming weeks

Happy flying

[SlateEvening147]

Interesting idea… it will definitely be appreciated… I’ll test it over the weekend… thanks for your work.