If you’re flying in the US, SkyVector will give you all the charts and info you need for free. If you’re using autopilot to fly your IFR flights, the only real thing you technically need is to know the frequency of the localizer and the pattern entry altitude on the ILS chart. Those are pretty obvious and not difficult to find.
Airspace information is very important for VFR pilots to keep them separate from IFR traffic. When flying an IFR flight plan, ATC takes care of the airpasce authorizations automatically as long as the pilot doesn’t cancel IFR.
Approach charts, en-route charts, SIDs, and STARs are for IFR, Commercial, and ATP pilots. They are designed for flying in IMC (clouds, no ground references) when pilots cannot see each other. The charts can be used VFR although some airlines and commercial operators require pilots to use IFR all the time. At a busy airport with a high volume of IFR traffic, it may be difficult for Approach Comtrol to sequence in an ILS approach request by a VFR GA pilot. Some airliners have landing speeds that are higher than the max speed of some GA aircraft. The speed differentials are too much to provide adequate separation.
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Can you point out which altitude is the pattern entry altitude? Is it the altitude you intercept the glideslope? Thanks.
I read some Jeppesen manuals as suggested and watched the Navigraph introduction tutorial. So do most of you make your flight plan in Navigraph and import into MSFS 2020? I see that if you do it in Navigraph, it follows the airways and procedures in the charts. I assume that if you just do it on the MSFS overview map, it just connects the two points together directly. It seems very cool. Or do people just use Navigraph to get the ILS frequency and the like? Thanks!
I plan in either SimBrief or Little NavMap. I then import to Navigraph and the MSFS flight planner at the world map.
What’s the benefit of using SimBrief or Little NavMap before going importing into Navigraph? Is Navigraph lacking in some way in setting the waypoints? And do you run Navigraph on a separate monitor or tablet and follow the live map instead of using the gps?
If you big into books, any “real world” flight training book would cover it…
This series is very good but it doesn’t look like it was ever finished.
You can use Navigraph to plan flights. It has decent planning tools. The others just have more detailed plans, and are more suited to VFR planning than Navigraph, which is geared towards IRF. VRF tools are just better in the other tools.
However, if you’re planning a detailed VFR flight and really want to avoid certain types of airspace (Class A, B, C), SkyVector is the best tool for the job as it uses VFR sectionals vs high and low altitude IFR routes. That way, you can plan your route around controlled airspace without constantly having to deal with different ATC to ask for permissions to transition their airspace.
SkyVector is actually for real pilots, so you can be guaranteed of accurate info.
Navigraph seems very cool and you can create IFR routes quickly after choosing a departure and destination airport. But will it give you a course if you want to stop to see a landmark along the way, say the Sphinx in Egypt? So if I select the departure airport, the sphinx, and the destination airport, will it auto gen me a route and I just have to make some small adjustments?
Also is the Navigraph ios or android app just as full featured as the one on the PC?
No it won’t. That’s why I use the other tools I mentioned when flying MOST VFR flights. WIth those, you can actually plan a VFR route more accurately to include such detours.
If I’m going IFR, then NaviGraph is da shiznit. It’s quick and easy to generate a flight plan, save it, and import into MSFS. While it can be used to plan VFR trips, the real purpose of the planner is for IFR.
I haven’t used the mobile apps, so I don’t know their capabilities. But from what I understand, they should have most if not all the features present.
Dumb question probably. If I load the flight plan created in Navigraph into msfs 2020, will it be set up as a flight plan in the GPS so you can use auto pilot? Even if waypoints include VORs and the like, you can still use GPS to navigate, correct? Thanks!
That’s how it works. The plan will be exactly the same in your FMS as it is in Navigraph or whatever external tools.
One word of caution - it will spawn you in on the runway ready to go vs at a parking spot. And if you select a parking spot from the map, it will reset your plan. You need to select your parking spot from the dropdown menu at top left to avoid it resetting your plan.
The drop down menu or the parking spot is in Navigraph or in MSFS 2020?
The menu in the MSFS world map.
I’m trying out navigraph from KLGA to KMIA (LaGuardia to Miami International) using low routes. I have it generate a route for me. But the route ends in Northern/Central Florida. And I look at the approaches and they are all around the airport in Miami, How do I know how to fill in the rest of the distance? Do I choose just random waypoints or am I missing something. Sorry if I am overlooking the obvious. In the demo tutorial, the routes connected exactly. Thanks! I have the same issue between LaGuardia and Chicago O’Hare.
EDIT: I added an arrival to southern Florida. But how do I find an approach that connects exactly? Or is it that you can’t connect the waypoints exactly?
The IFR flight plan structure is: Departure Airport → Runway → SID (departure) → En Route → STAR (arrival) → Approach Runway → Destination Airport. Navigraph, SimBrief, LittleNavMap and even the MSFS World Map contain a database with information for all the IFR airports in the world. Type in the Departure and Destination and then auto-generate a plan. Generally the departure runway info is not entered until right before the departure. The destination runway is not entered until the aircraft is neare the destination. This is done because the weather and winds can change which runway is being used.
I cheat and use clear sky and calm wind so any runway will work. When choosing a STAR and an approach, the key is to use a common waypoint to link them together. The same goes for connecting the enroute part to the SID or STAR by find common waypoints. Navigraph makes it easy by displaying SIDS and STARs using a color coded overlay. Select the one that looks like the waypoints might connect.
What happens if the waypoints won’t connect? I find that some approaches only connect if you an RNAV approach instead of ILS. And others don’t connect at all. If there is a small dotted line in Navigraph between the STARS and the Approach, when you load the flight plan into MSFS 2020, will the autopilot still transition over that dotted line? I guess I am asking if a dotted line in Navigraph will break the flight plan in MSFS 2020. Thanks in advance for your help!
The dotted line means that there is nothing in a SID, STAR, Approach, or J/V airway for that section. Navigraph “creates” its own “section” inserting “DCT at the top where it displays the flight plan. When a flight plan file is created for MSFS, basically it is a list of waypoints and navaids between the departure and destination airports. Parameters for runways, SIDs, and STARs are inserted as part of the waypoint description.
With today’s modern GPS, the routing using waypoints are all done automatically using GPS coordinates. Years ago when pilots first installed a GPS, there was no huge database of waypoints and navaids. The pilots had to hand craft their GPS flight plans inputting the lat/long coordinates for each waypoint or navaids. Typing mistakes would create interesting flight plans.
And before GPS… pilots had chart books containing SIDs, STARs, and airports. The en-route charts were large folded maps. (Skyvector and Navigraph paste all the paper charts together electronically. Pilots would create flight plans using en-route airways between navaids, usually VORs. Standard airways were labeled on the charts as J123 (high enroute) or V456 (low enroute). If a flight uses an airway, the pilot would put the airway number into the flight plan. Sometimes Navigraph will do this for you. MSFS doesn’t use airways. When Navigraph creates the plan for MSFS, it changes the airway into starting and ending waypoints.
Anyhow, before GPS, when two airways cross, an intersection is defined. Since airways are defined using navaids like VOR radials. Thus an airway intersection is where radials of two VORs cross. This is why aircraft have NAV1 and NAV2.
To appreciate the power and utility of a GPS, try creating then flying a flight plan using paper charts and the two NAV radios only… while in the clouds!
Thanks for the detailed response. I was wondering what the program would do if you were missing a section. I see on the STAR charts that a lot of times, the towers send you a bearing(vectors) for the approach so there isn’t always a perfect fitting circuit. It’s good to know that it is filled in.