Save / Load a Flight (including Flight Plan) - MSFS Flight Planner (now EFB-) functionality

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Brief description of the issue:
I manually input a flight plan and flight a while. Then I save the flight. When I load the saved flight back, the flight plan I made and flight disappeared.

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

image
image1440×1147 95.1 KB

Detail steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

PC specs and/or peripheral set up of relevant:

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:1.21.13.0

211

FS2020 1.21.18.0, Windows 10, DirectX 11
Working Title CJ4

I like to fly in the summer and at 1:00 PM usually.

Edit 2: 1/4/2022: E. below. 6:09 PM (6:09 PM UTC)
Clarified/Corrected.
It is UTC time and is corrected to your time when you click an Airport or click FLY.
Note: You must set the time in UTC time (6:09 PM UTC) and not in your time.
In my case (EST USA) to 1:09 PM (6:09 PM UTC)

B. How to save a flight and be able to load it to fly again & keep Flight Conditions.
B. How to load it on another day and fly it again & keep Flight Conditions.
C. How to change & save Flight Conditions. (Month, Day. Hour, Time, Weather)
Edit:
D. Load a .flt file and have the Cloud Icon display on the upper screen Menu
End of edit

This does not apply to the airplane’s status or its buttons, switches, controls.
This does not apply to multiple jumps (hops, legs) of a Flight Plan.

  1. Create flight in World Map (or SimBrief or Little Nav Map or other).
  2. On FS2020 World Map, Flight Conditions (top right of screen):
  • Set Month, Day, Year, and Time.
  • Set weather. Create a Preset or use a predefined one in the dropdown box.
  1. Don’t hit FLY

A. ************** Save as PLAN (.pln) **************************************

**** When you save the flight as a Flight Plan (.pln), FS2020 only saves one .pln file.

Save the flight as a Flight Plan (.pln).
(You have to have a Flight Plan in order to save a .pln.) (to and from airports)

Load a .pln.

  • Can access the Flight Conditions on the World Map
    Click FLY
  • Month, Day, Year, and Time, are entered into the FMC. Weather is set.
  • You have to enter the Flight Plan into the FMC. (IDX, Next, Route, etc)
  • Load it again as long as you don’t exit FS2020.
  • You also can click the Cloud Icon on the upper screen Menu to make changes.
  • On a RESTART:
  • Month, Day, Year, and Time, are entered into the FMC. Weather is set.
  • You have to enter the Flight Plan into the FMC. (IDX, Next, Route, etc)

If you exit (QUIT) FS2020 and return and Load the .pln,

  • the Month, Day, Year, and Time are not saved. (defaults to your current computer stats)
  • You also can click the Cloud Icon on the upper screen Menu to make changes.
  • Weather is saved.
  • You have to enter the Flight Plan into the FMC. (IDX, Next, Route Menu, etc.)

B. ************** Save as Flight (.flt) ***********************************

When on the World Map:
**** When you save a .flt file, FS2020 saves 4 files.
**** You can see them in File Explorer. (.pln, .flt, .FLT.FSSAVE, .SPB)
**** FS2020 only shows 2 files, .pln and .flt .
**** Even if you edit a .flt file and save it (as itself),
**** FS2020 will not load your new edited .flt file.
**** FS2020 will load the original .flt file it has saved somewhere.
**** Maybe in these 2 other files. (.FLT.FSSAVE & or .SPB)

When you edit a .flt file and save it as a new file (flight), only the one .flt file is saved.

Save the flight as a flight (.flt).

Load a .flt . (also after you exit FS2020 and return)

  • Cannot access the Flight Conditions on the World Map
    Click FLY
  • When flying, you cannot access the Cloud Icon on the top of screen Menu
  • You can see the Month, Day, Year, and Time on the FMC but cannot change it here.
    Notice the WT CJ4 FMC shows 17:08 which is UTC and is 5:08 PM UTC.
  • My EST is 5 hours behind UTC. (minus 5 EST, minus 4 EDT (daylight savings) (EST is Eastern Standard Time USA)
    1:08 PM EST = 13:08 EST = 5:08 PM UTC = 17:08 UTC
  • Note that the FMC time will advance because the simulator and flight is running.

C. ************** Edit the .flt with Notepad *******************************

Use Notepad to edit the .flt file and change the Month, Day, Year, Time and Weather.

  • But, you must save the 'flt file as a new Flight Name. (new file name)
  •        IMPORTANT       IMPORTANT     IMPORTANT
  • But, you must save the 'flt file as a new Flight Name. (new file name)
  1. Season ******************************************************

You can access the .flt file with Notepad and change the Month, Day, Year, and Time.

[DateTimeSeason]
Season=Spring (don’t know anything about this entry)
Year=2021
Day=185
Hours=13
Minutes=08
Seconds=17.16661834716796875
UseZuluTime=False

Note that Day 185 is the 185th day of the year ( July 4, 2021).
(Google “Day of Year”) DOY Calendar
Note that Time of 13 hours is 1:00PM EST (12pm + 1 EST not UTC).

  • EST, Eastern Standard Time, is my time zone. USA.
    Start of flight time is 1:08 PM EST.

  • Remember to save the .flt file as a new file (and flight) name.

  1. Weather *******************************************

You can access the .flt file with Notepad and change the Weather.

[Weather]
UseWeatherFile=False
UseLiveWeather=False
WeatherPresetFile=.\WeatherPresets\Rain.WPR
WeatherCanBeLive=True
CloudmapPosOverride=False
CloudmapInitialPosX=0
CloudmapInitialPosY=0
FixedClouds=False

  • Change the WeatherPresetFile to what you want.

WeatherPresetFile=.\WeatherPresets\ClearSky.WPR
WeatherPresetFile=.\WeatherPresets\Rain.WPR

Live Weather
Clear Skies
Few Clouds
Scattered Clouds
Broken Clouds
High Level Clouds
Overcast
Rain
Snow
Storm
Your Preset1
Your Preset2

  • Remember to save the .flt file as a new file (and flight) name.

D. ************** .flt with Cloud Icon *******************************
Credit to @monkfishman3086
You can edit the weather in the Weather section of the .flt file so that
the Cloud icon will display on the upper screen Menu.

  • Use any Preset you want.

[Weather]
UseWeatherFile=True
UseLiveWeather=True
WeatherPresetFile=.\WeatherPresets\Rain.WPR
WeatherCanBeLive=True

  • Remember to save the .flt file as a new file (and flight) name.

E. ************** Miscellaneous *******************************

On the World Map Entry Screen is an error.
9:19PM (9:19PM UTC) is in error.
Outside the Parenthesis is your time. They cannot be the same unless you live in the
UTC Time Zone (GMT Time Zone).
However, saving a .pln or .flt will correct the UTC time.

Edit 2: 1/4/2022: 6:09 PM (6:09 PM UTC)
Clarified/Corrected.
It is UTC time and is corrected to your time when you click an Airport or click FLY.
Note: You must set the time in UTC time (6:09 PM UTC) and not in your time.
In my case (EST USA), it converts to 1:09 PM (6:09 PM UTC)

1 Like
212

I think I knew what happening here.
When I made a plan from world map. then it works. Save and load it back working fine. But if I made a plan in world map then start flight. Before taking off I change mind. Delete the flight plan and manually input plan. fly and save. Next time when I load it back the flight plan gone.

1 Like
213

The 787 is particularly buggy it seems to me for this. Still doesn’t work more than a year later. What a shame.

214

Hi! I’m just here to confirm that the malfunction described in the topics still exists, even after the latest January 13th update.
Neither do I ask for help nor do I hope that MS and/or Asobo will try to fix their ‘product’, I gave up hope for a while. However, I would like to thank those fellow users who have made some effort to work around the problem. With your help, I was able to make this pathetic software at least partially usable, which is partly comforting me in my frustration. SO Big-Big thanks to the flight simmer community on this forum and other ones.

Finally, another personal note: I find it ridiculous that a title marketed by a multinational giant needs its users to try to make it usable by hacking-patching the whole thing on their own. 10-15 years ago, this release would have been a total failure and no one would have ever bought this product.

Greetings to all, and GL!

1 Like
215

Tl;Dr : Have a full save and load feature.

(For de moderator, can you please not merge with other threads if possible, the save and load feature is often confuse with the flight plan, the toolbar, etc.)

MSFS 2020 is wonderful. It’s really a dream for many of us to have a sim that look so good and that is doing is best to reproduce the experience of flying. I was so pleasantly surprised and excited when I learned that Microsoft was going to do it again.

I feel I should talk about one of my main issues with the sim : the inability to save and load anywhere in the world. That would also include the fuel & weight state and having access to the full option in the toolbar (ability to set time and live weather).

For now, when we save we lose the ability to access the toolbar and modify the time and the weather (either live or other). Some user report different combination of this issue, but most agree that this is somewhat kind of disappointing.

I really think that simulation is synonymous of recreating real life, meaning to go into details while caring about immersion and sounds. Following the same mindset, the fact that we cannot fly and land to then continue where we have is an important missing feature for many of us.

Starting back to where I left my plane, cold dark in the same state I left it, was really what I enjoyed in FSX (although with planes that supported that). I was really disappointed that I could not do that anymore. After hours of reading the forums and trying to find a solution, I hoped that after each update that will be fixed.

Now, we have more and more planes that have the option to start cold and dark, that have persistent state (switches, buttons, fuel, carry weight, etc.) Some new bush planes also have camping equipments (Freedom Fox, Wilga). How cool would it be to fly to anywhere then land, place our camping stuff, save and quit the sim to come back just where we left! That’s a virtual bush flying dream!

I think we are at a good place like never and after your continuous effort to address big bugs, improve performances and add more contents, maybe you could look at polishing the save option.

It’s all about the sense of freedom. The ability to feel like a real pilot and go land everywhere, either on a Jet or in a bush plane, then continue where we left to pursue our adventures.

Please Asobo, could it be possible to look at this?

Thank you so much, be safe.

Sorry for my Frenchglish.

paul

216

This is really needed.

2 Likes
217

Agreed.

Would also be nice if they corrected the problem where time continues to advance even if you’ve paused the game.

1 Like
218

I join in the wish. Such a self-evident function should be present and I too was surprised and disappointed that MSFS does not offer it, although it was present in the previous simulations.

2 Likes
219

I traveled all over the world continuosly saving flights a lot of times in FSX more than 10 years ago.
It is truely unbelievable that MSFS in the year of 2022, we can not do this.
There is obviously ‘SAVE/LOAD’ function in the game, but it never works correctly.
How ridiculous.
Is it matter of software technology? Or just the matter of willingness?
Or, they just don’t know what the problem is?
Mysterious.

1 Like
220

IMHO the design of the SAVE/LOAD flight (.flt files) are for three situations: 1) to RESTART a flight from the ESC menu, 2) to create the starting point for MISSIONS, 3) to save a flight and to resume it at a later time without any intervening flights.

I have found out that any other use of .flt files doesn’t work well or may not work at all. The main issue I have found is that there is no backwards compatibility. When I first started using MSFS in Aug 2020, I started building a “library” of all my flights for re-flying at a future date. Each update have made changes to the .flt files structure that have made my saved flights unusable. In addition, there are no error messages indicating why the flight file fails to load.

I was trying to use .flt files to test updates to capture visual and performance changes for each update. Because of the problems with .flt files, I now test with flight plans (.pln) files.

2 Likes
221

Hello,
I am trying to load (resume) a flight that I created with a flight plan (with simbrief or msfs), but unfortunately the flight plan was not loaded with the flight. The plane is in the exact position and altitude but the flight plan disappears from the MCDU. Aren’t flight plans saved automatically with flight files (.flt)? Thank you

222

The flight Plan is saved in FS2020 but it must be reloaded into the airplane’s Flight Management System.

Don’t know which plane you are flying.

223

Thank you for the answer.
I usually fly with the airbus A320 and b787 and I don’t know (can’t find) how to enter the flight plan into the mcdu/fmc after loading the flight (.flt). it’s difficult and boring to enter the flight plan manually each time I load my flight. there’s any solution to load the flight plan from the file (.pln) after loading the flight from a (.flt)?
sorry for my English, because I’m French speaking

224

Old old bug Asobo have not bothered to fix first reported on release Early testing on SU9 looks promising but have only tested one plane so far .

225

it’s unfortunate to hear that, knowing that this problem was never reported in the FSX version. after two years of its release and saving flights (for fun of long flights) is the most essential element in MSFS, has not been solved.

226

The WT CJ4 requires that the Flight Plan be loaded int the FMS
manually after loading a .flt or .pln.

The WT C172 G1000 NXi automatically loads the Flight Plan into the FMS when you load a .flt or .pln.

It has been stated that the Working Title (WT) G1000 NXi code will be incorporated into all of the Asobo generic airplanes in the future.

228

I hope they will find a solution for this issue.
the only solution I found is to set the value False to the parameter: SaveOriginalFlightPlan=True in flight file (.flt), before starting the flight. it’s working fine so far.
thank you for your help

2 Likes
229

I found this problem just recalling a saved flight. No flight plan was entered. I set up final approach using AP with proper speed, heading, ILS and VOR frequencies all entered, and was locked on approach hold. Hit Active Pause. All fine. Saved this situation as .flt in the normal way. But when re-loaded, all radio frequencies are missing, AP is off and AP settings are either missing or changed.

230

Saving as .flt doesn’t work for resuming a saved flight, even if you didn’t do any other flights in the interim. All AP settings and radio frequencies are lost when reloading from .flt.