[Update] Free Flight Planning Tool for the Flight Sim Community — Simple Flight Planner

Discussion Hub Tools & Utilities
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206

Simple Flight Planner — Auto-STAR + One-Click Procedure Removal :airplane_arrival::sparkles:

Two more quality-of-life updates just landed on Simple Flight Planner based on community feedback.

:new_button: Automatic STAR selection

As soon as you pick your arrival airport and runway, the planner now automatically picks the best-matching STAR from the official CIFP database and drops it on your route. No more digging through procedure lists for every flight — it’s just there , ready to fly. You’ll see a quick toast confirming which arrival was applied so you always know what’s loaded.

The matching logic uses your selected arrival runway, so if you change runway (e.g. wind shifts and you switch from 27L to 09R), the STAR updates accordingly.

:new_button: One-click procedure removal

Changed your mind on a SID or STAR? Each procedure card in the Departure & Arrival Procedures panel now shows a Remove button when that specific procedure is currently applied to your route. One click strips all the related fixes out cleanly — no more hunting through the waypoint list to delete them one by one.

Switching procedures is also seamless: applying a new SID automatically replaces the previous one (same for STARs and approaches), so you can experiment freely without ending up with leftover fixes from old selections.

Where to find it

Open any flight plan → Review step → Departure & Arrival Procedures panel. The auto-STAR triggers as soon as CIFP data loads for your arrival; the Remove buttons appear on whichever procedure is currently active.

207

I downloaded V2.1. Followed the instructions. None of the .exe files in these paths execute.

  1. Install directory
    C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Local\SimpleFlightTracker

  2. Extracted path of V2.1

D:\0. FlightSim\MSFS2024-Community-Folder\LocalApps\Simple-Flight-Tracker-v2.1\bin\Release\net8.0-windows

208

Hi,
Thanks for the feedback. I updated the downloadable zip file. Here are the new installation procedures:

How to install:

  1. Download and extract the zip to any folder on your PC
  2. Double-click start.bat
  3. First run builds the app automatically — takes about 30 seconds
  4. A green dot icon appears in your system tray (bottom-right of your taskbar)
  5. Start MSFS and load a flight — it connects automatically

If start.bat shows an error: You need the .NET 8 SDK. Download it free from dotnet.microsoft.com — click Download .NET SDK x64, install it, then double-click start.bat again.

After the first run, start.bat launches instantly every time — no rebuild needed.

Thanks

209

I have also downloaded version 2.1 but the zip archive seems to be corrupted (have tested several times)! Please check this and then provide a direct link to the download.

210

The v2.1 ZIP on the download page has been verified — it’s intact (147 KB, 30 files, no errors). The “corruption” was almost certainly caused by the download being interrupted or the preview link wrapping the file in HTML.

Please download it directly from:https://simpleflightplanner.com/files/Simple-Flight-Tracker-v2.1.zip (right-click → “Save link as…”)

After downloading, you can verify it’s complete by:

  1. Checking the file size is 143,264 bytes (~140 KB)
  2. Optionally running this in Command Prompt:certutil -hashfile Simple-Flight-Tracker-v2.1.zip SHA256It should return: d4933e6174e6ef2891a0b374b1fa2af1d197b9ac71ec40b303040c019b35df07

If the size or hash doesn’t match, the download was interrupted — try again, ideally with a different browser.

211

Please use Microsoft Edge browser to download. Downloads from my default browser Firefox was ‘corrupted’. See the author’s explanation for this.

212

Cool!. All works now,

213

Hey Simple Flight family :waving_hand:

Excited to share something I’ve been building alongside Simple Flight Planner — meet Simple Flight Academy.

It started as a tool to help newer sim pilots understand what they’re actually doing in the cockpit, and grew into something much more complete. SFA is a free, browser-based flight training companion built specifically for MSFS sim pilots — no installation, no account, just open and fly.

What’s inside:

:airplane: FLY — A live ADF/NDB simulator with real instrument physics. Six-pack gauges update in real time as you fly, complete with wind drift, holding pattern overlays, and 5 guided missions that walk you through homing, tracking, radial intercepts, and crosswind correction.

⊙ COCKPIT — Click any instrument on the interactive C172 panel to get a full explanation of how it works, its failure modes, and exactly how it behaves in MSFS. Includes the scan pattern, V-speeds, partial panel technique, and MSFS-specific tips.

◈ LEARN — 11 structured ground school lessons across 4 modules, from the four forces of flight all the way through ILS approaches. Every lesson ends with a sim exercise you can do immediately in MSFS.

:cloud: WEATHER — Paste any real-world METAR and get it decoded field by field in plain English, with automatic flight category (VFR/MVFR/IFR/LIFR) and a density altitude calculator that shows you the performance penalty at high/hot airports.

:satellite_antenna: RADIO — Seven real ATC scenario scripts covering VFR departure, flight following, IFR clearance (CRAFT format), ILS approach, and emergency 7700 declaration. Read the pilot lines out loud — it’s the fastest way to build the habit.

:balance_scale: W&B — A Cessna 172S weight and balance calculator with a live CG envelope diagram. Load up your passengers and fuel, and instantly see if you’re within limits before you spawn on the runway.

✦ IFR — A full IFR procedure reference covering ILS anatomy, approach categories (CAT I/II/III), stabilised approach criteria, missed approach procedure, and a labelled glideslope diagram.

:check_box_with_check: CHECKLISTS — Complete C172S flows from pre-flight inspection through shutdown, with checkboxes and a progress bar.

◇ QUIZ — 12 knowledge check questions across instruments, aerodynamics, navigation, weather, and IFR, with instant explanatory feedback on every answer.

There’s also a first-use guide that walks new pilots through the whole app on their first visit, and on-screen flight controls so it works on iPad as well as desktop.

SFA is aimed at the full beginner-to-intermediate range — the kind of pilots who are flying circuits in the C172 and wondering what all those needles actually mean, through to those working toward their first IFR approach in real weather conditions.

You can access it directly from Simple Flight Planner — look for the Academy link in the menu.

Would love to hear what you think, and especially what you’d like to see added next. I’m actively building on it.

Clear skies :airplane:

214

:airplane: Flight Brief — Simple Flight Academy Integration

Simple Flight Academy is now connected to Simple Flight Planner. When you tap the Academy button in SFP, your departure, destination, and flight rules are passed directly to SFA, which opens pre-loaded with a full flight brief — weather category for both airports, suggested approach with ILS frequency and runway, and a dynamic pre-flight task list. Quick-launch buttons take you straight to the METAR decoder, approach plate, checklist, W&B calculator, or IFR reference with one tap.

215

Simple Flight Planner — Two New Features for Faster, Smarter Flight Planning

Hi fellow simmers,

Just pushed two quality-of-life features to Simple Flight Planner that make building a flight plan a lot less tedious. Wanted to share them here and get your thoughts.

:high_voltage: 1. Quick-Plan Templates

What it does: One click fills in your aircraft, flight type, cruising altitude, and departure runway — without touching your route waypoints.

We ship 5 built-in templates covering the most common flights we all do:

Template Flight Type Altitude Route Type
VFR Pattern Work VFR 1,500 ft AGL Direct
VFR Cross-Country VFR 5,500 ft MSL Direct
IFR Low Altitude IFR 5,000 ft MSL Low IFR
IFR High Altitude IFR FL250 High IFR
Mountain VFR VFR 10,500 ft MSL Direct

You can also save your own templates — set up your favorite airliner with typical cruise, fuel reserves, and departure position, then one-click load it for every new plan. Templates are stored locally in your browser, so no account needed.

Where to find it: Right in the planner sidebar, below the route comparison panel.

:brain: 2. Smart Altitude Picker

What it does: Instead of guessing your cruise altitude, the planner now suggests 3 altitude options (Low / Medium / High) and shows you the tradeoffs for each.

It factors in:

  • Terrain MSA — won’t suggest an altitude below your route’s minimum safe altitude
  • Hemispheric rule — VFR +500 / IFR RVSM snapping based on your magnetic course
  • Winds aloft — estimates headwind or tailwind at each altitude from live wind data
  • Oxygen requirements — flags when you’ll need supplemental O₂ per Part 91.211 (12,500 ft+ for crew, 14,000 ft+ for pax, 15,000 ft+ for crew always)

Each option shows pros and cons so you can decide: take the tailwind at FL240 but need oxygen? Or stay low and VFR and enjoy the view?

Where to find it: In the sidebar, right after you pick VFR or IFR. One tap to apply the altitude to your flight plan.

:hammer_and_wrench: Try it out

Both features work entirely client-side — no login, no sign-up, no cloud save required. All your preferences and custom templates stay in your browser.

If you give it a try, let me know:

  • Are the altitude recommendations accurate for your typical routes?
  • What other templates would you want built-in?
  • Any other “one-click” ideas that would speed up your workflow?

Cheers and Blue Skies!

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216

Simple Flight Dashboard Pro — v1.6 Update

Hey everyone,

v1.6 is out and it’s a big one. I’ve been working through a long list of improvements across the whole app — new tabs, live data, map overlays, checklists, and a lot of quality-of-life fixes. Here’s a full rundown of what’s new.

New tabs

The app now has two additional tabs bringing the total to eight.

The Pre-Flight Briefing tab consolidates everything you need before departure into one place. It shows your live wind, OAT and QNH at the top, then lets you fetch the METAR, TAF and NOTAMs for both your departure and arrival airports with a single Refresh All button. Your destination frequencies (ATIS, clearance, ground, tower, approach, departure) are pulled automatically from the flight plan and displayed below. A row of quick-launch buttons at the bottom opens SkyVector, Navigraph, VFRmap, OpenAIP, AWC and Windy in your browser. Everything you’d normally have to open five different websites for is now in one panel.

The Checklist tab gives you a full phase-by-phase checklist system. Built-in checklists are included for the Cessna 172, Airbus A320, Boeing 737 and a generic aircraft. Tap any item to check it off — it dims and shows a green tick. Navigate between phases with the arrow buttons or jump directly to any phase from the pill tabs at the top. If you want to create a custom checklist for your aircraft, drop a JSON file into %AppData%\SFTDashboard\checklists\ and it loads automatically when that profile is selected.

Resources bar

A permanent quick-launch bar now sits just below the title bar, always visible regardless of which tab you’re on. One click opens SimBrief (with your route auto-filled), SkyVector, Navigraph, LiveATC (searching your nearest airport), Windy (centred on your position), VATSIM map (centred on your position), Little Navmap (launches the app if installed, downloads page if not), VFRmap, OpenAIP and the FAA Aviation Weather Center.

More live data from SimConnect

The Flight panel has been expanded significantly. It now shows true airspeed and Mach number alongside IAS, magnetic heading alongside true heading, radio altimeter (below 2,500ft AGL), and icing percentage for both structural and pitot ice accumulation. QNH now reads directly from the sim’s altimeter setting rather than being computed, so it matches exactly what’s in the cockpit.

The Surfaces panel has a new lights strip showing the live state of Beacon, Strobe, Landing, Nav and Taxi lights, plus the electrical master battery — all updating in real time from the cockpit switches.

The warning system has been improved. The stall alert now uses the simulator’s own stall warning flag. Overspeed uses both the sim’s flag and your aircraft profile’s Vno, whichever triggers first. A new icing alert fires when ice accumulation exceeds 10 percent.

Map overlays

Three new overlays have been added to the map toolbar.

SIGMETs and AIRMETs — fetches active hazard polygons from aviationweather.gov worldwide. Turbulence shows in amber, icing in blue, IFR conditions in red. Click any polygon for the NOTAM ID, hazard type and valid times.

TFRs — temporary flight restrictions drawn as dashed polygons. Colour coded by type: magenta for presidential/VIP, red for security, amber for hazard.

Winds aloft — meteorological wind barbs at your chosen flight level from FL060 to FL390. Coloured by speed from green (light) through amber and red to magenta for jet stream winds. Data from aviationweather.gov, no API key required.

None of these require any account or API key — they all use the same FAA weather server the app already uses for METARs.

Airport frequencies

The ATC tab now has a Frequencies card that automatically shows ATIS, clearance, ground, tower, approach and departure frequencies for your destination airport when a flight plan loads. Type any ICAO to look up frequencies for any airport. To enable this, download airport-frequencies.csv from ourairports.com/data and place it in the App folder alongside airports.csv.

Other improvements

  • TAF (terminal aerodrome forecast) card added to the Weather panel
  • NOTAM card added to the ATC tab for departure and arrival airports
  • Logbook reset button — clears all entries with a confirmation dialog, automatically backs up the CSV first
  • Section header collapse buttons are now larger and more obvious, with hover highlighting
  • Label size and value size can now be adjusted independently in Settings (separate from the overall panel scale)
  • Onboarding welcome card on first launch explaining the tabs, map and keyboard shortcuts
  • Flight trail on the map is now much more visible with a glow outline and brighter altitude colours
  • VFR map layer now uses OpenTopoMap showing terrain contours and elevation instead of plain OSM

As always the app connects automatically to MSFS via SimConnect.

Simple Flight Dashboard Pro is available with a support donation of any amount.

217

Simple Flight Planner — New Features Update

Hey fellow simmers! The web planner just got three major upgrades to make your flight planning smoother and more immersive:

1. Live Aircraft on the Map You can now see live aircraft directly on the planner map. Click any aircraft marker for a live telemetry popup showing real-time position, altitude, speed, and heading. Great for situational awareness when planning near busy airspace or spotting traffic patterns at your destination.

2. Famous Airliner Routes Collection Added a curated collection of iconic real-world airline routes — think historic long-hauls, famous city pairs, and classic trunk routes. Load them as templates to instantly plan authentic flights in the same corridors the pros fly.

3. Two-Way Sync with SFT Dashboard (v1.7) Build or edit a flight plan on the web planner, and it syncs live to the SFT Dashboard companion app via WebSocket. Edit your route in the dashboard mid-flight, and it pushes right back to the web planner automatically — no re-entry, no copy-paste. Both ends stay in perfect sync.

New UI for SFT Dashboard:

UI:

  • :link: Planner status indicator appears green in the title bar when connected

  • :outbox_tray: Send Route button in the Resources bar — turns green when connected, shows a “not connected” dialog when the planner isn’t open. Click sends the current MSFS route to the planner instantly.

Happy flying! :airplane:

218

Simple Flight Planner update: MSFS 2024 SU3+ support + flyover waypoints + bulk editing

Hey simmers,

Pushed a couple of meaningful updates to Simple Flight Planner that MSFS 2024 users in particular will appreciate.

MSFS 2024 Sim Update 3+ compatibility Our .PLNexport now aligns with the updated EFB Flight Plan XML format SU3 introduced. What this means in practice:

  • STAR routes and ATC handoffs import cleanly into the MSFS 2024 EFB

  • Enroute transitions survive the round-trip

  • Custom-fix DCT legs are preserved rather than flattened

If you’ve had routes break or lose structure on import since SU3 dropped, this should fix it.

Flyover vs Fly-by waypoint indicators A feature that really matters for IFR procedure fidelity:

  • Waypoints imported from SID/STAR/Approach procedures auto-detect their ARINC 424 path terminator and tag accordingly

  • Visual markers distinguish flyover (filled triangle, cross fix before turning) from fly-by (hollow circle, anticipate turn)

  • The flag is written into .PLN exports as True so the sim actually honors the turn behavior

  • You can toggle individual waypoints manually via the edit dialog

Bulk flyover toggle New in the route editor: hit Select, multi-select waypoints with checkboxes, then hit Toggle Flyover to flip the whole batch between fly-by and flyover. There’s also bulk delete if you want to trim a crowded route fast.

Everything still exports to X-Plane .FMS and legacy MSFS .PLN as before. No account required, no paywall — it’s all client-side.

Give it a shot on your next IFR route and let me know if anything looks off. Happy flying!

219

:world_map: New Feature: Worldwide NOTAMs via AutoRouter Partnership

Hey pilots,

I am excited to announce a new partnership with AutoRouter that brings live worldwide NOTAMs directly into Simple Flight Planner — completely free.

What you get:

  • Real-time NOTAMs for your departure, arrival, and alternate airports
  • Categorized by severity: runway closures (:red_circle:), navaid outages (:orange_circle:), and general info (:white_circle:)
  • Integrated into your Dispatch Report and Briefing Panel — no extra clicks needed

How to enable it:

  1. Create a free account at autorouter.aero
  2. In Simple Flight Planner, go to Settings → NOTAMs (AutoRouter)
  3. Click Connect AutoRouter and authorize the app

That’s it. Your next flight plan will automatically pull in relevant NOTAMs.

Why AutoRouter? They’ve been a trusted name in European flight planning for years, and their NOTAM coverage is genuinely global. I am stoked to integrate their data natively rather than building yet another scraper.

Give it a try on your next VATSIM/IVAO flight and let me know what you think!

Happy flying :airplane:

220

:world_map: New: Route-wide NOTAMs with One-Click Filtering

I just added two big quality-of-life updates to NOTAMs in Simple Flight Planner:

1. Planner Header NOTAMs Button A dedicated NOTAMs button now lives right in the flight planner header. One click opens a live panel that automatically pulls every active NOTAM for your entire route — departure, arrival, and every airport waypoint in between. No more jumping between screens or manually typing ICAOs.

2. Smart Filter Tabs Inside the panel, you can instantly switch between:

  • All — everything at a glance
  • Departure — NOTAMs for your origin
  • Arrival — NOTAMs for your destination
  • Enroute — NOTAMs for every airport along your track

Empty tabs auto-disable so you never hunt for data that isn’t there.

As always, this is powered by our AutoRouter partnership, so you’ll need a free AutoRouter account connected under Settings → NOTAMs. Once linked, it’s fully automatic.

221

:rocket: New: Quick Mode vs Full Mode — Flight Planning Your Way

Hey simmers!

I have made a major UX update to Simple Flight Planner that lets you choose how “deep” you want your planning session to be.

Quick Mode — The Essentials, Fast

  • Departure / Arrival airports
  • Aircraft selection
  • Cruise altitude
  • Route editor + map
  • Weather & NOTAMs
  • One-click export (.PLN, .FMS, etc.)

Everything you need to go from idea to runway in under 60 seconds. No clutter, no digging through tabs.

Full Mode — The Power User Suite

  • Terrain awareness & MSA layers
  • SID/STAR procedure builder
  • Airspace warnings & SIGMET overlays
  • Weight & balance calculations
  • ETOPS planning
  • Auto-procedure builder
  • Dispatch report generation

How it works A new toggle lives in the planner header. New users land in Quick Mode by default, but your preference is saved across sessions. Flip it anytime — no data lost, no reload required.

The goal was simple: keep the app accessible for VFR hops and casual flyers, while giving IFR heavy-lifters all the tools they expect from a professional-grade planner.

Try it out and let me inow which mode you spend more time in! :control_knobs: