I’m struggling to find a sensible workflow for creating, saving, loading flight plans into an Airbus airliner, using my excellent WinWing MCDU hardware.
What workflow actually works in a realistic way?
I can enter departure, waypoints, arrivals on the hardware MCDU just like a real pilot might. But how to I save and load flight plans?
It seems to be a complete mess, with some plane vendors ignoring the generic EFB in 2024, others relying on SimBrief only, some requiring Navigraph.
Its a simulator, and in the real world pilots will download or file a flight plan and maybe program the MCDU. How do I use a prepared flight plan in 2024?
I don’t want to use SimBrief particularly and neither do I want Navigraph. There ought to be a way of getting prepared flight plans into the MCDU.
For the most part, IRL GA pilots do their own flight planning. IRL airline pilots benefit from a dispatch department that does the flight planning for their flights. SimBrief is like that dispatch department for us in the sim. Think about it that way and give it a try for your Airbus flights, if that works for you and your MCDU. I use SimBrief for all my airliner flights either Airbus or Boeing, and I have lots of WinWing on my flight deck. Great stuff!
Ok thanks for that perspective. I’ll have a go with Sim Brief, it may integrate with the MCDU somehow.
I’m very pleased with the WinWing MCDU. It has attention to detail and is very tactile. I entered about 20 waypoints manually from EGLL to Dalaman, Turkey and you soon learn how to program it.
I guess it will take a few months for devs to make airliners more MCDU centric.
I find SimBrief very clunky to use. The MSFS24 EFB integrates very well and is easier to use.
I don’t understand why plane developers are not using the default EFB, yet.
Loading simbrief plans I get a lot of discontinuinities, also Path Too Short warnings which seem impossible to remove i.e lose 4000ft in a mile or two. A330 Driver says slow down, I dont know how to add speed restrictions at waypoints.
Yes and I like it. However although it loads into the EFB easily, and the EFB can load .pln files, only Asobo planes seem to load the avionics from the EFB.
FBW does Simbrief direct into MCDU, so do Inibuilds I think.
Everyone seems to have forgotten the simplicity and portability of a .pln file.
One can plan their flight using the online Flight Planner, then copy the flight plan string and paste it into SimBrief. Then one can generate the SimBrief flight plan for upload into an aircraft model that has that functionality. While I no longer use this method, I have done it many times in the recent past. Perhaps give it a try?
That’s worth I try, although I think I read that SimBrief omits sids and stars. I’ll need to check that.
Btw Somewhere on this forum someone said that Inibuilds will never support the MSFS EFB.
I’ll keep digging, there must be sensible workflow out there.
The WinWing MCDU and Boeing FCUs are fantastic value and super realistic. I’ve learnt a lot by pushing the buttons to see what happens; it’s a completely different experience to using a mouse
As they become more popular the software will adapt to them. The MS EFB Send to/Load from Avionics is the jewel in the crown.
I use simbrief via a web browser on a separate monitor (or iPad) and find it easier than the MSFS efb-based simbrief app. I create the flight plan in the web-based simbrief and then I can import it into the plane, in my case the Fenix a320. I also have the Winwing mcdu which is excellent and I use that for other items not loaded when I import the flight plan details from simbrief into the Fenix EFB (which sends the info then into the mcdu of the Fenix 320). I agree that airliner support for flight plans is a bit complex for the inbuilt MSFS flight planner (you might try the web-based Microsoft flight planner which gets very little posts/press but is easier to use than the efb-based version) although I don’t know how much it integrates with airliner flight computers (it seems to work better for GA aircraft)
Simbrief includes SIDs and STARs, assuming of course that airport has them. I use it all the time for fbw a320 / MSFS 2020. You can also specify number of passengers, cargo weight, preferred altitude and other criteria. You can download a .pln file if you have to, or it loads directly into the plane via integration software. I’ll copy the route into skyvector so I can bring up plates for the airport/ SID etc. Simbrief will also prefile on VATSIM if you’re doing that or other apps as well.
Glad to hear you are making progress towards your goals. Friendly reminder to please mark a helpful post as a solution when you feel you have found a solution to your opening post ask. Cheers!
