I think Bush Trips broke in 2024 when WT rewrote the code for flight plans (.pln files) when they added the EFB.
There are now two types of .pln files; EFB .pln files and “Mission” FSX/2020 style .pln files. Since they didn’t give the EFB the ability to interpret FSX/2020 .pln formatted files properly, why they chose to give them the same file extension is beyond me given the changes WT introduced to EFB flight plans. They should have given them a whole new extension like .efb. I’ve submitted a bug report on DevSupport on the subject. Then again, maybe they just didn’t have time to finish the interpreting code. Both formats do, it seems, use different XML headers although the SDK doesn’t go into detail on the difference in the headers, so they should easily be able to tell the difference between the two. It just says “The header must look like this”, with no discussion on the structure of the differences. Not being an expert on XML terminology, I just have to say “Ok”.
The fact that navlogs show up a waypoint sooner than they should makes sense to me, although logically I would think it should be reversed. WT chose to make flight plan files match more closely to how flight plans are actually submitted to the FAA, making the concept more realistic. The change they made was: whereas in an FSX/2020 .pln file, you called out the Departure and Destination airports at the top of the file, and then listed all the waypoints after that, and the waypoint list included the Departure and Destination airports; in an EFB flight plan, you must not include the Destination and Departure airports as waypoints. If you do, MSFS gets all confused.
Given it appears they didn’t write or perhaps finish a converter for interpreting old style .pln files to be properly understood by the EFB code (and why oh why did they give both styles of .pln files the same file extension if they weren’t going to make them both compatible with the EFB), yeah, it makes sense that Bush trips would stop working.
I imagine the work going into getting Bush trips working again is finishing up the code to reintegrate the EFB with all the code required for Bush trips.
I will say the SDK needs some work describing the new file format for EFB flight plans, as well as some discussion about the differences between the two formats and making it clear how. For instance, there’s currently no example of an EFB flight plan showing all the different types of waypoints you can create. This causes some confusion because in the discussion they say some information that can be included in an element is not necessary, when in fact for some types of waypoints that information is necessary.
Hearing what Guided Tours were, I figured I would like those. So, I made the plunge. I had to follow first Huddisons YouTube video on setting up my controls first, but I did the Grand Canyon Guided Tour. I liked it. I was very rusty flying. Its been over a year since I have been in an MSFS flying. I was using 2020, but then some sync got stuck, and once it cleared up, something didn’t clear up for MSFS 2020. It views me as not online. After filing a ticket and doing many many things suggested by Support, I still wasn’t working.
So I have 2 more Guided Tours to do. And soon bush trips will be back.
Great news. I’d almost given up hope. Good that all the FS2020 Bush Trips will be ported, I didn’t expect that. Will the ones with bugs be fixed, We’ll have to wait and see.
Serious? I wonder if the Perfect Flight Germany one will work. It was one of the first ones they did, and they were just learning, and something about the way they setup each leg and replicated resources, etc, and the structure they gave it had that had that one giving 2020 the absolute worst performance I have ever seen. Literally, you couldn’t take off to even start the trip, you would get part way down the runway and then it turned into slide show. Literally. Every 10 seconds, your view would be updated, etc. And I had a pretty powerful machine for 2020 back then. If that one is failing still, that would be a disappointment now with FSDG finishing all the German states with the Landmarks of Germany series.
Oooo. That would mean FS Academy’s Voyager should work again. The Florida flight was one of my favorite, going down the east coast of Florida then across the Keys. I am looking forward to doing that one again, particularly with all the advances and better data now for the Keys… OMG, last time I did that one was even before rkbridgers work on all the Key bridges.
Yes, you can generally fly the BTs, but there are a lot of restrictions.
There is no Navlog with flight instructions and descriptions.
The route to the first waypoint and to the final airport is not displayed.
Refueling doesn’t work. However, you can assign the “Repair and Refuel” function to a button.
You must remove the covers before every flight. Alternatively, you can assign the “Quick Preflight” function to a button.
Since some aircraft in FS24 have different names, some BTs won’t work because the aircraft can’t be found.
Not all aircraft operate as usual in BTs. On some, the fuel pump must remain on; on others, the autopilot doesn’t work, and so on.
As a BT creator, there’s no way for me to get around these restrictions. So for now, I’m waiting to see if anything changes by SU 6. The official roadmap doesn’t currently indicate that work is being done on this. That’s why I’m also a bit skeptical about whether the report from the FS Expo will actually turn out to be true, since it hasn’t been confirmed by official sources yet.
It sounded like ForehandPath571 is working with some version of SU 6 beta. Maybe that isn’t the case, maybe he is still working with SU5 and prior bust trip implementation. I know when I tried beta SU6, bush trips were not there yet, but that was like first day of the beta and I backed out, so I wasn’t sure if an update brought bush trips.
I would be very disappointed if bush trips did not come out in SU6 like stated in FSExpo. Once I heard about the changes coming to FS2024, I was excited, and I stopped doing bush trips in 2020 because I wanted to experience them in the greater detail of FS2024. After a while, I tried to go back to 2020 to do bush trips, but there were a number of errors that support just couldn’t fix for me, so I was left with no simulator to use. So its been over 2 years at this point I’ve used Flight SImulator except to do the one Guided Tour.
I suspect since they are now calling bush trips “new content” they don’t want to expose it in beta yet. They did that with the 40th anniversary, they did that with racing, etc. Any “new content” they don’t bring into the beta. So I am not surprised we haven’t seen it in beta yet. But I am suprised they have not updated bush trip developers yet. Perfect Flight used to be the first party developer for bush trips, but that has since been brought in house to Asobo, so I doubt Perfect Flight is being contacted either. That does indeed give me a bit of dread.
they kinda sorta worked with a bunch if restrictions before - now the ones I’ve tried seemed normal / the leg descriptions are shown for example and they weren’t before. As for aircraft not working time will tell - I tried the grand Bush trip of Switzerland but I couldn’t get the engine to start. I vaguely remembered there was a work around but can’t remember what it was. It’s pretty easy to swap airplanes in the .flt file
I joined the beta, and sure enough, the Bush Trips menu was back. I want to do the Iceland bush trip again, its been years. But would love to see if the very first Perfect Flight bush trips are working. Will be experimenting the next few days.
Are you sure? There are now two types of flight plans, EFB, and the old style. EFB flight plans suffer the issues you mention, because they’re supposed to be written like FAA flight plans. The old style (FSX/2020) that are supposed to be used for bush trips and tours are supposed to still work. Of course, the SDK as far as I can tell doesn’t say how to load them. But the SDK folk think they’re supposed to work fine. I had a discussion with them a few weeks ago through bug reports I filed on devsupport. And they helped me work through my issues. Although, the EFB is supposed to be able to interpret old style (aces) flight plans, but, as of a few weeks ago, it doesn’t work. I think it’s not handling the first and last waypoints being part of the flight plans properly, but I haven’t done the work yet to get them enough information to prove that. Well, I did give them a flight plan that blows up, but I don’t know if they have looked at it yet.
If you’re having issues, I’d file some reports at Devsupport
I did all that work prior to 5.1, and I’m not in SU6 beta.
The perfect flight German tour worked a while back, I think. I did it anyway without all the terrible stutters you mentioned that I also saw back in FS2020.
I’m looking forward to doing all the classic bush trips in FS2024 with the new scenery.
I think the new sim seems to be encouraging devs to add some more features to the classic bush trips also, so fingers crossed bush trips become a thing again in the sim and linked to WUs as they were previously.
One thing I’d like is the option to show POIs and place names on the bush trips. I think many of us do these as scenic flights and it would be nice to be able to togggel the place names on or off or see if there’s any POIs nearby etc.
