Loading IF Flightplans into PMDG 747 FMC

[OttoE]

I'm reasonably new to flight sim. I have purchased PMDG 747-400 and can't wait to fly it properly. Flight planning is confusing so purchased IF for a solution. My next obstacle is - how to load the IF flight plan into the PMDG 747-400 FMC. Are IF flight plans PMDG 747 compatible? Thank you for your time. I'm so close to having a fly.

[Steve Waite]

Hi,

if I just got Ideal Flight, I would take out the baron for a default flight and follow the walkthrough in the help system (F1) to familiarise myself with IF.

As regards programming PMDG FMCs with flight plans, you should pose the question on their very good site. I believe with the 747 you need to convert an FSX plan to load it, but I may be wrong.

IF plans are output as pure FSX .XML plans. If you have an addon that does not understand FSX plans then you must use a converter program supplied by the addon manufacturer (or maybe use notepad), to make a special plan type. You could use PlanG to convert FSX plans to FS9 plans for example.

Ideal Flight treats all aircraft the same, but may eventually make special files to automate particular addon functions. In the meantime, if you use a converter program, then you can have this invoked as a batch (.BAT) file and IF will launch it before the flight, so the output file is available for the aircraft before FSX starts.

Regards;
Steve

[Steve Waite]

For the full on professional approach with your 747, I would download a specially hand written .PLN and it's .rte file (PMDG Company Route FMC data file) and Open the .PLN with IF, run the flight from IF, and once in the flight load the .rte file into the FMC. There is more to FMC programming than just the flight plan. There is a guide for the FMC and comes with the PMDG.
I hope this helps;
Steve

[Steve Waite]

I think the 737 FMC is the same as the 747. I've been running the 737 for tests.
Here's how to load the plan into the FMC.

Click the FMC button - indicated from the screen
Click the Route button - RTE button
Click the CO ROUTE button - indicated from the screen

You should now have the flight plan loaded up into the FMC.

Regards;
Steve