Ideal Flight Accessibility phase 2

[Steve Waite]

Another factor is that IF will attempt to find up to four routes between runways to add variety, tramp and PFPX will always offer the same route until the AIRAC is changed.

[Steve Waite]

...and another factor to think about is that IF may miss out some waypoints close together because of your speed, whereas they will all be there in other planner since it is the same plan no matter what aircraft you are using. Once out on a SID the planner directs you down Jet routes if that is selected for the plane, so check that setting on the aircraft page at the bottom.

[Steve Waite]

Talking to club members at Gatwick they said what you find is that even without SID STAR data IF will be starting out on a SID in 90 percent of cases since the WP is usually the start of a route segment or airway anyway.

[Steve Waite]

Also we can rename waypoints in the Edit button in Flight Gen, and we can add waypoints in there too if we want something in particular. Then save the plan and reload it later as often as desired. Use a graphical planner if an entire route is desired to be built in a particular way.

Don't forget that when we want to match a plan to another planner in particular, then we can simply use that plan and load it into IF. Since IF won't necessarily come up with the same plan since it is governed by your params and settings in IF and a much broader gamut of navigation waypoints. The altitude is governed by your aircraft params settings in IF but can be overridden when you load the route, if you didn't set that in the aircraft params settings.

[Steve Waite]

Another factor with IF routes is that depending on your aircraft params you may be routed around a forbidden zone. If that zone can be flown over a certain altitude that then depends on your aircraft params if you get to fly over it or around it. The same for mountains in that IF will attempt to find a short route around a mountain or through a pass, which takes you off route slightly. Try lots of GA route with low altitudes to get a feel of that. I find that generates far more interesting routes than loading a jet route from the internet, at least for me.

[Steve Waite]

...and yet another factor is that with GA IF will attempt to make your routes keeping over land. So you can avoid dumping in the sea, say with an engine problem.

[Steve Waite]

One other very important point which I think most people miss:

SID and STAR are NOT GPS plans they are special instructions for the FMS and they are followed by engaging that system in the aircraft.

So just because one planner puts them into the GPS plan doesn't mean IF will include them.

IF plans are GPS plans and that system is instructed with GPS waypoints.

If you don't see a particular SID waypoint in the GPS plan it doesn't matter since you are selecting the departure or approach in the navigation system.

A good aircraft to play with in this respect is the FSL A320 which does things the IF way

The GPS waypoints are extracted from the SID and STAR by IF and placed in the GPS plan, other waypoints might not be included for that reason.

[Steve Waite]

Here's a little story about SID STAR since folk think they are flying SID STAR but in fact are only flying point to point GPS plans.

I was Skyped into a conversation whereby a couple of lads were experimenting with plans and SID STAR. They were on approach to an airport but a waypoint on the plan took them out over 100NM into the Atlantic. The problem they were having was that the planner in use included waypoints from SID STAR into their GPS Plan. Those waypoints include heading towards them until told otherwise from ATC. Since they were not being assigned a course by ATC they continued to head out into open water.

The moral is that we do not include SID STAR waypoints in the GPS plan other than those we can fly over, point to point. Because what we are really flying, in fact, is a GPS plan and not SID or STAR instructions. You will find IF usually puts in two Waypoints from the SID or STAR. What you do between those and the runways is what the ATC describes with respect to the operating SID STAR routes.

So on VATSIM so long as you have the SID Waypoint and the STAR Waypoint corresponding to the runways and the direction you are going or coming from, then that will work. If you are using a navigation system check out what you do to select the departure and approach in that equipment. A good one to use as I mentioned is the FSL A320.

[Steve Waite]

At the moment IF speaks out about switches pressed in the sim. Most of the Autopilot controls are in. I've just put in the Kohlsman setting, speaks out the setting as it is made. Moving onto comm and nav frequencies. So if you have buttons and keys selected to control the AP you can hear what you are setting.

I'm finding it very exciting to hear it all spoken out. Totally multi-threaded and totally transparent in operation on cores other than those the sim uses so no effect to the simulator operating.

[Steve Waite]

...that's currently more than 40 controls and settings read out as the controls are used. Also there will be callouts as the aircraft situation changes, with options. IF does everything anyway but the time taken is to come up with all the spoken text and connecting those to the speaking.

Incidentally all the text in IF is in simple text format currently German and English. These files can be located in the Profiles Config folder. These can be hand edited - keep a backup of your own files since IF will overwrite these during Updates.

For German friends using IF finding anything oddly worded, please submit to me changes that might be required and they go in the next update. Or indeed in the English version as well. Any suggestions are welcome.