In this entry I am going to discuss the default Flight Planner that is often overlooked in FSX due to it being considered "too basic" and not full-featured enough. Granted, it isn't as complex as stand alone programs like FSCommander, or FSNavigator, but its strengths lie within its simplicity and ease of use.
If you are new to the default flight planner, or have always used more featured programs to plan your routes here is a brief overview of how it operates and what it has to offer:
1) You select your city pair (departure and arrival airports).
2) You select either VFR or IFR.
3) You then have a choice between VOR to VOR, high altitude airways, low altitude airways, or a direct route.
4) You hit "Find Route" and it generates a route.
This is good for the default aircraft that do not simulate complex navigational systems like FMGCs and vertical profiles, and these generated routes can be followed using the default GPS autopilot found in all the default FSX airplanes.
You can also interact with the simulated ATC and it will guide you along your route like real ATC would (initial altitudes and climb speeds, transition to higher cruise altitudes, traffic reports, and way point reporting points).**
**For realistic aircraft equipped with FMCs, you must IMPORT the FSX generated flight plan into your FMC in order for ATC to follow along and vice versa. ATC can only interact with flight plans generated by FSX.
However, I strongly recommend FSX pilots not use ATC at all. It has severe shortcomings, bugs that have never been fixed and isn't all that realistic to begin with. The worst of these bugs was mentioned in a previous entry ("The Theory of Managed Flight") and this particular bug makes commercial flight useless when it comes time to land (vector for final approach).
Here is where the default flight planners value ends and its limitations begin, unfortunately:
The primary limitation is the FSX flight planner doesn't follow any SID, STAR or real air route charts. In the rare cases it does, the routes are very general and only include one way point (out of maybe three, or four) from the entire SID, or STAR. This should come as no surprise because FSX is designed primarily for casual virtual pilots who fly the default planes that do not simulate realistic navigational systems.
A bigger limitation of the above is a lot of times the generated routes merely consist of marking the departure (origin) airport, destination airport, and maybe a single way point in between as a reference marker. This becomes a major problem when it comes time to land because what it neglects to do is line you up with the destination airport's ILS Feather (the green arrows on the flight planner map) and localizer for approach.
However, this is also where the power and flexibility of the default planner comes into play for users who know how to use it properly:
In the "Edit" window... The window that displays the route once it is plotted... Virtual pilots can edit (how appropriate!) the route to be more realistic (follow real world charts) AND by doing so, they can make their routes align the plane for a perfect ILS hand-flown approach, or Category III autoland.
So, the next time you think about not using the default flight planner, I recommend you re-evaluate your initial stance and take advantage of just how powerful and easy to use it is for those willing to take the time and use it as it was intended.
Of course, this will require you to do additional research and preparation on your part, but taking the extra time to obtain things like real world SID, STAR and Approach plates and use them to fine tune the generic routes generated by the default planner should greatly improve your in-flight experience and make it more enjoyable and realistic in the end.
In addition, it should also make the entire flight simulation experience more realistic because this kind of (simulated) preparation is what real pilots do on a daily basis before they even set one foot on the tarmac for a pre-flight inspection, or sit behind the controls ready for pushback.
