Dispatch Planner X

THE NEED

Although flight planning is an important aspect of realistic flight simulation, it's not a well-developed feature in any version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. We can make and file a flight plan within MSFS, but the system allows only basic information. For example: Alternate airports, which are requisite under instrument flight rules, are not possible in MSFS flight planners. Frankly, I find that weakness inexcusable. How are we supposed to simulate instrument flight realistically when we can't comply with a standard IFR requirement?

THE SOLUTION

To address these shortcomings, Blushing Sheep Simulations offers Dispatch Planner X, a flight-planning program that enables us to include the information that real-world flight plans require. I reviewed version 4.0, the latest release.

Blushing Sheep Simulations is a software-development business that was formed in January 2008 "with the aim of providing high quality add-ons to the FS community." Its Dispatch Planner began two years earlier as a simple spreadsheet and evolved into stand-alone software. It's not an add-on that becomes part of the flight simulator, like scenery and aircraft. It's a stand-alone supplement, and a good one at that.

"Dispatch Planner X is designed for simmers who would like to add a further touch of realism to their simulation experience by creating professional 'dispatch' documentation for their flights without splashing on expensive and often confusing flight-planning software," explains the developer in its User Guide.

The manufacturer promises a lot about Dispatch Planner, all of which I found basically true. The program indeed provides detailed flight logs, airport data, fuel needs, and much more. And it is uncomplicated and easy to use.

Purchasing the product from the Pilot Shop was quick and easy. After your purchase information is submitted, the program downloads quickly.

The program also installs quickly and easily from a self-executable file. You don't need any advanced computer experience to buy, install, or use it.

Major Features

A preferences window shows up on first use, and it must be satisfied before proceeding. This is where you set your defaults such as whether to express weights in pounds or kilograms. Thereafter, this window does not appear again unless you specifically request it for changing your preferences.

Textual and graphical menus are very easy to follow and use. Tab labels on top are succinct. Instruction lines and mouseover popups explain features and guide users on what to do.

You may select from a list of previously created flight plans or create a new plan. The program comes with several previously created flight plans. Reviewing them helps you see how the program works and what it produces.

Creating new flights plan is easy. Data are entered into clearly labeled field boxes on a "Basic Flight Info" page. The boxes turn from white to green when the data entries are correct. If you don't know what to do, simply move your mouse cursor over a label or field box, and a mouseover popup window appears with a short tip.

If you want to add current weather data to your flight plan, click the check box at the bottom right of the data-entry boxes, below the aircraft box.

When all the entries are correct, all the input boxes and the checkmarks in the lower right corner appear green. Clicking the checkmarks moves you to "Advance Planning" or "Reports." When any entry isn't correct, the checkmarks are red, and the errant input boxes remain white. It's really a very easy program to follow.

The Advance Planning feature enables some additional data-entry boxes, but most of the data shown are readouts from your flight plan rather than entry boxes. For example, on the "Airports/Alternates" page, data about the origin, destination, and alternate airports you entered are shown, but you cannot change them on this page. You may, however, select the runways you will use at your origin and destination airports from this page.

The "Route and Time" page enables you to create a complete list of waypoints for the flight plan you are creating. This calculation can take a minute or more, depending on the length of your flight, and nothing will show on this page unless you request a calculation.

The "Payload/Fuel/Tankering" page shows your aircraft's weights on take off and landing and the fuel needed for each leg of your flight. These data are useful for setting flaps on take off and landing, even though MSFS doesn't provide enough specific data for accurate flaps settings. The only option you have on this page is whether you want to tanker fuel for your next leg.

"Tankering" is the purchasing of extra fuel at airports where prices are low enough to enable a bottom-line savings. This practice doesn't apply directly to MSFS or Dispatch Planner because neither program factors fuel prices.

To find out if your flight plan "meets the stringent standards through the Eurocontrol website," you can request a validation. That's not as easy as requesting a calculation, however. To request a validation, Dispatch Planner copies your flight plan to the Windows clipboard and accesses the Eurocontrol website where you will paste your copied flight plan into a window and click the button.

From the "Home" page, you can print your flight plan, weather report, or "loadsheet."

Reports show all the data shown in the pages described above, printed on paper for your simulating convenience.

An "Editor" page enables you to change performance data for your aircraft.

Nice Features

Aircraft performance data such as weights and speeds can be imported directly from FS2004 or FSX.

Dispatch Planner X's navigation database can be updated.

A color-coded status bar tells you what the software is doing at the moment. When something is wrong, the bar is red and an error message appears.

Help is at your fingertips. Every page has clearly visible instructions, and definitions of most abbreviations are found with mouseovers. If you want to know what "MALTOF" or "PLNTOF" mean, for example, simply put the mouse cursor over the abbreviation and voila, there's your definition. These definitions are minimal for space reasons, but the meanings are clear.

Input boxes change color when your data entries are correct, which clearly signals whether you're ready to proceed and where your errors are.

A comprehensive User Guide in Adobe Acrobat format is included. It explains every page and item one by one.

Links to other sources are available. For example, if you don't know the official codes for the airports you will fly from or to, you simply click on a link and your default web browser opens up a page with this information. Similarly, if you don't know all the waypoints between your origin and destination airports, you click another link and your default browser takes you to a web page where you can create a flight plan that includes waypoints. These outside links are a handy way of obtaining information, and they avoid bogging down the program with comprehensive databases that require updating.

You can also pull real-time weather reports from the Internet into the flight plan. The reports are typical METARs (Meteorological Aviation Reports) in abbreviations and codes that appear like a lot of gibberish if you don't know how to decipher them. But knowing how to read official weather reports is part of simulating flight realistically.

Downsides

When the data you enter into the basic page are incorrect, the boxes remain white but don't tell you what's wrong. I fumbled around until I found what they wanted, then the boxes and checkmarks turned green. As examples: The time boxes require a colon when entered, as in "18:30," and the airport codes require the entire four characters, as in "KBOS." It won't accept "1830" or "BOS." Some of these requirements are explained in the User Guide. We're on our own to learn others by trial and error.

The Eurocontrol validator didn't work. This independent website that's accessible from Dispatcher Planner produced an error message on the flight plan I created and on one of Dispatch Planner's flight plans. The developer said the routes validated properly when Dispatch Planner was tested before release, and he thought Eurocontrol might have changed something that caused the errors. He emphasized that Eurocontrol is not part of Dispatch Planner and that Blushing Sheep had no control over it.

A group of information named "PAX/FS" contains input boxes and a checkbox for four unrelated types of data (number of passengers, simulator version, aircraft type, and weather selection). This grouping of unlike data is confusing when you're trying to learn a new program.

The weather-request checkbox should be more prominent because it's an important feature.

The "cost" input window performs no function because neither Dispatch Planner nor MSFS factor fuel costs. The developer says: "This is not used for any calculations but is just for realism on the dispatch." In that case, I feel it's more appropriate as an "advanced" (or optional) feature than a basic one.

I would have learned the program more easily if I had found the User Guide sooner. The guide would be more convenient if accessible from within the program like the airport codes and weather, but it's available only through the Windows "Start" menu.

Unfortunately, the flight plans cannot be imported into MSFS for use by its ATC or GPS. Seeing your flight course on the GPS screen and having ATC vector you from your filed flight plan are great features of MSFS (even though MSFS's ATC isn't all it should be just yet). But MSFS's flight-planning weaknesses prevent it from reading data in Dispatch Planner's flight plans. Consequently, Blushing Sheep's objective was to make comprehensive flight plans for our own use, and that has been accomplished. We can create and file a separate flight plan in MSFS based on information in Dispatch Planner's flight plans, however.

SUMMARY

Dispatch Planner X reflects considerable foresight, planning, editing, and testing. It fills a need, and its pages, menus, and boxes are basically easy to use. Blushing Sheep was very helpful in answering my questions and solving my problems. I recommend the product to any flight simmers who want to simulate flight as realistically as they can. I also hope the developers improve on the various issues I found to make a good program even better.

Bill Stack
billstack@flightsim.com

Learn More About Dispatch Planner X Here