Having Trouble Saving Flight Plans in Flight Planner

[pdmike]

I am having trouble saving flight plans in the Flight Planner. I create the plan - Departure and Arrival airports, waypoints and cruise altitude. I save it. I fly it.

The next time I want to load the saved flight plan, so I can fly it again, the cruise altitude is different than the cruise altitude for the saved flight plan. I have to re-set it every time.

How can I save a flight plan so that all elements of the plan are truly saved?

Also - when I create a flight plan with FSNavigator and export it to FS9, the imported flight plan appears in FS9 - but the waypoints are totally different. What's up with that?

Need answers to BOTH questions, please.

Thanks.

Mike

[kingnorris]

I'll try to answer your first one: After you create the flight,start sim.As soon as sim starts,at the gate or whatever, hit "alt" and select "save flight". Then, give it a name if you prefer. Now, next time you fire up FS9, go to "saved flights"(not create a flight) and select your recent saved flight. You should have everything as you saved it, including starting position, cruise altitude and weather.Also helpful for those looonnggg flights,as you can save as mentioned, then resume later from where you left off.

Sorry, don't know the answer to your second question, as I don't use FSNav.

[pdmike]

>I'll try to answer your first one: After you create the
>flight,start sim.As soon as sim starts,at the gate or
>whatever, hit "alt" and select "save flight". Then, give it a
>name if you prefer. Now, next time you fire up FS9, go to
>"saved flights"(not create a flight) and select your recent
>saved flight. You should have everything as you saved it,
>including starting position, cruise altitude and weather.Also
>helpful for those looonnggg flights,as you can save as
>mentioned, then resume later from where you left off.
>
>Sorry, don't know the answer to your second question, as I
>don't use FSNav.

Thanks - but that was not my quesiton. I know how to save FLIGHTS. What I am having trouble doing is saving flight PLANS.

Let's say I open a saved FLIGHT. My plane is at Gate Whatever at Presspuck International, ready to go. I have previously created (and saved) a flight PLAN for Presspuck to Airwick. I open the flight plan. The flight plan I saved has (I thought) a cruise altitude of 35,000 ft. If I click on the tab to select waypoints, there is also a window in the left hand portion of the select waypoints window to select the cruise altitude. That window will have something like "6,000 ft" or "12,000 ft" in it.

Somehow, even though I thought I had saved the flight plan when I first created it, the cruise altitude has changed on me. I don't think that is supposed to happen.

It is especially annoying when I forget to check the flight altitude, go to all the trouble of commencing the flight (long taxi to runway, long wait while other planes take off, etc.), only to be told to "Climb and maintain 12,000 ft" when I had set the plan for a cruise altitude of 35,000 ft or whatever.

I guess I am not doing something right when I attempt to save the flight plan. But the plan itself is there after I save it, i.e., when I return to FS, I can load the flight - so I know I saved it.

Don't get it.

[ubersu]

Look at the .pln file in your my documents\flight simulator files with a text editor. You will see the saved altitude in the file. When you load the file, go to the navigation log page and look at the plan - don't go to the page where you actually edit the flight plan. The altitude and waypoints in the nav log should match what you saved.

DJ

[Jim Robinson]

Yep, just click "Load" and load your flight plan and then click "OK" without messing with the "Find Route" thingy. When you do the "Find Route" thing, it auto-calculates your route every time and the cruise altitude it chooses is based on terrain clearance (+1000' or whatever) for the selected flight path, regardless of whether you're flying an A380 or a J3 cub.

On the FSNav problem, it's likely that the "Find Route" button is causing your problems there as well. The auto-route function is probably screwing up your waypoints as well. I've seen that happen. It'll choose a bunch of low altitude VORs spaced 300nm apart or something, which of course leaves you without a signal for 90% of each leg. Load your FSNav generated flight plans as described above and I'm guessing the FSNav problem will go away too.

Jim