Flight Plan Disappears!

[Mac6737]

This always happens:

 

Flying a flight plan, AP engaged. Save flight (.flt file) and shut down the computer. Come back next day, reboot the PC, open MSFS and load the saved flight. It opens with the plane where it's supposed to be, but the flight plan is gone. No waypoints in the display, no red line in the VFR map. Reengaging the AP doesn't change things, either.

 

Is there a way to make sure your plan survives the night?

[tiger1962]

When you load the saved flight, load the .pln file instead of the .flt file.

 

Sent from my KFDOWI using Tapatalk

[Mac6737]

When you load the saved flight, load the .pln file instead of the .flt file.

 

I believe the only time you can create a .pln file is before you click on "Fly" to begin the flight. When you save a flight after it starts, you have no choice but a .flt file. And so, all .pln files begin at the airport. Unless I've missed something, there is no way to conserve an in-flight situation except as a .flt file.

 

In any case, the parameters of a saved flight, including progress in a flight plan, shouldn't be lost.

[tiger1962]

A .pln file will only be created if you have a valid flight plan. It worked for me when I tested it with the CJ4 a few months ago.

[Mac6737]

A .pln file will only be created if you have a valid flight plan. It worked for me when I tested it with the CJ4 a few months ago.

 

Tiger,

 

Yes, but that is not responsive to my post. Nonetheless, after reading it I saved a .pln file at takeoff. After an anomalous CTD, I reopened and reloaded the .pln file. No problem. After an hour or so, I went to save my flight, and the only option (as I said previously in this thread) was a .flt file. So be it. Tomorrow, when I load that saved .flt file, the flight parameters will not have been preserved. Count on it!

[tiger1962]

After you planned your flight on the world map, before pressing the FLY button, do a save in 2 steps. First, save a .PLN file. Then, when done, press save again and save a .FLT file with the same .PLN file name.

Then, during the flight, whenever you want, do a SAVE and overwrite the original .FLT file.

You should be able - for example the next day - to load the .FLT flight saved from world map and when pressing FLY, the aircraft is more or less configured (you may have to set some AP settings, but nothing complicated), in the position and altitude it was when you saved the flight and - above all - with the flight plan present on the screens/FMC.

[Mac6737]

Then, during the flight, whenever you want, do a SAVE and overwrite the original .FLT file. You should be able - for example the next day - to load the .FLT flight saved from world map and when pressing FLY, the aircraft is more or less configured (you may have to set some AP settings, but nothing complicated), in the position and altitude it was when you saved the flight and - above all - with the flight plan present on the screens/FMC.

 

OK, I'll try that. But, if I overwrite the original .FLT file en route, then of course I'll no longer have "the .FLT file saved from world map," because it will have been overwritten. If you're saying I should open the new .FLT file (the one saved en route), that seems to me to be what I have been doing all along: create a .FLT file en route, and open it the next day. The only difference in your procedure is that there would also be a .PLN file situated at the airport.

 

Anyway, we'll see . . . .

[Mac6737]

After you planned your flight on the world map, before pressing the FLY button, do a save in 2 steps. First, save a .PLN file. Then, when done, press save again and save a .FLT file with the same .PLN file name.

Then, during the flight, whenever you want, do a SAVE and overwrite the original .FLT file.

You should be able - for example the next day - to load the .FLT flight saved from world map and when pressing FLY, the aircraft is more or less configured (you may have to set some AP settings, but nothing complicated), in the position and altitude it was when you saved the flight and - above all - with the flight plan present on the screens/FMC.

 

Tiger,

 

I didn't think that would work, and it didn't.

 

I saved BOTH a .pln and a .flt file before takeoff. When it was my bedtime, I saved a .flt file titled "en route." Next day, I opened it. As expected, the plane was located where it should be, but there was no flight plan on the panel or in the VFR map, so I couldn't even locate the waypoints, let alone set the AP on "Managed Heading." The waypoints did appear, however, in the pull-down from the taskbar, but there was no way to see where I was in the flight

[tiger1962]

I saved BOTH a .pln and a .flt file before takeoff. When it was my bedtime, I saved a .flt file titled "en route."

 

WRONG!!! You should have saved an .flt file with the SAME FILE NAME as the other two - but never mind all that right now - Merry Christmas Mac!

Edited December 24, 2021 by tiger1962

[Mac6737]

WRONG!!! You should have saved an .flt file with the SAME FILE NAME as the other two - but never mind all that right now - Merry Christmas Mac!

 

O I C.

 

Happy New Year!

[tiger1962]

O I C.

 

Happy New Year!

 

Cheers Mac, Merry 'Twixtmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!

[Mac6737]

WRONG!!! You should have saved an .flt file with the SAME FILE NAME as the other two - but never mind all that right now - Merry Christmas Mac!

 

OK, it worked.

 

Assuming it works consistently (which is yet to be tested), I leave it to greater intellects than mine to explain why the belt-and-suspenders approach of saving both a .pln and a .flt file (presumably with identical data) should have any effect on which parameters get saved when you subsequently save only the .flt file en route. When you do so, the .pln file is left to itself, and you wouldn't think that, as it slumbers, its data would somehow "bleed over" to the re-saved .flt file.

[tiger1962]

Glad it worked! The technical explanation for all this is that the .flt file which you save en-route is saved with the wrong filename by the sim - by default it overwrites the TemporaryFlight.Flt file in the LocalState folder instead of your custom-named file, such KSEA-KBOS.flt for example.

[Mac6737]

Glad it worked! The technical explanation for all this is that the .flt file which you save en-route is saved with the wrong filename by the sim - by default it overwrites the TemporaryFlight.Flt file in the LocalState folder instead of your custom-named file, such KSEA-KBOS.flt for example.

 

Five days later, after multiple attempts: it does not work consistently.

 

About half the time, actually, little better than my experience when I don't save a .PLN at the outset. While the saved plan is not displayed on the panel or the VFR map, it IS displayed in the LogNav tab on the Task Bar. Also, when I contacted Salt Lake Center this afternoon, ATC told me to "proceed to DBS as planned." DBS was my next waypoint. So the tower knows my plan, but I have no way of following it.

[Jim Hall]

Mac, you failed to find the eye of a newt and toe of a frog dipped in chicken blood that came with the last upgrade. They are in the .voodoo file next to the .hex file. Your problem is an easy fix: at any midnight wave your mouse pointer over the aforementioned files chanting “zero-one, one-zero, Microsoft”, then as hard as you can, click the .voodoo file first, then the .hex file. This fix is permanent but you should keep of copy on an old hard drive away from your sim-rig while waiting for the next upgrade.

[billythebassman]

it does not work consistently.

 

I'm afraid that pretty well sums up MSFS.

[Mac6737]

Mac, you failed to find the eye of a newt and toe of a frog dipped in chicken blood that came with the last upgrade. They are in the .voodoo file next to the .hex file. Your problem is an easy fix: at any midnight wave your mouse pointer over the aforementioned files chanting “zero-one, one-zero, Microsoft”, then as hard as you can, click the .voodoo file first, then the .hex file. This fix is permanent but you should keep of copy on an old hard drive away from your sim-rig while waiting for the next upgrade.

 

No. I already did that. It still doesn't work consistently.