Fsbuild-2 Flight Planner

Howdy,

I just bought this planning tool and some questions came up.

I was just wondering. Where do I go to see what airac cycle is in use by fsbuild2?
I just bought and installed the latest airac from navigraph since I didn't know how old the database is in the installation file. I'm not quite convinced that the navigraph airac file is installed correctly.
Could it be the files are named differently in the airac download. I got a whole bunch of files named almost the same in the fsbuild folder such like 'fsb_stars.txt' and 'stars.txt' the later one looks like the new cycle. Could it be an error in the filenames?

How about a simple 'save as' option when saving those flightplans.

Wouldn't it be logical if there was links to the .pdf files (from the fsbuild folder) in the drop down menu 'help' or a link to a local html page with links to those pdf files?
Links to the support forum and faq forum wouldn't be out of the way either from the help menu.

'Exclude SID/STAR' from the 'build option...' menu doesn't seem to work. Maybe that is because you can't un-choose runways to a gate f.ex. at the departure airport.

Whole thing just seems unfinished and the GUI could for sure need an upgrade. Too many things seems pre-set and unchangable. Now this is probally done in the best of intentions but there is a lack of some editable entries in 'options' folder => 'export directories...' tab where you can set up path to unsupported planes/software or shared network locations. Ok, I am aware this is possible from the fsbuild2.cfg file but should it be necessary to hand edit files?

Well I have to admit I'm new to this fs planning tools world and I might have too high expectations but I must say I'm not that impressed.

//SpeedStar

I'll address the title of your thread. The main installer, 2.3, comes with old style navdata. The new updates, currently 2.4.0.11, come with new style navdata (cycle 1013 is included, see ). The update does not remove the old style files, so there are indeed a bunch of them.

Just open one of the new style files, apts.txt for example, and you should see something along the lines of "AIRAC Cycle : 1101 (13/JAN/2011 - 09/FEB/2011) - Rev.2", just before the start of the actual data.

As for the rest, I think FS Build can take some getting used to, but it is one of the best flight planners for a reason and that is not a pretty but good for nothing GUI, of which there are plenty. Bottom line is, it works. If something doesn't, post here and Ernie will look into it, he offers some great support, IMHO.

Well don't get me wrong I wasn't suggesting replacing all the current export dirs, just suggesting an alternative export option.

I got this installed on a laptop so the FSX GPS export will try to export the file to C:\documents\....\...\Flight simulator X files\ which doesn't exist on this machine since FSX is on a desktop PC. So infact it would be nice to have some additional slots where you can make your own export options instead of messing around with .cfg files.

about the sid/stars. It seems to exclude them now and I haven't been able to recreate the condition again. Might have been something I did wrong the first time.

I installed the 2.4 now and now I believe it is using the latest database.
But I still think it is acting weird when trying to autogenerate a course. It seems like it would rather go direct course instead of using High altitude airways and just ignores obvious airways.
EFHK-RJBB autogenerated course is just strange. This is the result: EFHK MILSI LP DIB 24E07 SJG 28E14 IEE 31E20 HSH 33E27 VCE MAE RJBB.

I got:

EFHK XUGR1D XUGRA UTT SVL 6437E 6548E 6660E 6673E 6585E 6296E 60E06 56E14 53E20 48E25 44E29 WQG 39E33 CHILY RJBB

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Vaughan