SkyDemon Forums

Altitute Information in exported flight plan

http://forums.skydemon.aero/Topic34179.aspx

By Hero77 - 10/30/2021 10:42:58 AM

Hi,

I am using SkyDemon to plan a VFR flight to be performed in Microsoft Flight Simulator. One of the most important features for me is to set safe altitutes for each waypoint to circumvent entering restricted airspace.

I can export the flightplan created in SkyDemon to .fpl and use an online tool to convert this into the .pln format, which I can import into MSFS as well as an application called Pilot2ATC.

However, I have now figured out that the .fpl file created by SkyVector does not contain the altitute information of the waypoints, but only lat and long information. Example:

<waypoint>
  <identifier>MISC1</identifier>
  <type>USER WAYPOINT</type>
  <country-code />
  <lat>50.264950</lat>
  <lon>12.951460</lon>
  <comment />
</waypoint>


Therefore I have to re-enter the altitute information for each waypoint in Pilot2ATC, which is a lot of work.

Not sure if this is a limitation of the garmin fpl format, but I found this the only export option in SkyDemon that I could convert to anything I can import to MSFS and Pilot2ATC.

Does anyone have an idea how I can get the full flight plan from SkyDemon over to the other applications?


By Hero77 - 11/1/2021 11:53:31 AM

Tim Dawson - 11/1/2021 10:21:04 AM
I don't think the .fpl format supports vertical planning so that information is not exported along with your route, when you save from SkyDemon.

According to the garmin XSD schema, its possible to include the waypoint elevation like this:

    <waypoint>
<identifier>MISC1</identifier>
<type>USER WAYPOINT</type>
<country-code />
<lat>51.509290</lat>
<lon>8.374783</lon>
     <elevation>2000</elevation>
<comment />
</waypoint>


"Elevation (in meters) of the waypoint. This value is ignored by panel mount devices."
https://www8.garmin.com/xmlschemas/FlightPlanv1.xsd

However it does not say if it's supposed to indicate only ground elevation or also waypoint height in the air. Also upon testing I found that this information does not get carried over to the .pln or .fms flightplans when converted with the web tool.