PILOT'S ASSISTANT V1.6

Free UK charts & much other information

Note that you must register with this site, and you will be asked to login on each visit when you first access any of the pages.

Provides information for Australia, including free charts, similar to the UK information in the above row

One of the many offerings at this site is a comprehensive set of Aerodrome, Apron and Procedure IAL Charts. In order to find them, go to the main site, then to Online Documents, then to Departure and Approach Procedures (DAP), then to Aerodrome & Procedure Charts (sorry, a direct link doesn't work here!).

Note: Adobe Reader 6.0 or Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 is required to view the Online Documents. Older versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader will not function with this service.

Thanks again to Kyle Ramsey for this tip.

It's worth mentioning the VATPAC (SimATC) Web Site as they also have extensive information sections on Australian airspace and procedures, IALs (associated with their Airfield Info links) and ERSA info including preferred routes, published frequencies, etc.

EastWest is still very much a player in the Australian virtual aviation scene.

Free Norwegian charts

Free charts for many parts of the world

US and some European charts, payware

Sim ChartPacks are customizable groups of electronic aeronautical charts that can be purchased and downloaded immediately from AeroPlanner.com. Available charts include Sectionals, WACs, High IRF, Low IFR, TACs, ONCs, and GNCs. The charts can be used in a variety of aeronautical navigation software packages including FSFlightMax for FS2002 [and many others]....

Thanks to Terry Tyler of TCA for passing this on. See his write-up (April 2002) in this TCA Hints & Tips File for more info on FSFlightMax. You will find other similar hints & tips files here.

Also Bob Andrepont has created his own list of places where you can get Free IAP Charts - check it out here.

Alain writes: Try also a search with Google with the following keywords : XXXX (ICAO code for the airport you're looking for) and charts. Almost every time I do that, I get some results, even with remote and small airports.  (You can look up ICAO codes if you need to at www.airrouting.com/content/airportloc.html.)

The UK equivalent is the United Kingdom Integrated Aeronautical Information Package (see above).

July 2001: Aeroplanner.com has partnered with Echo Flight to provide various charts as part of their service - see this news item.

"Also found another great tool for decoding METARs.  Do a google search for file METARDEC.ZIP. All you do is cut and paste a METAR report into this program and it will decode it for you."

Don't forget that you can also double-click the time at the bottom right-hand corner of your Windows screen and get some useful time zone information there...

...And another one here at www.csgnetwork.com.

See also my Pilot's Assistant Toolset.

For general calculators, see here in the Miscellaneous section below.

For more newsgroups & discussion forums, see here in the FS2002 Pilot's Assistant

Don't forget to read the README.RTF file that comes in the Flight Sim's root directory/folder! Contains a lot of useful trouble-shooting information, including problems with graphics cards and other kit.

Updated for FS2004

It includes a facility to search the TCA Hints & Tips files.

microsoft.public.simulators (newsgroup accessed via Google Groups)

For more newsgroups & discussion forums, see here in the FS2002 Pilot's Assistant

See also American Pacific Northwest and Canadian Western Provinces Scenery Catalogs by Heather Sherman, details here.

Excellent real-world information from www.casa.gov.au on VFR flying, including detailed guidance on specific routes.

Originally found at www.flyingaustralia.com, which sadly appears to have gone.

"Developed with the expert assistance of local operators, the guides will help you to plan and conduct your flight. They contain appropriate radio calls, frequencies and CTR warnings, as well as useful safety, tracking, GPS and emergency information. Photographs of significant landmarks along the routes have been included to assist navigation to and from each aerodrome."

If anyone knows information as good as this for other parts of the world then please email me!

See also Andrew Herd's tutorials on How To Fly Dangerous Approaches, details here.

On his site he has a collection of videos, most of helo's in action with background music, all very well done. There's even one for the BIF's, a MELJET B747 from pushback to take off at KORD, one for the fast mover crowd with F-15's and T-38's, and one, not Jordan's, video from an AC-130 gunship over Afganistan, impressive to watch them systematically take out ground targets, and, unfortunately, people too.

The site also has forums, on line training, and file downloads. Might want to add it to your weekly FS site tour.

Check out the videos, they are quite impressive.  The MELJET looks so real as it rotates, one would have a hard time telling that from a real video."

I'm still looking for good stuff here. Please email me if you have a suggestion - thanks!

Other articles and tutorials by Hal Stoen

See here for details.

(Thanks again to Pär Bensered for this recommendation.)

See also the Dangerous Airports (and Dangerous Weather) Databases, details above.

For example, try searches for books whose title contains VFR or IFR or Pilot's. Or try keyword Aviation together with a title containing the word Handbook. You will find an amazing amount of good stuff!

(This site's address was given to me by a second-hand bookseller in a small town in Sussex, England... it seems that Terry Pratchett's L-Space is becoming reality!)

FSNavigator 4 (version 4.7 as of July 2007) is shareware. It reads FS98, FS2000, FS2002 and FS2004 scenery, provides high and low level routes, and offers a growing database of SIDs and STARs that can be automatically incorporated in flight plans, along with a number of other improvements. SIDs and STARs can be downloaded and updated while running FSNavigator. You can also get a monthly update of airways and intersection data from Richard Stefan's site, see here. 

link updated

relocated again

In FS2002 it provides a Framerate Wizard that monitors performance and makes it easier to change the "slider" settings, but does not automatically adjust the settings, as well as the excellent Pushback facility (now with the option to start engines during pushback) and an improved Autosave.

In FS2000, it provides a Framerate Optimizer that automatically adjusts the flight sim's "sliders" to give you appropriate frame rates for different phases of flight. Also provides automatic en route traffic, autosave, FS Mouse support, scenery density hotkeys, the Mark 7 GPWS that will call out descent heights, and pushback. The last two of these are freeware!

AdvDisplay is a small module that runs inside FS98/FS2000/FS2002 (but not later versions) capturing text output from Adventures, which normally appears in the outside view screen, at the top, and diverting it to its own window. This window can be positioned anywhere on the FS screen, or even outside it. It looks like a normal Window unless “docked”, which attaches it to a specific position inside the Flight Simulator window, normally some place useful such as on the cockpit panel. V1.70 defaults the window to "off" so for a new panel you need to activate it via the Modules menu.

AutoSave automatically saves situation files at regular intervals, which is useful for recovering from crashes (even if your landings are always perfect, the software sometimes isn't...). Used with FS98/FS2000/FS2002/FS2004 - but not for FSX, where it's part of FSUIPC4 (see web site). Tip: AutoSave can cause noticeable pauses in some setups when it is writing to disk - if so then don't make the save interval too short.

(and you can get help from the AVSIM Radar Contact Support Forum)

Note: If you want to know what facilities are provided at a particular airport, one of the best places to look is Aeroplanner.com.

Daniel Hill's article link updated

Excellent catalogue of freeware FS2002 & FS2004 sceneries - FSX also, now

You'll find a lot of information about other freeware and payware airfields and facilities that blends in with the VFR Photographic Scenery at the UK Scenery Project.

...and get Johan de Vries's front-end utility to select these waves and textures from here in AVSIM File Library.

Among comments from TCA people:  "I'm totally impressed with the files - they add so much more to the scenery, especially to water landings!!" "I installed them Friday and have been flying some TDS floatplane flights and they are the best I've seen ... what a remarkable job of adding realism to the water motion and color."

(Relocated to the PILOT'S fsim.net site - you need to register (free) to download)

(Select products, and then utilities)

As with FSTraffic tracks, FSSE scenery files are now also being exchanged by FSSE users - go to the FILES EXCHANGE section of the Lago site.

One of the nice things about FSSE is how easy it is to edit the scenery in such files, even while you are flying - you can literally point from your aircraft to each add-on scenery object in turn, and then delete, move, rescale or change the visibility distance of any such object.

You can try FSSE before you buy, you'll get a fully functional version with restricted capacity.

There is a version of FSSE for FS2004 also, but I haven't tried it myself.

Note that this type of memory manager utility has been very useful in the past, but may become less necessary or even counter-productive with later operating systems (probably Windows 98SE onwards). However a new version for XP is available, which I have not tried.

A version for XP is also available (CachemanXP) - freeware although you can pay for an additional auto-optimization feature. It looks good but I have not tried it.

Information updated for Windows XP - see opposite.

You can also prevent programs from being started in the first place:

• If you have Windows XP, you can disable services as described in Black Viper's Windows XP Home and Professional Service Configurations. More details here.
• If you have Windows 98 or later (not XP), from the Windows Start button select Run, then type MSCONFIG, then select the Startup tab. Uncheck the stuff that you never want to run. 

URL updated July 2007 - if it breaks again, try here

• World Time Functions: display UTC with a moving solar map and provide 6 clocks you can set individually to any part of the world.
• Currency Converter: allows you to automatically download exchange rates and provides easy conversions based on these rates for countries that you specify (tip: you need to right-click the blue squares to select a country).You can manually over-ride a rate if you want.
• Units Converter allows you to enter a number, select the kind of units (e.g. speed), select the units that the number represents (e.g. kph), and then indicates the equivalent value in other relevant units. One of the many kinds of unit is jet A1 fuel. Or for on-line conversions of almost anything to anything, try www.onlineconversion.com (thanks to Bill Molony for this recommendation).
• Time Arithmetic Calculator: does things like work out the elapsed time between two times of day (useful for flight reports!).

Tip: when installing a new driver, read the installation instructions VERY carefully, especially if they involve uninstalling an existing driver, and make sure you know how to go back to your previous driver should the new one not work for some reason. And check out the great information from Chris Hunt in the Feb 2004 section of  this TCA Hints & Tips File.

You'll find additional information from Andrew on these tweaks in the March 2003 section of this TCA Hints & Tips File.

Relocated! If the above link breaks again, try this redirector.

Re-opened!

If you need to uninstall a version of DirectX, which is rare but not unknown, try www1.freewebs.com/firecat (no guarantees!).

XP users should check out the vast amount of useful information in Black Viper's Windows XP Home and Professional Service Configurations and Windows XP Strange Service Information. But there's lots more good stuff.

For more newsgroups & discussion forums, see here in the FS2002 Pilot's Assistant

This off-topic item is just in case you have experienced exasperating problems with a portable player, particularly with WMA files, e.g. bogus NO FILES messages or having all your files mysteriously deleted.

Superb collection of online maps

See also Aviation Calculators.

Now grouped by categories for easier lookup!

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