Custom Flight Management System
Not available in the Stable Version
This page outlines features and issues provided by the initial integration of our custom FMS. Please also make ensure you have read the special notes section.
For guides on utilizing features included with our custom FMS see the Guides and Information section below.
Features
Version 1
- Custom flight plan management replacing the default Asobo flight plan manager (FPM).
- SID/STAR/APPR waypoints can now be edited.
- No more USR waypoints from the Asobo FPM.
- Correct procedure and direct-to sequencing.
- Added Discontinuities as in the real life aircraft. See Guides and Information below.
- Support for multiple leg types:
- TF: Track to a Fix defines a great circle track over ground between two known databases fixes.
- RF: Constant Radius Arc defines a constant radius turn between two database fixes, lines tangent to the arc and a center fix.
- VM: Heading to a manual termination defines a specified heading until a Manual termination.
- Cross-track error indicator on the ND.
- Improved LNAV turn prediction.
- Roll anticipation distance.
- Improved flight plan rendering / drawing.
- Improved ND display filters for ARPT, VOR, NDB, WPTs.
- MCDU FIX INFO page for radials and distance circles on navigation fixes. See Guides and Information below.
Guides and Information
Known Issues
- TCAS is not implemented yet. No traffic shown, TCAS elements are cosmetic only.
- WX and TERR on ND are not implemented yet. We are waiting for better API support by Microsoft Flight Simulator. See our Forums Feature Request.
- Only 3 Leg Types/1 Transition supported at this time. Although these cover most of the important types there might be some issues with other leg types during flight guidance. We will be significantly improving this in future updates.
- Rendering of flight path on the ND of terminal procedure legs may be glitched or incorrect during cruise. - See Special Notes.
- Rendering of flight path on the ND of legs will be glitched or incorrect if you are flying faster than the appropriate/correct speed. - See Special Notes.
- Syncing the aircraft flight plan with the sim's flight plan for default ATC and VFR map is not 100% supported. - See Special Notes.
- Defining both FROM/TO in the world map shows in the FROM/TO INIT A page but does not populate the airport list in our METAR (AOC) integration.
- DIRECT-TO: Turning point is not correctly implemented yet.
- ETA in F-PLN A on the MCDU may not be 100% accurate.
- Flight plan frozen on loading in (Please post the specific route on which this occurs and under what circumstances, i.e. spawning in c&d using the MSFS flight planner, or simBrief, or loading in .PLN generated by simBrief or other external program).
- Fuel calculations might be incorrect.
- Route on VFR map will not match up with what is shown on the ND.
Special Notes
Flight Plan Sync (MSFS ATC + VFR Map)
Our custom FMS provides better accuracy and features over the default offering in MSFS which results in issues syncing the flight plan from the MCDU back into the simulator. Flight plans with complex routing may have significant issues if synced backwards to MSFS's simplified flight planning. This will always be problematic unless Asobo improves the built-in flight planner. Other aircraft with complex flight planning capabilities also have this limitation.
VFR Map
We'd like to stress that the VFR Map is not supported and we don't recommend using it - the A320neo is an IFR aircraft after all.
When flight plan sync is enabled you will often not see the proper sequence of waypoints or pathing between waypoints.
The VFR Map will attempt to you show you what the simulator's built-in flight planner produces, which is not an accurate representation of the LNAV in our cFMS. In the future we may replicate a secondary route visualization (apart from the PLAN mode on the ND) feature in the EFB.
With the information above in mind, we have provided a feature that helps sync the aircraft's flight plan back to the MSFS' built-in flight plan. This feature can be configured on the EFB and is set to None by default.
Enabling this feature should allow:
- IFR clearance access through the MSFS ATC
- Usage of the VFR map
How to Turn on Flight Plan Sync
Before performing an INIT REQ. or inputting your flight plan please follow the steps below if you would like to try and use the built-in ATC for your flight.
- Go to the EFB Settings and select Sim Options. Location Here.
- Switch the
Sync MSFS Flight Plansetting toSave. - Continue entering your flight plan or perform an INIT REQ.
WX/TER/TCAS
As stated in our CFMS NOTAM
It is important to note that the weather and terrain radars, as well as TCAS, are not available yet with cFMS v1. Our current focus is to deliver a more realistic flight planning and navigation experience while maintaining performance and reliability. However, we are not satisfied with how the default code performs together with our custom systems.
We believe the benefits that cFMS provides outweigh the temporary lack of WX/TERR/TCAS functionality on the development version. We are already hard at work developing our TCAS system and we will provide more details on it as soon as we can. Weather and terrain still prove to be a challenge due to the lack of a native SDK API. We have posted about it on the MSFS forums, where it currently sits at the top of the wishlist and Asobo are investigating how to best improve their API.
Read more about weather and terrain API.
Flight Path Rendering
In certain instances some legs may not render correctly with our current implementation and may look strange in PLAN mode or while enroute. In most cases the A32NX will attempt to fly the route and you won't experience any major issues.
Additionally, some flight plans may have extraneous waypoints that can lead to wrongly drawn flight paths. While this is can be an edge case, going through your flight plan in PLAN mode you can find offending waypoints that need to be removed which will provide a much more reasonable drawn flight path.