Howto:Add procedures to the route manager
| This article is a stub. You can help the wiki by expanding it. |
| Autoflight |
|---|
| Autopilot |
| Route manager |
| Specific autopilots |
| Miscellaneous |
Objective
A free way to get more SID and STAR procedures for the FlightGear Route Planner[1]
Background
Make some yourself. Charts are easy to find and a quick search will find you the syntax. This is what FlightGear is all about; doing it yourself and sharing it to others. A quick search would also find existing packages...[2]
Instructions
SID and STAR procedures are found in the airport's procedures.xml file. There is at most one file per airport and it is located in the airport's root directory:
<scenery directory>/Airports/I/C/A/ICAO.procedures.xml
Where ICAO is your airport code.[3]
For example, to import SID or STAR procedures for VTSP (Phuket International Airport), you name the file VTSP.procedures.xml and put it in the <scenery directory>/Airports/V/T/S/ directory. In there you will likely find VTSP.twr.xml but not an existing VTSP.procedures.xml file. Replace "VTSP" in the directory and procedures.xml file name with your airport code.[4]
File Structure
In the explanation below, the name like "ProceduresDB" is the tag - so it's actually <ProceduresDB> in the XML file. The subsequent parameters, like "build" are attributes - so it's actually <ProceduresDB build=""> in the XML file.
ProceduresDB [build] (one of these per file)
|
Airport [ICAOcode] (one of these per file)
|
Sid [Name, Runways (comma separated - example: "08L,08R")] (many of these per Airport)
|
Sid_Waypoint [ID (unique sequential integer)] (many of these per Sid)
|
Name
Type
Latitude
Longitude
Speed
Altitude
AltitudeCons
AltitudeRestriction (one of "above" or "below" or "at")
Hdg_Crs (optional. example value = "1")
Hdg_Crs_Value (optional. heading degrees)
Sp_Turn (optional. example value = "Auto")
...
Sid_Transition [Name] (just one of these per Sid)
|
SidTr_Waypoint [ID] (many of these per Sid_Transition)
Star [Name] (many of these per Airport)
|
Star_Waypoint [ID] (many of these per Star)
...
Star_Transition [Name] (just one of these per Star)
|
StarTr_Waypoint [ID] (many of these per Star_Transition)
Approach [Name] (e.g., ILS08L - uses IL, if appropriate, and the runway name by convention)
|
App_Waypoint [ID]
App_Transition [Name] (just one of these per Approach)
|
AppTr_Waypoint [ID] (many of these per App_Transition)
Sample procedures.xml File
Here is a link to an example xml file which follows the format specified above: https://github.com/jojo2357/flightgear-star-sid-manager/blob/master/2020.4/Airports/K/A/T/KATL.procedures.xml[5]
Bash script
ZirconiumX wrote a bash script for putting the XML files into the FG required locations.[6]
for file in $(ls *.xml)
do
# First, rename all the files to the correct convention
mv "$file" "${file%.xml}.procedures.xml"
# Then move it to the correct place
icao=${file%.xml}
icao1=$(echo $icao | cut -c 1)
icao2=$(echo $icao | cut -c 2)
icao3=$(echo $icao | cut -c 3)
mkdir -p $icao1/$icao2/$icao3
mv "${icao}.procedures.xml" "$icao1/$icao2/$icao3/${icao}.procedures.xml"
done
Installing free community procedures
The FAA provides the CIFP which provides procedure data for airports under the purview of the FAA, namely the US.
There is a free project on GitHub that aims to take FAA data and format it into the LevelD required by FlightGear. For instructions on how to install, see this section of the README.
This project uses GitHub Actions in order to automatically update the procedures at the start of a new AIRAC cycle.
Commercial sources
A process to import SID/STARs from Navigraph Level D (obtaining this data requires paid subscription to Navigraph) was described on the forum.
Quoting here for reference: mpotra . Re: How to get SIDs and STARs in Airbus A320 mcdu . ":
- Download Level-D navdata from Navigraph (On the Downloads -> Manual Download page)
- This is ZIP file with a Windows Installer executable inside. If you're on Windows already, run the installer, select a version (Prepar3D/PD3) and then skip to step 4.
- The executable is a Inno Setup executable. In Linux you can extract the contents with `innoextractor -e leveld_2311.exe` for example, which will output a "code$AppName" directory.
- In the extracted directory you'll find a "navdata" folder containing XML files with procedures for all airports for the AIRAC cycle with filenames as "<ICAO>.xml".
- You can either rename in bulk or single file from "<ICAO>.xml" to "<ICAO>.procedures.xml" for desired airports.
- Create a new directory somewhere (anywhere you want) say "AIRAC/2311", and inside it create the "Airports" directory. (camel-case formatted - "airports" with small letter A didn't work for me)
- Inside this "Airports" directory, create new subdirectories for each airport you want to bring in, using the [I]/[C]/[A] format. For example, if you want to add Vienna airport LOWW, create the subdirectories "Airports/L/O/W" - do not create the fourth subdirectory [W] (it won't work)
- Copy the renamed file from step 5 into this last subdirectory. For example, copy "LOWW.procedures.xml" into "AIRAC/2311/Airports/L/O/W" directory, resulting in "AIRAC/2311/Airports/L/O/W/LOWW.procedures.xml". Example 2: for Budapest airport copy "LHBP.procedures.xml" into "AIRAC/2311/Airports/L/H/B", resulting in "AIRAC/2311/Airports/L/H/B/LHBP.procedures.xml"
- In FlightGear, add the "AIRAC/2311" directory to your sceneries paths.
- Reload FlightGear and enjoy SID/STARs in your MCDU"
References
References
|