Howto:Add procedures to the route manager

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A free way to get more SID and STAR procedures for the FlightGear Route Planner.[1]

Make some procedures 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]

Installing procedure files

Manually

SID and STAR procedures are found in the procedures.xml file for an airport. There is at most one procedures file per airport and it is located in the root of the airport directory:

$FG_SCENERY/Airports/I/C/A/ICAO.procedures.xml

With the ICAO code of your airport replacing ICAO.[3]

For example, to import SID or STAR procedures for Phuket International Airport (VTSP), you name the file VTSP.procedures.xml and put it in the directory

$FG_SCENERY/Airports/V/T/S/

In there you will likely find for example 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]

Bash script for organizing files

ZirconiumX wrote a bash script for putting the XML files into the the right directories in the scenery.[5] 

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

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 files

Here are some links to example XML files which follows the format specified above:

Sources for procedure files

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 Level-D 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 . ":

  1. Download Level-D navdata from Navigraph (On the Downloads -> Manual Download page)
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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".
  5. You can either rename in bulk or single file from "<ICAO>.xml" to "<ICAO>.procedures.xml" for desired airports.
  6. 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)
  7. 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)
  8. 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"
  9. In FlightGear, add the "AIRAC/2311" directory to your sceneries paths.
  10. Reload FlightGear and enjoy SID/STARs in your MCDU"

References

References
  1. ↑ Sarith  (Jun 24th, 2017).  routeplanner stir sid .
  2. ↑ Parnikkapore  (Jun 24th, 2017).  Re: routeplanner stir sid .
  3. ↑ Parnikkapore  (Jun 28th, 2017).  Re: routeplanner stir sid .
  4. ↑ Parnikkapore  (Jun 29th, 2017).  Re: routeplanner stir sid .
  5. ↑ ZirconiumX  (Mar 26th, 2016).  Re: Non-Navigraph SID/STAR xml files .
  6. ↑ eric  (Jul 2nd, 2017).  Re: routeplanner stir sid .

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