Flight Plan

File a plan, IFR vs VFR, SimBrief, callsign

How to fill the flight plan dialog, field by field.

When does the dialog appear?#

Choose IFR flight in the Radio Box to open the IFR Flight Plan dialog. For VFR, choose VFR flight: it opens the VFR Flight Plan dialog directly. The dialog has no IFR/VFR selection; the button you pressed sets the flight rules. These controls are outside the ATC menu and are available before filing, on the ground or in flight. Radio transmissions still require powered COM1 and the appropriate station frequency.

During a VFR flight without a full plan, Flight opens these choices again, so you can update your intentions or file a full plan later. Closing the filing form or correcting a rejected draft preserves that VFR session. A successfully filed plan continues through the existing clearance workflow; filing alone is not an airborne IFR clearance.

VFR without a full flight plan#

In the VFR Flight Plan dialog, tick Fly without a flight plan in the File section at the bottom. The fields such a flight does not need disappear: airports and altitudes, route, runway selection, generate, import and FMS programming. What remains is the airline code and flight number that form your callsign, Aircraft type (prefilled from the aircraft), Intentions (local flight, direction or area) and the optional Desired altitude [feet MSL, optional]. The main button then reads Start VFR Without Flight Plan, or Update VFR Intentions when a VFR session without a filed plan is already active. It prepares the session; it does not transmit or create an FMS route. The flight-plan draft you typed is kept for a later filing, and the plugin remembers your last choice of the checkbox. Contact the local station when ready.

The departure airport is identified from the aircraft position when possible. Controlled departures use the normal taxi, holding-point and takeoff requests. In free flight, no destination or route is required. Tune a published nearby Tower, Approach or traffic frequency to request an arrival. The button names the airport; shared frequencies require explicit station selection.

First-contact replies include the local pressure setting (QNH or altimeter, following the regional convention the plugin already uses) and a VFR squawk. After a controlled departure, Report leaving the control zone on the Tower frequency obtains the frequency change approval. Request zone transit asks a nearby Tower for transit of its control zone without landing.

When you request an arrival, choose Full stop or Touch and go. At a controlled airport the Tower assigns the circuit side (left or right downwind) from the side you arrive from; you no longer choose it there. At an uncontrolled field (traffic frequency or AFIS) you still choose the runway and the circuit side according to the published local procedure. Traffic frequencies carry self-announcements; AFIS gives runway, wind, pressure and known-traffic information but never grants clearances.

Downwind and final reports become available at the corresponding positions. On the final report, Tower issues the landing or touch-and-go clearance directly if the runway is free; otherwise it says "continue approach" and the clearance follows once the runway is free. After a touch-and-go, the downwind and final reports and the clearance become available again for the next circuit. Go around remains available during landing readback; if the flight plan dialog is open, it closes the form while retaining its draft. Parking and taxi-in follow physical landing and runway vacation.

The amber circuit on the Nav Display is illustrative. Published entry points, heights, airspace permissions and operating hours are not modeled by this mode. Follow the applicable local procedures; availability of a button does not mean a full flight plan is unnecessary in every real-world situation.

Radio Check#

The direct Radio Check button works with or without a filed plan. It remains visible while busy but waits for the current exchange or speech synthesis to finish. COM1 must be powered and tuned to a responding published station nearby. ATIS and traffic-only frequencies do not answer. The simulated station says "readability five" for Europe or "loud and clear" for the United States, as selected in Options > Phraseology & Radio. Neither reply measures your microphone or speech-recognition setup.

Changing frequency cancels an unfinished Radio Check or local VFR exchange. Kokoro, Piper, Azure and WinRT pending speech is retired with that exchange. X-Plane's native system speech has no stop command exposed to plugins, so an already-started native phrase may finish before the next call becomes available.

The fields#

Callsign#

Two text fields shown as "Airline code (eg. AAL / Cessna)" and "Flight number (eg. 67 / D-IEVX)".

For airline flights, use the ICAO airline code (three letters), not the IATA two-letter code:

Airline code: AAL
Flight number: 67

For general aviation, put the aircraft type or a name in the airline field and the registration in the flight number field:

Airline code: Cessna
Flight number: N172AB

The plugin tries to convert known ICAO codes into spoken callsigns. If a code is unknown, the raw text is used.

Departure ICAO / Arrival ICAO#

Four-letter ICAO codes (KJFK, EGLL, LIRF). The plugin does not use IATA three-letter codes here.

Flightlevel (eg. 320)#

Cruise flight level. Numeric. For example 370 for FL370. Stay within the aircraft's service ceiling.

Departure / Arrival transition level [feet]#

Two separate fields — one for the departure airport, one for the arrival airport. If you do not know, leave them at the defaults. SimBrief import normally fills them. The plugin uses them for QNH/standard pressure phraseology.

Flight Plan Waypoints#

Enroute waypoints, separated by spaces (textarea below the runway section). Do not put the departure or arrival airport in this field — they have their own fields.

BCN LARPA LUMAS

You can leave the route empty for a short or direct flight. The plugin will still build departure, arrival, and approach geometry where possible.

FMS Programming#

The FMS Programming row controls how NextATC uses the X-Plane FMS for this specific flight-plan filing. It is not a general Options setting: you choose it in the flight plan dialog because the best mode depends on how you prepared the aircraft for this flight. By default, new installs use Program NextATC route into X-Plane FMS. If you previously selected another mode, NextATC restores that saved choice from settings.ini.

Program NextATC route into X-Plane FMS — NextATC uses the route entered in the flight plan dialog as the ATC flight plan, then writes that route into the X-Plane FMS where the aircraft supports plugin-driven FMS programming.
Read route, SID and STAR from X-Plane FMS — NextATC treats the route already loaded in the X-Plane FMS as the complete flight plan. Use this when you programmed the aircraft yourself, including the SID and STAR, and want ATC to follow that route without NextATC changing the FMS. In this mode the waypoint box shows an informational message; your previous typed route is restored if you cycle back to another mode.
Do not read or write X-Plane FMS — NextATC files the route internally for ATC only. The X-Plane FMS is left untouched, and any existing aircraft FMS route is ignored by NextATC.

Insert Approximation points in FMS controls whether NextATC adds generated approximation vector points to the route. These points are drawn to make the turn toward final smoother; disable the option if you prefer to keep only the published route plus the final approach reference.

IFR / VFR#

The dialog has no IFR/VFR field: the flight rules are set by the IFR flight or VFR flight button that opened it.

IFR — uses IFR clearance, SID/STAR logic, altitude clearances, and standard instrument approaches.
VFR — disables SID/STAR (they are IFR-only) and builds a visual traffic pattern for the arrival.

Runway selection#

Override departure runway lists every runway at the departure airport and initially selects NextATC's normal airport-and-wind choice. A different selection is authoritative for your flight: NextATC adds it to the active departure configuration while preserving the existing arrival configuration. If built-in synthetic traffic is enabled, NextATC replaces that population before completing the filing; external TCAS traffic is not changed. The following departure dialog selects only the SID for this fixed runway.

Choose arrival runway manually controls the later arrival runway and STAR dialog. When it is off, NextATC chooses the arrival runway automatically.

SimBrief import#

If you use SimBrief:

Set your SimBrief Pilot ID in Options. The ID must be numeric (the field rejects non-numeric input). Typical SimBrief IDs are 6-7 digits.
In the flight plan dialog, press Fetch from SimBrief.
The dialog fills departure, departure runway, arrival, route, cruise altitude, airline code, flight number, and transition altitudes when present.
Review the populated fields and press File Flight Plan.

If the fetch fails, the most common cause is a wrong Pilot ID or no recent plan on SimBrief.

Little Navmap FMS file import#

NextATC imports the standard X-Plane 11/12 FMS 1100 format. Little Navmap .pln files and older FMS versions are not supported.

In Little Navmap choose File > Export Flight Plan as FMS for X-Plane 11 and 12.
Save it in your X-Plane Output/FMS plans folder (Little Navmap's multiexport can target the same folder).
Open the flight plan dialog with IFR flight or VFR flight (the button sets the flight rules), press Select & Import FMS File, and choose the file in the separate dialog. The selection immediately imports departure, arrival and route, closes the chooser and shows the filename in the main form.
Review the highlighted departure, arrival and route fields, then review flight level, departure runway, arrival-runway preference and FMS Programming yourself.
Press File Flight Plan only when the draft is correct.

Import updates only departure, arrival and route because those values are present in FMS 1100. Callsign, global cruise level, transition levels, departure runway, arrival-runway preference and FMS Programming remain untouched, and the flight rules stay those of the IFR flight or VFR flight button you used. SID, STAR, runway and approach metadata are detected but ignored: NextATC assigns its own procedures from active navdata. A different AIRAC cycle is shown as a warning, not silently accepted as equivalent.

The selected-file import does not change FMS Programming. If it remains on Read route, SID and STAR from X-Plane FMS, pressing Insert intentionally reads the aircraft's current FMS instead of the selected file. Choose one of the other two modes when the selected file should be the filed route.

The separate chooser refreshes when opened and lists newest files first. An empty folder or invalid file leaves all form fields unchanged and shows an error. Ready samples are installed under docs/samples/fms; the INVALID sample is deliberately malformed for testing safe rejection.

When this mode reads from the FMS, the submit button is labelled Import from FMS & File Flight Plan; otherwise it is File Flight Plan.

Random flight plan#

Two related buttons:

Generate Random Flight Plan — keeps your departure and arrival as set, and builds a random route between them.
Generate Random Flight (in the plugin menu) — picks a random destination too, using the region filters in Options.

After File Flight Plan#

What happens next depends on your IFR/VFR choice and the airport:

If the departure SID dialog opens, review the SID for the already-filed runway; see Departure.
The Radio Log offers Request IFR clearance or Request VFR clearance.
Press Handoff to request, then press it again to read the clearance back.

"I cannot insert the flight plan"#

Walk down:

Departure and arrival ICAO codes are valid 4-letter codes.
Cruise FL is a positive number.
The route does not contain the departure or arrival airport.
The route fixes exist (typos in waypoint names fail silently).

Airways in the route field#

The route field takes waypoint and navaid names. Airway designators such as A593 are not expanded into their fixes. Type the fixes themselves, or program the full route in the aircraft FMS and file with Read route, SID and STAR from X-Plane FMS, or import an FMS file with Select & Import FMS File.

"NextATC changed my FMS route"#

The FMS Programming row is a selector, not an action button: each press switches to the next of its three modes. The default, Program NextATC route into X-Plane FMS, writes the filed route into the FMS. If you prepared your own route in the FMS, select Read route, SID and STAR from X-Plane FMS or Do not read or write X-Plane FMS before filing.