FSElite Original: Does it Hold Up – FSBuild

Huh.  It’s been a long time. Following up on Integrated Simavionics heels, we have another addon from Ernie Alston. This one has been around even longer than ISG. It released in 2006 though versions of it existed long before that. It’s a flight planning add-on designed to convert route strings into a file usable by the sim or other add-ons. It’s notably good a taking a long route string and converting it to PLN format for use in FSX or P3D, even if the waypoints or airways don’t exist in the sim. An updatable navigation database, multiple performance files for time and fuel calculations, custom or automatic route building – it has everything you’d want from a good flight planner. Though it does not really stack up against its competition anymore, I still believe it has a purpose. Let’s take a deeper look.

Flight planning add-ons are things I find interesting. Interesting in that each one does the same thing, but somehow does it differently enough that it’s kind of hard to say for sure which one to go with. And when you consider that the sims these add-ons are for generally have decent flight planners included – combined with the fact the most popular add-on aircraft don’t really require a flight planner (just a route for you to program into its FMS) – it becomes increasingly difficult to say “go with this one.”

Generally speaking, there are 3 flight planners around today. Pro Flight Planner X, SimBrief, and Plan G. There are more but these are the names that come up the most when you ask which flight planner is the best. Pro Flight Planner X (PFPX) is the payware option requiring not just an initial purchase but a recurring fee (if you want to use the built in weather). Though to be perfectly honest I think that fee is mostly asking the end users to pay for DRM.  But that’s just my opinion.

SimBrief and Plan G are both freeware and funded by donations. I don’t want to spend too much time on the other flight planners as this is supposed to be about FSBuild. So, SimBrief has most of the same features as PFPX except it’s free and web-based, whereas PlanG has a moving map and is largely focused on VFR flight planning – Though it can do IFR too.

Now, what of FSBuild? It’s a really old addon now, and largely lacking in features compared to even its freeware competition. Surely this thing can’t be worth spending money on these days right?

Looking at the image FSBuild is not impressive at all. In fact, it looks horribly outdated. But a recurring theme in this article will be that simplicity is the best policy. As you can see from the top of the program you need to first enter departure and destination airports. After that, you need a route and altitude. The program does include a good auto-generate feature where it will automatically generate a flight plan for you. It does a good job too. In fact, I often found it to generate a route matching the commonly used real-world routes exactly.

You can also plan your own route and sadly this is where it is sorely lacking. The way you do this is a complex combination of turning on/off different options, right-clicking to bring up context menus and messing around with what has to be the most painful map I’ve ever had the displeasure of using. You can’t simply click and drag like you can on most map programs around. Even zooming in and out is a task. Thankfully, although it sounds counter-intuitive, the real reason I like FSBuild is not for its flight planning.

No – it’s because there is one final way to enter a flight plan. Copy and paste a route string into the route box and click build. What this allows you to do is use services like FlightAware or Skyvector to get the route string itself, then have FSBuild translate that route to a usable file format. Several formats are supported though by far the most useful one is the classic .PLN (or .FMS for you X-Plane users).

This here is where the true usefulness of this addon lies. Most other add-ons are geared towards airliners. SimBrief, for example, needs a decent amount of information before allowing you to download a flight plan file. However, with FSBuild, you need airports, a route, and the desired altitude. That’s it! Consider that FSBuild has a Navigation Database that can be updated by services like Navigraph or NAVDATA Pro. This makes it very useful for aircraft that don’t have a programmable FMS or GPS.

Which in reality is actually most of them. Almost all Carenado add-ons, not to mention A2A, JustFlight, IRIS, and even Aerosoft add-ons. They all need you to import a flight plan file in order to make use of their RNAV navigation systems, just like default aircraft. Yes, I will admit it would be better if they all had a programmable FMS. This is by far the better way to do it. Some Carenado aircraft feature a programmable FMS that makes use of the default Navigation Data. It’s a shame more aircraft don’t use a similar feature.

With aircraft like these, you need to import the PLN file into FS first. And PLN files actually don’t need to use waypoints in the default database. The position of each waypoint is entered into the file itself. Fun little side fact here they can even have assigned altitudes that will affect the default GPS’s rather limited VNAV. It’s a shame that this feature is not used elsewhere in the sim. Anyway, since you need that file first, it makes a really simple addon like FSBuild really useful.

No need to worry about complex fuel planning (especially if you’re in a single engine prop), cost indices, or even weather. At least not beyond adverse weather avoidance and favorable winds aloft. I myself, along with many other simmers, like to build my flight plans on SkyVector using real charts. But once the plan is done we need a way to get it into the sim. And if you’re flying a GA aircraft, or a default one, that usually necessitates the use of a PLN file. You could make one with the default planner, but if the sims navigation data is not up to date then that can be difficult.

FSBuild does have some other features. It can build a useful NAVLOG, containing fuel information, weight data, and route details. It does have aircraft performance information, including takeoff and landing data (meaning it can calculate V-speeds for you). However, all those features come with a very large asterisk. Most of the aircraft have incomplete information, meaning not all of them will work. Most of the popular airliners will work, though not even all of them have complete Takeoff and Landing data available. And when there is missing information it basically renders the Navlog useless.

So having said all that is FSBuild worth the money? Well, no. It’s not aged well at all, and even though I find it very useful – and I have yet to find an addon or service that can truly replace it – it’s just not worth the money. Why, you ask? Well, remember those flight planners I mentioned earlier.  Two of them are freeware, and they already do a better job than FSBuild. The only truly useful feature FSBuild has that it can generate a useful file in less than a minute. But that’s not worth paying for. The fact of the matter is if you’re going to spend money on a flight planner (though to be honest I don’t know why you would) then you may as well go with Pro Flight Planner X.

I started this series to take a look back at older add-ons to see if they are worth paying for today. Sadly, most FS add-on publishers never lower the price of their addons over time. Even add-ons that have been out over a decade are still full price despite looking like bad freeware compared to the payware of today. If I had my way, then FSBuild would be freeware. It’s already not as good as two other freeware add-ons that do the same thing. I have a hard time believing that anyone still buys it, especially at a price of $30.

It’s still useful but not enough to justify paying for. To be honest I really wish there was an online service that would simply take a route string and convert it to a usable file for flight sims. Each flight planner I have found either insists on generating a route for you or wants more information than it really needs to for this simple task. The day a service like that exists, is the day FSBuild dies. I already don’t recommend it for the reasons stated above.  As useful as it is, it does not withstand the test of time.

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