Table Of Contents Little Navmap User Manual En
User Manual:
Open the PDF directly: View PDF .
Page Count: 179
Download | |
Open PDF In Browser | View PDF |
Table of Contents Introduction 1.1 Acknowledgments 1.2 Donations 1.3 Installation 1.4 Quick Overview 1.5 First Start 1.6 General Remarks 1.7 Menus and Toolbars 1.8 Statusbar 1.9 Map Display 1.10 Map Display Legend 1.11 Map Display Compass Rose 1.12 Map Flight Plan Editing 1.13 User-defined Waypoints 1.14 Online Networks 1.15 Search Dock Window 1.16 Search Dock Window - Procedures 1.17 Navigation Databases 1.18 Flight Plan Formats 1.19 Flight Plan Dock Window 1.20 Flight Plan Procedures 1.21 Flight Plan Edit Position 1.22 Flight Plan Route Description 1.23 Flight Plan Elevation Profile Dock Window 1.24 Information Dock Window 1.25 Legend Dock Window 1.26 Simulator Aircraft Dock Window 1.27 Weather 1.28 Printing the Map 1.29 Printing the Flight Plan 1.30 Load Scenery Library Dialog 1.31 Connecting to a Flight Simulator 1.32 Checking for Updates 1.33 Options Dialog 1.34 Running without Flight Simulator Installation 1.35 Customize 1.36 Creating or adding Map Themes 1.37 2 Coordinate Formats Files 1.38 1.39 Tutorials - General 1.40 Tutorial - Building a VFR Flight Plan 1.41 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures 1.42 Tips and Tricks 1.43 Tips for old and slow Computers 1.44 Troubleshoot 1.45 Known Problems 1.46 How to report a Bug 1.47 Glossary 1.48 License 1.49 3 Introduction Little Navmap User Manual Version 2.0 Little Navmap is a free open source flight planner, navigation tool, moving map, airport search and airport information system for Flight Simulator X, Flight Simulator - Steam Edition, Prepar3D v2 to v4 and X-Plane 11. Do not use this program for real world navigation. More about my projects at GitHub. Copyright 2015-2018 Alexander Barthel Last updated Mon Jul 09 2018 12:23:15 GMT+0200 (CEST). 4 Acknowledgments Acknowledgments A big thank-you for all people supporting me, sending me their log files, screen shots, ideas for improvements, friendly messages, donations and more. A huge Thank you! to Paul Watts for his support, for testing, tips, links to incredible tools and for all his work on the manual. Plenty of thanks to Hervé Sors for allowing me to include his updated magdecl.bgl file with Little Navmap. A very special thank-you to Roberto S. from Switzerland for his valuable input and also helping with his capability to find the most obscure bugs. Thanks to Navigraph for kindly allowing me to include a free AIRAC cycle in the download. Thanks for Richard Stefan for his great support. Current AIRAC cycles can be purchased from Navigraph. A big Thank you! to Jean Luc from Reality XP for his great support. Thanks to Jose from fsAerodata for his kind support. The French translation of the program was done by Patrick JUNG alias Patbest. Thank you! Dankeschön! for the German translation to merspieler and Stephan Leukert. Thanks to Ricardo Vitor for the translation to Brazilian Portuguese. Thanks to Daniel "Wolf" (wolfinformatica.com) for the Spanish translation. Thank you! to Eddy Crequie for doing the Dutch translation. Thanks to all beta testers for their effort, patience and ideas: Barry, Jean-Pierre, Brian, Gérard, John, Remi, Paolo, Sam and many others. Another big Danke! to Marc from Germany for all his great ideas and endless bug reports. Thanks to all in the forums who patiently supported me and gave invaluable feedback during the public beta: AVSIM, SimOuthouse, FlightX.net and FSDeveloper.com. This project and my library atools would not exist without the fabulous documentation of the BGL files in the FSDeveloper Wiki. So, here a huge thank-you to all the contributors. Also a thank you to Ed Williams for his Aviation Formulary. Without the open source Marble widget that allows me to access and display all the maps I would still be busy doing that myself for years. No Qt application framework and I could not even draw a simple button. Let's not forget about all the services that provide us all the online maps for free: Stamen Design, OpenTopoMap and CARTO. A thank-you to the GIScience / Geoinformatics Research Group of Heidelberg University for kindly giving me permission to use their map OpenMapSurfer. And last but not least: If there were no OpenStreetMap and its thousands of contributors none of us would have any maps at all. 5 Donations Donations Donate to show your appreciation if you like my programs. Spenden Sie, um Ihre Wertschätzung zu zeigen, wenn Ihnen meine Programme gefallen. 6 Installation Installation Highlighted text is used to denote window, menu, button, file or directory names. Little Navmap for Windows is a 32-bit application and was tested with Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit). The macOS and Linux versions are both 64-bit and were tested with macOS Sierra and Ubuntu Linux. Updating Delete all installed files of a previous Little Navmap version before installing a new version. All files from the previous ZIP archive can be deleted since settings are stored in separate directories (except custom map themes). In any case do not merge the installation directories. There is no need to delete the old settings directory. The program is written in a way that it can always work with old setting files. Windows The installation of Little Navmap does not change any registry entries (in Windows) and involves a simple copy of files therefore an installer or setup program is not required. Do not extract the archive into the folder c:\Program Files\ or c:\Program Files (x86)\ since this requires administrative privileges. Windows keeps control of these folders, therefore other problems might occur like replaced or deleted files. Extract the Zip archive into a folder like Navmap or c:\Little Navmap c:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents\Little Navmap . Then start the program by double-clicking , c:\Users\YOURNAME\Programs\Little littlenavmap.exe . See First Start for more information on the first start after installation. In some cases you have to install the Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013. Install the Visual C++ Redistributable Package if you get a warning about the SSL subsystem not being initialized. The program will not be able to use encrypted network connections (i.e. HTTPS) that are needed to check for updates or to load online maps. Install both 32 and 64 bit versions. Usually this is already installed since many other programs require it. You also have to install the redistributable if you get an error like context Error while checking for updates ... Error creating SSL . Little Navmap is a 32-bit application and was tested with Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit). Windows XP is not supported. You can find redistributable packages for all versions here: The latest supported Visual C++ downloads. Other Simulators than FSX SP2 This program was compiled using plain FSX SP2 (no Acceleration) SimConnect version 10.0.61259.0. You might have to install an older version of SimConnect if you use Prepar3D or FSX Steam Edition. If not sure about this simply try Little Navmap out. If it fails with an error message follow the instructions below: 7 Installation Prepar3D: In the same directory as Prepar3D.exe (x86)\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\redist\Interface have to install FSX-SP2-XPACK.msi is a redist\Interface directory (normally C:\Program Files ). There are multiple legacy versions of SimConnect available. You for Little Navmap. FSX Steam Edition: The installation adds the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\FSX\SDK\Core Utilities where you can find the legacy SimConnect interfaces. Kit\SimConnect SDK\LegacyInterfaces Improve Start-up Time Anti-virus program can significantly slow down the startup and execution of the program in Windows. Therefore, it is recommended to exclude the following directories from scanning: Disk cache for map tiles: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\.marble\data Scenery library and userdata databases C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel\little_navmap_db These directories to not contain executable files and are accessed frequently by Little Navmap. macOS Extract the ZIP file and copy the Little Navmap application to the folder Applications or any other folder. Linux Extract the tar archive to any place and run the executable littlenavmap to start the program from a terminal: ./littlenavmap Most file managers will start the program if double-clicked. X-Plane Little Navmap can only connect to X-Plane using the Little Xpconnect X-Plane plugin which has to be installed as well. The Little Xpconnect plugin is included in the Little Navmap archive but can also be downloaded separately. See the included README.txt in the Little Xpconnect directory for installation instructions. The plugin 64-bit only and is available for Windows, macOS and Linux. Additional Programs The downloaded Little Navmap archive contains two additional directories (or applications for macOS): Little Navconnect : A complete copy of the program allowing remote flight simulator connections for FSX, P3D and X- Plane. Little Xpconnect : This is the 64-bit plugin that is needed for Little Navmap or Little Navconnect to connect to X-Plane. 8 Quick Overview Quick Overview Picture above: A quick overview of Little Navmap 1.8.5 showing the most important functions. 9 Quick Overview Picture above: The three most important context menus (version 1.8.5) which are can be used to build a flight plan. 10 First Start First Start Little Navmap will copy and prepare the included Navigraph database on the first startup. See Navigraph for more information about the integration. The Scenery Library Dialog dialog will be shown once the preparation is finished. From there you can select all recognized Flight Simulators and load their scenery libraries into Little Navmap's internal database. Note that X-Plane cannot be recognized automatically. You have to set the path in the Scenery Library Dialog before you can load the database or selecting it in the menu. One database is kept for each simulator and can be changed on the fly in the Scenery Library Menu. A warning dialog will be shown on Windows when starting Little Navmap the first time on a system without FSX or P3D flight simulator installations. See chapter Running without Flight Simulator Installation for more information on this. You can also go directly to the Scenery Library Dialog from there if you have X-Plane installed. One or more scenery library databases may need to be updated when you install a new version of Little Navmap. A question dialog will pop up prompting you to erase the now incompatible database. You can reload the scenery in the Scenery Library Dialog after erasing the databases. Recommended things to do after Installing The elevation data which is used by default is limited and has a lot of problems. Therefore, I recommend to download and use the offline GLOBE elevation data. See Options Dialog / Flight Plan Elevation Profile for more information. Have a look at the tutorials if you use the program the first time. See Install Navigraph Updates on my home page for information how to update Little Navmap's navigation data. See Connecting to a Flight Simulator for the next step to use Little Navmap as a moving map. The included Little Xpconnect plugin has to be installed for X-Plane. How to run a network Setup See the two chapters below if you like to run Little Navmap in a networked setup using one computer for the flight simulator and one computer to run Little Navmap. Connecting to a Flight Simulator Running without Flight Simulator Installation How to prepare a network setup: 1. Install/extract the whole Little Navmap archive on the flying and network computer. 2. Copy Little Xpconnect to the X-Plane plugins folder if you use X-Plane. 3. Use Little Navmap to generate the scenery database on the flying computer. Main menu -> Scenery Library -> Load Scenery Library ... 4. Copy the database files to the network computer. Quit Little Navmap before copying. Flying in a network setup: 1. Start the simulator 2. Start Little Navconnect on the flying computer. 11 First Start 3. Run Little Navmap on the network computer. 4. Connect Little Navmap on the network computer to Little Navconnect on the flying computer. Main menu -> Tools -> Flight Simulator Connection ... See links above for detailed instructions. General User Interface Dock Windows The user interface of Little Navmap consists of a main window and several dock windows which can be detached from the main window or arranged in any order within the main window. The docked windows can be moved around in their docked position and can be detached from the main window by simply dragging them outside of the main window, by double-clicking their title bar or by clicking on the window symbol on the top right. Double click on the docked window's title bar or click on the window symbol again to move the windows back into their docked position. All docked windows except the map window can be closed if they are not needed. You can even drop docked windows on each other to create a tabbed view. The tabs will appear at the bottom of the dock stack in this case. Hold Ctrl while clicking on the window titlebar to prevent a window from going into docked state and keep it floating. Toolbars are also movable by clicking on the left handle and can also be closed or detached from the main window. Use the The Main Menu Main Menu -> -> Window Window -> menu to restore closed windows or toolbars. Reset Window Layout menu item can be used to reset the state and positions of all dock windows and toolbars back to their default. Context Menus Use the context menus to build a flight plan. Context menus can be found in the following places: Map display window - Map Context Menu Flight plan table - Flight Plan Table View Context Menu Airport and navaid search result tables - Search Result Table View Context Menu Procedure search tree - Procedure Tree Context Menu The context menus provide functionality to get more information about an object at the clicked position or to build or edit a flight plan. Tooltip Help, Help Buttons and Help Menu The help menu of Little Navmap contains links to the online help, an included offline help PDF document, online tutorials and the map legend. The program uses tooltips to display more information on buttons and other controls. A more detailed description is shown on the left side of the statusbar if you hover the mouse over a menu item. 12 First Start Most dialogs and some dock windows show help buttons which will open the corresponding sections of the online manual. Window Title The main window title indicates the currently selected simulator database ( XP11 A N ), the flight plan file name and a trailing * FSX , FSXSE , , P3DV2 P3DV3 , P3DV4 or if the flight plan has been changed. will be appended if the Navigraph database is used: P3DV4 : All feartures on the map and all information in dialogs and windows comes from the flight simulator database. P3DV4 / N : Airports and ILS are shown and used from the flight simulator database. Navaids, airspace, airways and procedures are used from the Navigraph database. (P3DV4) / N : All data is used from the Navigraph database. No aprons, no taxiways and no parking positions are available for airports. Information and Simulator Aircraft Text You can change the text size permanently in the options dialog for these windows. A quick way to change the text size is to use the mousewheel and Ctrl key. This setting won't be saved across sessions, though. Tabs Tabs that appear on top of a window are fixed. A tooltip gives more information about the function of a tab. Tabs at the bottom of a window appear when you drop dock windows on each other. Grab a window title bar to move a window out of the stacked display. You can change the order of these tabs by dragging them around. The mousewheel allows to cycle between tabs in a more convenient way. Copy and Paste Almost all dialogs, text labels and all information windows in Little Navmap allow copy and paste. You can select the text using the mouse and then either use Ctrl+C or the context menu to copy it to the clipboard. The information and simulator aircraft windows even support copying of formatted text including the icons. This can be helpful to report errors. The table views for the flight plan or airport/navaid search results allow copying of the results in CSV format to the clipboard which can be pasted into a spreadsheet program like LibreOffice Calc or Microsoft Excel. Translation and Locale Little Navmap is currently available in several languages. I will happily support anybody who would like to translate the user interface or manual into another language. Language packages can be added to a Little Navmap installation later once they are available. See Translating in the Github Little Navmap wiki for more information. You can override the user interface language in the dialog Options the the tab User Interface . 13 First Start Despite using the English language in the user interface the locale settings of the operating system will be used. So, e.g. on a German version of Windows you will see comma as a decimal separator instead of the English dot. The language and locale settings can be forced to English in the dialog Options on the tab User Interface if a translated user interface is not desired. Please note that some screenshots in this manual were taken using German locale, therefore a comma is used as a decimal separator and a dot as a thousands separator. Map Legend The legend explains all the map icons and the Flight Plan Elevation Profile icons. It is available in the Legend dock window or in this manual: Legend. Naming Conventions used in this Manual Highlighted text is used to denote window, menu, button, file or directory names. See the Glossary for explanations of common terms in this manual. Rating Airports get a zero to five star rating depending on facilities. Airports that have no rating are considered boring and will be displayed using a gray symbol below all other airports on the map ( off in the Options dialog on the Map Display Empty Airport ). This behavior can be switched tab. The criteria below are used to calculate the rating. Each item gives one star: 1. Add-on (or 3D for X-Plane) 2. Parking positions (ramp or gate) 3. Taxiways 4. Aprons 5. Tower building (only if at least one of the other conditions is met). All airports that are not located in the default Scenery directory of FSX/P3D or are located in the Custom Scenery directory of X-Plane are considered add-on airports which raises the rating by one star. Airports in the Custom Scenery/Global Airports/Earth nav data/apt.dat file of X-Plane are 3D airports which raises the rating by one star too. Navdata Updates Little Navmap comes with a ready to use database from Navigraph including airspaces, SIDs, STARs and more. The database can be updated by using Navigraph's FMS Data Manager. See the chapter Navigation Databases for more information. FSX and Prepar3D Little Navmap is compatible with navdata updates from fsAerodata or FSX/P3D Navaids update. X-Plane Little Navmap will use any navdata updates that are installed in the directory Custom Data . Any older updates installed in the GPS directories are not used. User-defined data from the files user_fix.dat and user_nav.dat is read and merged into the database if found. 14 First Start Note that neither ARINC nor the FAACIFP files are supported. Magnetic Declination The calibrated magnetic declination of a VOR may differ from the actual declination in a region as it does in reality. Therefore, magnetic course values might differ in some cases. FSX and Prepar3D The declination used to calculate the magnetic course is taken from the magdec.bgl file in the scenery database. Updates for this file are available here: FSX/P3D Navaids update. X-Plane The declination values for X-Plane (airports and all navaids except VORs) is calculated based on the included magdec.bgl file which is based on the values for the beginning of 2017. 15 Menus and Toolbars Menus and Toolbars This chapter describes all the menu items of Little Navmap. You will find most of this functionality on the toolbars as well which are not be described separately. Key combinations can be seen on the menu items and are not listed in this manual. Picture above: Menu and toolbars docked in default positions. File Menu New Flight Plan Erases the current flight plan. You have to use the Search Result Table View Context Menu, the Map Context Menu or the Flight Plan Route Description dialog to create a flight plan. Open Flight Plan Opens an FSX PLN, an FS9 PLN, an FSC PLN, an X-Plane FMS or an FLP flight plan file. The type of file is determined by content and not file extension. See Flight Plan Formats for more information. An opened flight plan file will be reloaded on start up (reload and centering can be switched off in the on the Startup and User Interface Options dialog tab). Procedure information and ground speed will be added to the flight plan if a PLN file is saved by Little Navmap. The additional information will be ignored by FSX or P3D but allows to reload all information by Little Navmap. Append Flight Plan Adds departure, destination and all waypoints to the current flight plan. Using Append Flight Plan allows to load or merge complete flight plans or flight plan snippets into a new plan. All waypoints are added at the end of the current flight plan. Then you can use the Legs up/down Delete selected Legs and Move selected context menu items to arrange the waypoints and airports as required. See Flight Plan Table View Context Menu. All arrival procedures will be removed when appending a flight plan. Save Flight Plan Save Flight Plan as PLN Saves the flight plan to an FSX/P3D PLN file (XML format). This annotated format allows to save all flight plan attributes of Little Navmap. 16 Menus and Toolbars Save Flight Plan as PLN changes the current file type and name in Little Navmap which means that all further saves will go into the new PLN file. It is recommended to save all flight plans in this format to keep all information of a plan. Even when using the limited FMS format for X-Plane. See Flight Plan Formats for more information. Little Navmap will allow flight plans to be created that may be useful as a flight plan snippet but are unusable by the flight simulator. This occurs if a flight plan does not have a departure or destination airport. A warning dialog will be shown when saving a incomplete flight plan. A warning dialog will also be shown if the departure airport has parking positions but none is assigned in the flight plan. Procedures will be saved as an annotation in the flight plan file if the flight plan contains any. This causes no problem for the simulators and most other programs. Use Export clean Flight Plan if a program has problems reading the PLN files saved by Little Navmap. Note that the waypoints of a procedure are not saved with the flight plan. This is not supported by FSX or P3D. Use the GPS, FMC or other ways to select a procedure in your aircraft. The set ground speed is also saved with the flight plan. Note that P3D v4.2 overwrites the flight plan when loading, which erases all annotations. Save a copy of the plan to another location if you like to keep all information about procedures or speed. Save Flight Plan as X-Plane FMS 11 Saves the flight plan using the new X-Plane FMS 11 format. This format can only be used in X-Plane 11.10 and above. Do not try to load it into the FMS or GPS of X-Plane 11.05. It might crash the simulator. A warning dialog will be shown with the warning above when saving. See Flight Plan Formats for more information on limitations. This function changes the current file type and name which means that all further saves will go into the new FMS file and the file will be reloaded on next start. Store FMS files into the directory inside the X-Plane directory if you would like to use the flight plan Output/FMS plans in the X-Plane GPS, the G1000 or the FMS. Save Flight Plan as FLP Exports the current flight plan as an FLP file usable by the X-Plane FMS, Aerosoft Airbus and other add-on aircraft. This format is limited so a dialog is shown if any unsupported features are detected in the current flight plan. See Flight Plan Formats for more information on limitations. This function changes the current file type and name which means that all further saves will go into the new FLP file and the file will be reloaded on next start. Store FLP files into the Output/FMS plans directory inside the X-Plane directory if you want to load it into the FMS. Export as Clean PLN 17 Menus and Toolbars Saves a flight plan without any procedure or speed annotations if programs have problems reading the PLN files saved by Little Navmap. This is rarely needed. Like any other export function this does not change the current file name and type. Further saves will still use the same file name and format as before. See also Flight Plan Formats. Export Flight Plan as X-Plane FMS 3 Saves the flight plan using the older X-Plane FMS 3 format which is limited but can be loaded by X-Plane 10 and XPlane 11.05. A warning dialog is shown if any unsupported features are detected in the current flight plan. See Flight Plan Formats for more information on limitations. This export function this does not change the current file name and type. Further saves will still use the same file name and format as before. Store FMS files into the Output/FMS plans directory inside the X-Plane directory if you would like to use the flight plan in the X-Plane GPS or FMS. Export Flight Plan to other Formats (Sub-Menu) See Flight Plan Formats for more detailed information on the available export formats. Export functions do not change the current file name and type. Further saves will still use the same file name and format as before. Export Flight Plan as Garmin GTN GFP Exports the flight plan in GFP format used by the Flight1 GTN 650/750. Procedures are not included in the exported file. See Flight Plan Formats for more information about this export format and how to work around locked waypoints. Export Flight Plan as GFP for Reality XP GTN Save flight plan as GFP file usable by the Reality XP GTN 750/650 Touch. This format allows to save procedures and airways. See also Notes about the Garmin Formats GFP and FPL for information about paths and other remarks. Export Flight Plan to FPL for the Reality XP GNS Save flight plan as FPL file usable by the Reality XP GNS 530W/430W V2. Procedures or their respective waypoints are not included in the exported file. The default directory to save the flight plans for the GNS units is C:\ProgramData\Garmin\GNS Trainer Data\GNS\FPL for all simulators. The directory will be created automatically by Little Navmap on first export if it does not exist. See also Notes about the Garmin Formats GFP and FPL. Export Flight Plan as PMDG RTE Exports the current flight plan as a PMDG RTE file. Procedures or their respective waypoints are not included in the exported file. 18 Menus and Toolbars Export Flight Plan as TXT Exports the current flight plan as a TXT file usable by JARDesign or Rotate Simulations aircraft Neither procedures nor their respective waypoints are included in the exported file. Export Flight Plan as Majestic Dash FPR Exports the current flight plan for the Majestic Software MJC8 Q400. Note that the export is currently limited to a list of waypoints. The flight plan has to be saved to FSXP3D\SimObjects\Airplanes\mjc8q400\nav\routes . Export Flight Plan as IXEG FPL Exports the current flight plan as an FPL file usable by the IXEG Boeing 737 classic. SIDs, STARs or approach procedures are not exported. The file should be saved to XPLANE\Aircraft\X-Aviation\IXEG 737 Classic\coroutes . You might have to create the directory manually if it does not exist. Export Flight Plan to corte.in for Flight Factor Airbus Appends the the flight plan to a new or already present corte.in company routes file for the Flight Factor Airbus aircraft. The file will be automatically created if it does not exist. Otherwise the flight plan will be appended to the file. You have to remove the flight plan manually from the corte.in file with a simple text editor if you wish to get rid of it. Location of the file depends on aircraft type. Export Flight Plan as FLTPLAN for iFly Save flight plan as FLTPLAN file for the iFly 737NG. The format does not allow saving of procedures. Save the file to FSXP3D\iFly\737NG\navdata\FLTPLAN . Export Flight Plan for ProSim Appends flight plan to the companyroutes.xml file for ProSim simulators. The format does not allow saving of procedures. Creates a backup file named before modifying the file. companyroutes.xml_lnm_backup Export Flight Plan as PLN for BBS Airbus Save flight plan as PLN file for the Blackbox Simulations Airbus. The format does not allow saving of procedures. Save the file to FSXP3D\BlackBox Simulation\Airbus A330 or FSXP3D\Blackbox Simulation\Company Routes depending on aircraft. Export Flight Plan for UFMC Save flight plan as UFMC file. The format does not allow saving of procedures. Save the flight plan to XPLANE\Custom Data\UFMC\FlightPlans . Export Flight Plan for X-FMC Save flight plan as FPL file usable by X-FMC. The format does not allow saving of procedures. 19 Menus and Toolbars The file should be saved to Path to XPLANE\Resources\plugins\XFMC\FlightPlans . Export Flight Plan as GPX Exports the current flight plan into a GPS Exchange Format file which can be read by Google Earth and most other GIS applications. The flight plan is exported as a route and the flown aircraft trail as a track including simulator time and altitude. The route has departure and destination elevation and cruise altitude set for all waypoints. Waypoints of all procedures are included in the exported file. Note that the waypoints will not allow to reproduce all parts of a procedure like holds or procedure turns. Do not forget to clear the aircraft trail (Delete Aircraft Trail) before flight to avoid old trail segments in the exported GPX file. Or, disable the reloading of the trail in the options dialog on page Startup . Show Flight Plan in SkyVector Opens the default web browser and shows the current flight plan in SkyVector. Procedures are not shown. Example: ESMS NEXI2B NILEN L617 ULMUG M609 TUTBI Z101 GUBAV STM7C ENBO. Note missing SID and STAR in SkyVector. Save Waypoints for Approaches Save Waypoints for SID and STAR Save procedure waypoints instead of procedure information if checked. This affects all flight plan export and save formats. Use this if your simulator, GPS or FMC does not support loading or display of approach procedures, SID or STAR. Procedure information is replaced with respective waypoints that allow to display procedures in limited GPS or FMS units. Saving flight plans with this method has several limitations: Several approach leg types like holds, turns and procedure turns cannot be displayed properly by using just waypoints/coordinates. Speed and altitude limitations are not included in the exported legs. The procedure information is dropped from the saved flight plan and cannot be reloaded properly in Little Navmap. Thus, you will see the waypoints of a SID or STAR but not the detailed procedure information. You have to delete the added waypoints and re-select the procedures after loading. Due to these limitations it is recommended to save a copy of the flight plan with full information before enabling one of these options. Add Google Earth KML Allows addition of one or more Google Earth KML or KMZ files to the map display. All added KML or KMZ files will be reloaded on start up. Reload and centering can be switched off in the Interface Options dialog on the Startup and User tab. Due to the variety of KML files it is not guaranteed that all files will show up properly on the map. Clear Google Earth KML from Map 20 Menus and Toolbars Removes all loaded KML files from the map. Work Offline Stops loading of map data from the Internet. This affects the OpenStreetMap, OpenTopoMap and all the other online map themes as well as the elevation data. A red Offline. indication is shown in the status bar if this mode is enabled. You should restart the application after going online again. Save Map as Image Saves the current map view as an image file. Allowed formats are JPEG, PNG and BMP. Print Map Allows to print the current map view. See Printing the Map for more information. Print Flight Plan Opens a print dialog that allows you to select flight plan related information to be printed. See Map Flight Plan Printing for more information. Quit Exits the application. Will ask for confirmation if there is a changed flight plan. Flight Plan Menu Undo/Redo Allows undo and redo of all flight plan changes. Select a Start Position for Departure A parking spot (gate, ramp or fuel box), runway or helipad can be selected as a start position at the departure airport. A parking position can also be selected in the map context menu item Set as Flight Plan Departure when right-clicking on a parking position. If no position is selected the longest primary runway end is selected automatically as start. 21 Menus and Toolbars Picture above: The start position selection dialog for EDDN. Edit Flight Plan on Map Toggles the flight plan drag and drop edit mode on the map. See Flight Plan Editing. New Flight Plan from Route Description Opens a dialog with the route description of the current flight plan that also allows to modify the current flight plan or enter a new one. Flight Plan from Route Description gives more information about this topic. Copy Flight Plan Route to Clipboard Copies the route description of the current flight plan to the clipboard using the settings from the Flight Plan from Route Description dialog. Calculate Direct Deletes all intermediate waypoints and connects departure and destination using a great circle line. 22 Menus and Toolbars You can calculate a flight plan between any kind of waypoints, even user-defined waypoints (right-click on the map and select Add Position to Flight plan to create one). This allows the creation of snippets that can be merged into flight plans. For example you can use this feature for crossing the North Atlantic with varying departures and destinations. This applies to all flight plan calculation modes. Calculate Radionav Creates a flight plan that uses only VOR and NDB stations as waypoints and tries to ensure reception of at least one station along the whole flight plan. Note that VOR stations are preferred before NDB and DME only stations are avoided if possible. Calculation will fail if not enough radio navaids can be found between departure and destination. Build the flight plan manually if this is the case. This calculation can also be used to create a flight plan snippet between any kind of waypoint. Calculate high Altitude Uses Jet airways to create a flight plan. Calculated flight plans along airways will obey all airway restrictions like minimum and altitude. The program will also adhere to one-way and maximum altitude restrictions for X-Plane based navdata. The resulting minimum altitude is set in the flight plan altitude field. The flight plan altitude field is not changed if no altitude restrictions were found along the flight plan. A simplified east/west rule is used to adjust the cruise altitude to odd/even values (this can be switched off in the Options dialog on the Flight Plan tab). The default behavior is to jump from the departure airport to the next waypoint of a suitable airway and vice versa for the destination. This can be changed in Options dialog on the Flight Plan tab if VOR or NDB stations are preferred as transition points to airways. The airway network of Flight Simulator is not complete (the north Atlantic tracks are missing for example - these change daily), therefore calculation across large ocean areas can fail. Create the airway manually as a workaround or use an online planning tool to obtain a route string and use the Flight Plan from String New option to create the flight plan. This calculation can also be used to create a flight plan snippet between any kind of waypoint. Calculate low Altitude Uses Victor airways to create a flight plan. Everything else is the same as in Calculate high Altitude . Calculate based on given Altitude Use the value in the altitude field of the flight plan to find a flight plan along Victor and/or Jet airways. Calculation will fail if the altitude value is too low. Everything else is the same as in Calculate high Altitude . Reverse Flight Plan 23 Menus and Toolbars Swaps departure and destination and reverses order of all intermediate waypoints. A default runway is assigned for the new departure start position. Note that this function does not consider one-way airways in the X-Plane database and might result in an invalid flight plan. Adjust Flight Plan Altitude Changes the flight plan altitude according to a simplified East/West rule and the current route type (IFR or VFR). Rounds the altitude up to the nearest even 1000 feet (or meter) for westerly flight plans or odd 1000 feet (or meter) for easterly flight plans. Adds 500 feet for VFR flight plans. Map Menu Goto Home Goes to the home area that was set using Set Home using the saved position and zoom distance. The center of the home area is highlighted by a symbol. Go to Center for Distance Search Go to the center point used for distance searches. See Set Center for Distance Search.The center for the distance search is highlighted by a symbol. Center Flight Plan Zooms out the map (if required) to display the whole flight plan on the map. Center Aircraft Zooms to the user aircraft if directly connected to a flight simulator or remotely connected using Little Navconnect and keeps the aircraft centered on the map. The centering of the aircraft can be changed in the Options dialog on the Simulator Aircraft tab. Delete Aircraft Trail Removes the user aircraft trail. It is also deleted when connecting to a flight simulator. The trail is saved and will be reloaded on program startup. Map Position Back/Forward Jumps forward or backward in the map position history. The complete history is saved and restored when starting Little Navmap. View Menu 24 Menus and Toolbars Reset Display Settings Resets all map display settings back to default. Picture above: All setting tool buttons highlighted that are affected by Reset Display Settings . Details More Details Default Details Less Details Increases or decreases the detail level for the map. More details means more airports, more navaids, more text information and bigger icons. Note that map information will be truncated if too much detail is chosen. A red warning message will be shown in the statusbar if this is the case. The detail level is shown in the statusbar. Range is -5 for least detail to +5 for most detail. Force Show Addon Airports Add-on airports are always shown independently of the other airport map settings if this option is selected. This allows viewing only add-on airports by checking this option and disabling the display of hard, soft and empty airports. Show Airports with hard Runways Show airports that have at least one runway with a hard surface. Show Airports with soft Runways Show airports that have only soft surfaced runways or only water runways. This type of airport might be hidden on the map depending on zoom distance. Show empty Airports Show empty airports. This button or menu item might not be visible depending on settings in the the Map Display Options dialog on tab. The status of this button is combined with the other airport buttons. This means, for example: You have to enable soft surfaced airport display and empty airports to see empty airports having only soft runways. 25 Menus and Toolbars An empty airport is defined as one which has neither parking nor taxiways nor aprons and is not an add-on. These airports are treated differently in Little Navmap since they are the most boring of all default airports. Empty airports are drawn gray and behind all other airports on the map. Airports having only water runways are excluded from this definition to avoid unintentional hiding. X-Plane and 3D airports The function can be extended to X-Plane airports which are not marked as Consider all X-Plane airports not being 3D empty marked as 3D in the Options dialog on the 3D . This can be done by checking Map Display tab. All airports not being will be shown in gray on the map and can be hidden like described above if enabled. An airport is considered 3D if it is stored in XPLANE/Custom Scenery/Global Airport Scenery/Earth nav data/apt.dat The definition of 3D 3D is arbitrary, though. A . airport may contain just a single object, such as a light pole or a traffic cone or it may be a fully constructed major airport. Show VOR Stations Show NDB Stations Show Waypoints Show ILS Feathers Show Victor Airways Show Jet Airways Show or hide these facilities or navaids on the map. Navaids might be hidden on the map depending on zoom distance. Airspaces Note that airspaces are hidden if the airport diagram is shown. Show Airspaces Allows to enable or disable the display of all airspaces with one click. Use the menu items below this one or the toolbar buttons to display or hide the various airspace types. The airspaces toolbar contains buttons each having a drop down menu that allows to configure the airspace display like showing or hiding certain airspace types. Each drop down menu also has All and None entries to select or deselect all types in the menu. Show Online Network Airspaces 26 Menus and Toolbars This button or menu item is only visible if an online network is enabled. It allows to hide or show center, tower, ground, approach and other airspaces from the currently selected online network independently of the simulator or Navigraph airspaces. Online airspaces can also be shown or hidden by type using the menu items below. Note that the displayed airspace circles do not depict the real airspace boundaries but are merely an indicator for the presence of an active center or tower. See Online Networks and Online Flying. ICAO Airspaces Allows selection of Class A to Class E airspaces. FIR Airspaces Allows selection of the Class F and Class G airspaces or flight information regions. Restricted Airspaces Show or hide MOA (military operations area), restricted, prohibited and danger airspaces. Special Airspaces Show or hide warning, alert and training airspaces. Other Airspaces Show or hide center, tower, mode C and other airspaces. Airspace Altitude Limitations Allows filtering of the airspace display by altitude. Either below or above 10,000 ft or 18,000 ft or only airspaces intersecting with the flight plan altitude. Userpoints Allows to hide or show user-defined waypoints by type. The menu item The type Unknown Types Unknown shows or hides all types which do not belong to a known type. shows or hides all userpoints which are exactly of type Unknown . See User-defined Waypoints for more information on user-defined waypoints. Show Flight Plan Show or hide the flight plan. The flight plan is shown independently of the zoom distance. 27 Menus and Toolbars Show Missed Approaches Show or hide the missed approaches of the current flight plan. This does not affect the preview in the search tab Procedures . Note that this function changes the active flight plan leg sequencing: Sequencing the active leg will stop if the destination is reached and missed approaches are not displayed. Otherwise sequencing will continue with the missed approach and the simulator aircraft progress will show the remaining distance to the end of the missed approach instead. Show Aircraft Shows the user aircraft and keeps it centered on the map if connected to the simulator. The user aircraft is always shown independently of the zoom distance. The icon color and shape indicates the aircraft type and whether the aircraft is on ground (gray border). User aircraft in flight. A click on the user aircraft shows more information in the Simulator Aircraft dock window. More options to change the map behavior while flying can be found in the dialog Options on the tab Simulator Aircraft. The aircraft centering will be switched off when using one of the following functions. Note that this default behavior can be modified in the options dialog. Double-click into a table view or map display to zoom to an airport or a navaid. Context menu item Goto Home Map or link in Show on map . Goto Center for Distance Search Information Show Flight Plan . dock window. , when selected manually, or automatically after loading a flight plan. Centering a Google Earth KML/KMZ file after loading This allows a quick inspection of an airport or navaid during flight. To display the aircraft again use or enable Show Aircraft Map Position Back again. Show Aircraft Trail Show the user aircraft trail. The trail is always shown independently of the zoom distance. It is saved and will be reloaded on program startup. The trail is deleted when connecting to a flight simulator or it can be deleted manually by selecting > Delete Aircraft Trail Main Menu -> Map - . The trail is also deleted when the user aircraft jumps over large distance when assigning a new airport, for example. The length of the trail is limited for performance reasons. If it exceeds the maximum length, the trail is truncated and the oldest segments are lost. Show Compass Rose Show a compass rose on the map which indicates true north and magnetic north. Aircraft heading and aircraft track are shown if connected to a simulator. 28 Menus and Toolbars The rose is centered around the user aircraft if connected. Otherwise it is centered on the map view. See Compass Rose for details. Show AI and Multiplayer Aircraft or Ships Shows AI and multiplayer aircraft or ships on the map. Multiplayer vehicles can be displayed from e.g. FSCloud, VATSIM or Steam sessions. The icon color and shape indicates the aircraft type and whether the aircraft is on ground (gray border). AI or multiplayer aircraft from the simulator. This includes aircraft that are injected by the various online network clients. A click on the AI aircraft or ship shows more information in the Multiplayer Simulator Aircraft dock window in the tab AI / . Multiplayer aircraft/client from an online network. See Online Networks. A click on the online aircraft shows information in the Information dock window in the separate tab Online Clients . Note that, in X-Plane, ship traffic is not available and AI aircraft information is limited. The displayed vehicles are limited by the used multiplayer system if Little Navmap is not connected to an online network like VATSIM or IVAO. Multiplayer aircraft will disappear depending on distance to user aircraft. For AI in FSX or P3D this is currently about 100 nautical miles or around 200 kilometers. Smaller ships are only generated by the simulator within a small radius around the user aircraft. Little Navmap limits the display of AI vehicles depending on size. Zoom close to see small aircraft or boats. On the lowest zoom distance all aircraft and ships are drawn to scale on the map. Aircraft labels are forced to show independently of zoom level for the next five AI/multiplayer aircraft closest to the user that are within 20 nm distance and 5000 ft elevation. All aircraft icons can be customized: User, AI and Multiplayer Aircraft Icons. Show Map Grid Show a latitude/longitude grid as well as the meridian and antimeridian (near the date line) on the map. Show Country and City Names Show country, city and other points of interest. Availability of these options depends on the selected map theme. See Theme. Show Hillshading Show hill shading on the map. Availability of these options depends on the selected map theme. See Theme. Projection Mercator 29 Menus and Toolbars A flat projection that gives the most fluid movement and the sharpest map when using picture tile based online maps themes like OpenStreetMap or OpenTopoMap. Spherical Shows earth as a globe which is the most natural projection. Movement can stutter slightly when using the picture tile based online maps themes like OpenStreetMap or OpenTopoMap. Use the Simple , Plain or Atlas map themes to prevent this. Online maps can appear slightly blurred when using this projection. This is a result from converting the flat image tiles to the spherical display. Picture above: Spherical map projection with Simple offline map theme selected. Theme Please note that all the online maps are delivered from free services therefore fast download speeds and high availability cannot be guaranteed. In any case it is easy to deliver and install a new online map source without creating a new Little Navmap release. See Creating or adding Map Themes for more information. OpenStreetMap This is an online raster (i.e. based on images) map that includes a hill shading option. Note that the OpenStreetMap hill shading does not cover the whole globe. 30 Menus and Toolbars Picture above: View at an Italian airport using OpenStreetMap theme and hill shading. OpenMapSurfer The OSM Roads layer provided by Heidelberg University. This theme includes optional hill shading which is available worldwide. Note that the hill shading option of this map is marked experimental. Map data for this map is provided by © OpenStreetMap contributors, rendering by GIScience Research Group @ Heidelberg University and map styling by Maxim Rylov. SRTM; ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA. Picture above: View at an Italian airport using the OpenMapSurfer theme and hill shading. OpenTopoMap 31 Menus and Toolbars An online raster map that mimics a topographic map. Includes hill shading and elevation contour lines at lower zoom distances. The tiles for this map are provided by OpenTopoMap. Picture above: View at the eastern Alps using OpenTopoMap theme. A flight plan is shown north of the Alps. Stamen Terrain A terrain map featuring hill shading and natural vegetation colors. The hill shading is available worldwide. Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under ODbL. Picture above: View showing Stamen Terrain theme. CARTO Light (New in version 1.4.4) A very bright map called Positron which allows to concentrate on the aviation features on the map display. The map includes the same hill shading option as the OpenStreetMap. Map tiles and style by CARTO. Data by OpenStreetMap, under ODbL. 32 Menus and Toolbars CARTO Dark (New in version 1.4.4) A dark map called Dark Matter. The map includes the same hill shading option as the OpenStreetMap. Map tiles and style by CARTO. Data by OpenStreetMap, under ODbL. Simple (Offline) This is a political map using colored country polygons. Boundaries and water bodies are depicted coarse. The map included in Little Navmap has an option to display city and country names. Plain (Offline) A very simple map. The map is included in Little Navmap and has an option to display city and country names. Boundaries and water bodies are depicted coarse. Atlas (Offline) A very simple map including coarse hill shading and land colors. The map is included in Little Navmap and has an option to display city and country names. Boundaries and water bodies are depicted coarse. Scenery Library Menu Flight Simulators One menu item is created for each Flight Simulator installation or database found. These menu items allow switching of databases on the fly. The menu item is disabled if only one Flight Simulator was found. The loaded AIRAC cycle is displayed only for X-Plane since the information is not available for FSX or P3D simulators. You have to set the base path to the X-Plane directory in the Load Scenery Library Dialog first to enable the X- Plane menu item. This menu is synchronized with simulator selection in the Load Scenery Library Dialog. Once a database is successfully loaded, the display, flight plan and search will switch over to the newly loaded simulator data. Note that the program does not keep you from using a X-Plane scenery database while being connected to FSX/Prepar3D or vice versa. You will get unwanted effects like wrong weather information if using such a setup. The program might change a loaded flight plan if you switch between different databases. This can happen if a departure position is set in the plan which does not exist in the other database. Click New Flight Plan before switching to avoid this. Navigraph This sub menu also indicating the AIRAC cycle is added if a Navigraph database is found in the database directory. See the chapter Navigation Databases for more information about these databases and the three different display modes shown below. Use Navigraph for all Features Completely ignores the simulator database and takes all information from the Navigraph database. Use Navigraph for Navaids and Procedures 33 Menus and Toolbars This mode blends navaids and more from the Navigraph database with the simulator database. This affects the map display, all information and and all search windows. Do not use Navigraph Database Ignores the Navigraph database and shows only information read from the simulator scenery. Show Database Files Open Little Navmap's database directory in a file manager. See Running without Flight Simulator Installation for more information on copying database files between different computers. This allows Little Navmap to be run on a remote computer (e.g. Windows, Mac or Linux) using the same database that was created on the computer running the flight simulator. Load Scenery Library Open the Load Scenery Library dialog. See Load Scenery Library Dialog for more information. This menu item is disabled if no flight simulator installations are found. Copy Airspaces to X-Plane Database Copy airspace information from an FSX or P3D database to an X-Plane database. This is needed since X-Plane comes with limited airspace information. All airspaces already loaded from X-Plane are deleted before copying. See X-Plane Airspaces for more information. You have to switch to an FSX or P3D simulator database first to enable this menu item. The airspace information is deleted when reloading the X-Plane database. Therefore you have to copy the airspaces again after reloading. Userdata Menu See User-defined Waypoints for more information on user-defined waypoints. Show Search Raise the dock window Search and the tab Userpoints where you can edit, add delete and seach user-defined waypoints. Import CSV Import a CSV file that is compatible with the widely used format from Plan-G and adds all the content to the database. Note that the CSV format is the only format which allows to write and read all supported data fields. See CSV Data Format for a more detailed description. Import X-Plane user_fix.dat Import user-defined waypoints from the file user_fix.dat . The file does not exist by default in X-Plane and has to be created either manually or by exporting from Little Navmap. The default location is XPLANE/Custom Data/user_fix.dat . 34 Menus and Toolbars The imported userpoints are of type which can be changed after import using the bulk edit Waypoint functionality. The format is described by Laminar Research here: XP-FIX1101-Spec.pdf. See X-Plane user_fix.dat Data Format for more information. Import Garmin GTN Reads user-defined waypoints from the Garmin user.wpt file. Refer to the manual of the Garmin unit you are using for more information about format and file location. The imported userpoints are of type Waypoint which can be changed after import using the bulk edit functionality. See Garmin user.wpt Data Format for more information. Export CSV Create or append user-defined waypoints to a CSV file. A dialog asks if only selected userpoints should be exported and if the userpoints should be appended to an already present file. Note that the exported file contains an extra column Region compared to the Plan-G format. The description field supports more than one line of text and special characters. Therefore, not all programs might be able to import this file. If needed, adapt the user-defined waypoints. Export X-Plane user_fix.dat Only selected userpoints or all can be exported. The exported data can optionally be appended to an already present file. Not all data fields can be exported to this format. The ident field is required for export. Also, you have to make sure that the user waypoint ident is unique within the user_fix.dat . See X-Plane user_fix.dat Data Format for more information about limitations. Export Garmin GTN Only selected userpoints or all can be exported. The exported data can optionally be appended to an already present file. Not all data fields can be exported to this format. The ident field is required for export. Some fields like the name are adapted to limitations. See X-Plane user_fix.dat Data Format for more information about limitations. Export XML for FSX/P3D BGL Compiler This export options creates an XML file which can be compiled into an BGL file containing waypoints. The region and ident fields are required for this export option. See the Prepar3D SDK documentation for information on how to compile the BGL and how to add this to the simulator. 35 Menus and Toolbars Create Logbook entries Checking this menu item enables a simple logbook feature. Little Navmap will create a userpoint of type on each takeoff and landing when connected to a Logbook simulator. These two logbook entries contain all available information, like the flight plan, time, fuel consumed and much more. Clear database Remove all user-defined waypoints from the database. A CSV backup file named little_navmap_userdata_backup.csv C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel is created in the settings directory before deleting all user-defined waypoints. Little Navmap also creates a full database backup on every start. See Files. Tools Menu Flight Simulator Connection Open the Connect dialog allowing Little Navmap to connect directly to a Flight Simulator, the Little Xpconnect X-Plane plugin, or remotely using the Little Navconnect agent. See Connecting to a Flight Simulator for more information. Reset all Messages Re-enable all dialogs that were disabled by selecting Do not show this dialog again or similar messages. Options Open the Options dialog. Window Menu Map Overlays Show or hide floating map overlays, like the overview on the top left or the compass on the top right corner of the map window. Search Flight Plan Information Flight Plan Elevation Profile 36 Menus and Toolbars Simulator Aircraft Legend Open or close these dock windows. The map dock window cannot be closed. Main Toolbar, Map Toolbar, Map Airspaces Toolbar, Map Options Toolbar, Flight Plan Toolbar, Dock Window Toolbar, Statusbar Show or hide these toolbars and the statusbar. Reset Window Layout Reset the main window layout back to default. This involves visibility, position and state of all dock windows as well as the toolbars. This function can be helpful if a dock window gets lost on multi monitor setups. Help Menu Contents (Online) Show the online user manual in the default web browser. Contents (Offline, PDF) Show the included PDF user manual in the default PDF viewer. NavMap Legend Show the navigation related map legend in the Legend dock window. You can also access the legend here: Navmap Legend. Map Legend for current Map Theme Show the map theme dependent base legend in the Legend dock window. Note that the legend is not available for all map themes. About Little Navmap Show version and revision number for Little Navmap, also contains links to the database directory, configuration file, log file and the author's e-mail address. About Marble Display information about the Marble widget that is used to download and show the maps. 37 Menus and Toolbars About Qt Display information about the Qt application framework that is used by Little Navmap. Dontate for this Program Opens the donation web page in your default browser. If you would like to show your appreciation you can donate using PayPal. Donations are purely optional but greatly appreciated. Check for Updates Allows to manually check for updates. This will also show updates that were recently ignored by pressing the this Update Ignore on the notification dialog. See Checking for Updates for more information. Statusbar The statusbar at the bottom of the main window shows various indications (from left to right): Last action or quick help explaining a menu item or toolbar button. Connection status for a local or remote connection. The tooltip provides more detail about the status, like the hostname for remote connections. Connecting... : The program is trying to establish a connection which was initiated either manually or automatically. Connected : A connection was established. Disconnected : The simulator or Little Navconnect exited. Indicator that shows airport types, airspaces, navaids or AI vehicles currently visible on the map. The tooltip gives more details. A red warning message Too many objects will be shown if too many objects are displayed on the map due to too high a detail level. The map display will be incomplete if this happens. A red message will be shown if the currently selected database has no content and needs to Database empty be loaded. Map detail level. Range is -5 for least detail to +5 for most detail. Online map download progress indicator. This shows the state of the current map download. The text is prefixed with a red Done. Offline. indication if offline mode is enabled. : All map data loaded successfully. Waiting for Data ... : Map data is missing in the cache and was requested. Now waiting for reply. Waiting for Update ... : Map data is already loaded but expired after two weeks. Waiting for new data after requesting an update. Incomplete. : Download failed. Note that the progress indicator can look like it is stuck in the message Waiting for Data ... if no hill shading is available for a OpenStreetMap region or if you zoom in too close when using certain online maps. Zoom distance (viewpoint distance to earth surface) in nautical miles or kilometers. Cursor position on map as latitude and longitude depending on selected unit in the dialog Options . Ground elevation below the cursor after a short delay if the GLOBE offline elevation data is selected. Magnetic variance at the cursor position in degrees West or East. 38 Menus and Toolbars Current date of month and zulu/UTC time hours:minutes:seconds . This is the real world time and not the simulator time. The tooltip gives more date and time information. Picture above: Status bar of version 1.8.5 with message about the last action on the left side ( Options changed. ), the connection status and a tooltip that indicates what is currently shown on the map. All map features are shown. The map detail level is unchanged and the map coordinates are shown on the bottom right. Altitude at cursor is shown too since offline elevation data is installed. The online map download progress indicator shows Done. indicating all map tiles were downloaded. Zoom distance is 7.8 nautical miles. 39 Map Display Map Display See the Nav Map Legend for details about the various symbols shown by the map. Moving Use click and drag to move the map and the mouse wheel to zoom in or out. You can also use the overlay buttons on the right side of the map. Alternatively use the keyboard to move around the map: Cursor keys: Scroll the map + and - Ctrl++ : Zoom in and out and Alt+Left and Ctrl+Home Ctrl+End Alt+Right Ctrl+- : Go forward or backward in the map position history : Increase or decrease details : Go to home postion : Go to center for distance search Do not forget to activate the map window by clicking into it before using keys for movement. Mouse Clicks A single click on an airport, navaid, airway line or airspace shows details in the Information A single click on a user aircraft, AI aircraft or multiplayer aircraft shows details in the dock window. Simulator Aircraft dock window. A double-click zooms in showing either the airport diagram or the navaid closely and also shows details in the Information dock window. The same applies for all AI or multiplayer aircraft or ships. The double-click and single-click functionality does not work for flight plan waypoints or airports if the flight plan edit mode is enabled. The edit mode can be disabled using the toolbar or Map Main Menu -> Flight Plan -> Edit Flight Plan on . The mouse click sensitivity can be adjusted in the Options dialog on the Map tab. Aircraft The user aircraft and AI or multiplayer aircraft or ships will be shown on the map if the program is connected to a flight simulator. Color indicates user or AI or multiplayer vehicle and the symbol shape indicates if the aircraft is an piston/turboprop, jet, helicopter or a ship. The symbol outline changes to gray if an aircraft is on ground. Little Navmap limits the display of AI vehicles depending on size. Zoom close to see small aircraft or boats AI and multiplayer aircraft on ground are shown only on small zoom distances to avoid cluttered airports. This means that an AI aircraft can disappear from the map when landing on an airport. On the lowest zoom distance all aircraft are drawn to scale as are the parking spots which means you can easily check if your aircraft fits on an apron, parking spot or taxiway. A yellow wind arrow and labels for the situation around the user aircraft can be displayed on the top center of the map. The displayed labels for aircraft can be configured in the dialog Options on tab Map Display . No labels are shown for ship traffic. See the Nav Map Legend for details about the aircraft type. 40 Map Display Tooltips Hovering the mouse over the map will show tooltips for all map objects including airports, VOR, NDB, airways, parking, fuel box, towers, aircraft and ships. The tooltip is truncated and shows a message More... if it gets too long. In that case reduce details or zoom in closer. The sensitivity for the tooltip display can be adjusted in the Options dialog on the Map tab. 41 Map Display 42 Map Display Pictures above: Tooltip with information for an airport and a VOR and a tooltip with information about airspaces. Highlights Airports, navaids or other features that are selected in the flight plan table or in a search result table are highlighted on the map with a green/black or a yellow/black ring respectively. Waypoints that are selected in the procedure preview are highlighted with a blue/black ring. These highlight circles provide all functionality of visible map objects, even if the objects are not shown at the current zoom distance (ring is empty). This allows double-click for zoom in, single-click for information dock window and all context menu entries. You can use the button Clear Selection on top of the flight plan and search windows to remove any map highlights. Airport Diagram The display will change from a single icon to an airport diagram if you zoom in deep enough to an airport. The diagram shows all taxiways, parking positions, gates, runways and more. The airport diagram provides more information through tooltips for parking and tower positions. A right-click on a parking position opens the context menu and allows to select the start position for flight plan departure. Airspaces are hidden if the airport diagram is shown. See the Nav Map Legend for details about the airport diagram. 43 Map Display Picture above: High level view of the airport diagram of EDDH. Picture above: Detailed view of the airport diagram. Shows blue gates on the right and a few green general aviation ramp parking spots on the left. Long displaced threshold of runway 33 is visible. Dashed yellow lines indicate taxi paths. 44 Map Display Map Context Menu The map context menu can be activated using right-click or the menu key. Menu items are enabled or disabled depending on selected object and some menu items contain the name of the selected map object for clarification. Show Information Show detailed information in the Information dock window for the nearest airport, one or more airways, one or more airspaces or all navaids near the cursor. See the Information Dock Window for details. Show Procedures Open the procedure search tab of the search dock window and display all procedures for the airport. See Procedure Search for more information. Measure GC Distance from here Display distances from the selected origin as you move the mouse over the map. Left-click on the map to end measuring and keep the measurement line. All measurement lines are saved and will be restored on next start up. You can use the keyboard, mouse wheel or the map overlays to scroll and zoom while dragging a line. Right-click, press the escape key or click outside of the map window to cancel the measurement line editing. Measurement lines use nautical miles, kilometers or statue miles as unit. Feet or meter will be added as unit if the lines are short enough. This allows to measure e.g. takeoff distance for crossing takeoffs. A great circle gives the shortest distance from point to point on earth but does not use a constant course. For that reason the measurement line will show two course values. One for the start and one for the end position. Course is always indicated in degrees true which is indicated by the suffix °T . Additional information like ident or frequency will be added to the line if the measurement starts at a navaid or an airport. The width of distance measurement lines can be changed in the dialog Options on the tab Map Display . See the Nav Map Legend for details on measurement lines. Measure Rhumb Distance from here A rhumb line is a line of constant course and used between the waypoints of an airway or when approaching a VOR or NDB station. Distance between points is slightly longer than the great circle route. The course for a rhumb line is indicated in degrees magnetic and true ( °M , °T or °M/T The magnetic declination to calculate the magnetic course will be taken from the global if both values are equal). magdec.bgl file at the origin of the measurement. The magnetic declination of an airport or navaid will be used if the measurement starts at a such a point. Additional information like ident and frequency will be added to the line in this case as well. See Magnetic Declination for remarks on that topic. 45 Map Display Remove Distance measurement Remove the selected line. This menu item is active if you right-click on the end point of a distance measurement line (small cross). Show Range Rings Show multiple red range rings around the clicked position. The number and distance of the range rings can be changed in the Options dialog on the Map Display tab. A label indicates the radius of each ring in nautical miles. The width of all range rings can be changed in the dialog Options on the tab Map Display . Show Navaid range Show a ring around the clicked radio navaid (VOR or NDB) indicating the navaid's range. A label shows ident and frequency and the ring color indicates the navaid type. Remove Range Ring Remove the selected rings from the map. This menu item is active if you right-click on the center point of a range ring (small circle). Remove all Range Rings and Distance measurements Remove all rings and distance measurement lines from the map. Set as Flight Plan Departure This is active if the click is at an airport, an airport parking position or a fuel box. It will either replace the current flight plan departure or add a new departure if the flight plan is empty. The default runway will be used as starting position if the clicked object is an airport. The airport and parking position will replace both the current departure and start position if a parking position is clicked within an airport diagram. Set as Flight Plan Destination This menu item is active if the click is at an airport. It will either replace the flight plan destination or add the airport if the flight plan is empty. Add Position to Flight Plan Insert the clicked object into the nearest flight plan leg. The object will be added before departure or after destination if the clicked position is near the flight plan end points. The text Position is replaced with an object name if an airport, navaid or userpoint is at the clicked position. A user-defined flight plan position is added to the plan if no airport or navaid is near the clicked point. 46 Map Display A userpoint is converted to a user-defined flight plan position if added to the plan. Append Position to Flight Plan Same as Add Position to Flight Plan but will always append the selected object or position after the destination or last waypoint of the flight plan. Delete from Flight Plan Delete the selected airport, navaid or user flight plan position from the plan. Edit Flight Plan Position Change the name or position of a user-defined waypoint. See Edit Flight Plan Position. The length of the name is limited to 10 characters when saving to a PLN file. Other flight plan formats have stronger limitations on length and allowed characters. You can also edit the coordinates directly instead of dragging the flight plan position (Flight Plan Editing). See Coordinate Formats for a list of formats that are recognized by the edit dialog. Add Userpoint Add a user-defined waypoint to the userdata. Some fields of the userpoint dialog are populated automatically depending on the selected map object. Coordinates are always filled-in. If the selected object is an airport or navaid, a userpoint of type Airport or Waypoint respectively is created and the fields Ident, Region, Name and Altitude are filled-in. If the selected position is empty map space, a userpoint of type Bookmark is created at this position. Altitude is filled-in if GLOBE offline elevation data is installed. See Flight Plan Elevation Profile. See Add Userpoints for more information. Edit Userpoint Open the edit dialog for a userpoint. Only enabled if the selected object is a userpoint. See Edit Userpoints. Move Userpoint Move the userpoint to a new position on the map. Only enabled if the selected object is a userpoint. Left-click to place the userpoint at the new position. Right-click or press the escape key to cancel the operation and return the userpoint to its former position. Delete Userpoint 47 Map Display Remove the user-defined waypoint from the userdata after confirmation. Only enabled if the selected object is a userpoint. Show in Search Show the nearest airport, navaid, userpoint, online client or online center in the search dialog. The current search parameters are reset. Set Center for Distance Search Set the center point for the distance search function. See Distance search. The center for the distance search is highlighted by a symbol. Set Home Set the currently visible map view as your home view. The center of the home area is highlighted by a symbol. 48 Map Display Legend Legend By default, all speeds are given in knots, distances in nautical miles, altitudes and elevations in feet. The units can be set to imperial or metric in the dialog Options on the tab Units . Colors, size and text labels of some map elements can be changed in the dialog Options on the tab Map Display . This legend shows the default values. Heading and course are suffixed with °T for true course or °M for magnetic course. Map Marks Symbol Description Center of the home position. Center point that will be used for distance searches. Flight plan with distance, direction and magnetic course at each leg. Flight plan procedure leg with the same information as above. Active flight plan leg Flight plan departure position on airport. Either parking, fuel box, helipad, water or runway. Top of descent point with distance to destination. Range rings labeled with distance. VOR or NDB range rings labeled with ident and frequency. Color indicates Navaid type. Great circle distance and course measurement line indicating length and true heading at start and destination. The two heading values will be equal for small distances. For shorter distances length is also shown in feet or meters. Rhumb line of equal bearing distance measurement indicating distance and true heading. Rhumb lines are used to approach a VOR or NDB or travel along airways. For shorter distances length is also shown in feet. Measurement lines starting from an airport or navaid have the same color and additional ident and frequency labels. Course for rhumb lines will be shown in magnetic if the navaid has a magnetic variation attribute. A highlighted airport or navaid selected in the search result table. A highlighted airport or navaid selected in the flight plan table. 49 Map Display Legend Highlighted positions of a procedure leg in the preview. Small circle show from and large circle to position. Thin circle shows the recommended or related navaid of a procedure leg. This can be a VORDME for a DME arc approach leg for example. Compass Rose Line thickness can be changed in dialog Options on the tab Map Display . Symbol Description True north. Magnetic north. Distance circles and marks from user aircraft if connected. Solid line shows aircraft track in degrees magnetic if connected. Dashed line shows aircraft heading if connected. Aircraft and Ships Symbol Description Current user vehicle if connected to the flight simulator. Labels vary and can be customized in Options on the tab Map Display . The user aircraft depends on selected aircraft (jet, piston/turboprop or helicopter). Optionally a black needle protruding from the nose can show the current track. User aircraft or ship on ground Needle showing the current track of the aircraft. Aircraft nose shows heading. User aircraft trail if connected to the flight simulator. Wind around the user aircraft with direction in degrees magnetic and speed. 50 Map Display Legend AI or multiplayer aircraft. Labels vary and can be customized in Options on the tab Map Display . The symbol depends on aircraft type (jet, piston/turboprop, helicopter or ship). Online network aircraft/client. Labels vary and can be customized as above. Airports Airports having control towers are shown in dark blue others in magenta. Add-on airport names and idents are shown italic and underlined. Airports that are part of the flight plan have a light yellow text background. The symbol is shown smaller if an airport has no runways. This is the case for some add-on airports that use another technique like photo scenery to display runways. Symbol Description Airports with hard surface runways longer than 8,000 ft or 2,400 meters. All runways longer than 4,000 ft or about 1,200 meters are shown. Only for lower zoom distances. Airports with hard surface runways. White line shows heading of longest runway. Airports with soft surface runways. Empty airports shown in gray. No taxiways, no parking spots and no aprons. Seaplane base having only water runways. Military airport. Heliport having only helipads and no runways. Abandoned airport. All runways are closed. Airports that have fuel available. Airport label showing name, ident, ATIS frequency, elevation, lighted runways ( L ) and length of longest runway. The text labels for an airport can be changed in the dialog Options on the tab Map Display . Navaids 51 Map Display Legend Navaids that are part of the flight plan have a light yellow text background. Symbol Description VOR DME including ident, type (High, Low or Terminal) and frequency. Compass rose shows magnetic variation on lower zoom distances. VOR including ident, type and frequency. DME including ident, type and frequency. TACAN including ident, type (High, Low or Terminal) and channel. Compass rose shows magnetic variation on lower zoom distances. VORTAC including ident, type (High, Low or Terminal) and frequency. Compass rose shows magnetic variation on lower zoom distances. NDB including ident, type (HH, H, MH or CL - compass locator) and frequency. Waypoint with name. User-defined waypoint with name. Invalid airport, waypoint, VOR or NDB that is part of the flight plan but could not be found in the Scenery Database. Marker with type and heading indicated by lens shape. Jet airway with label showing name, type (Jet or Both), minimum and maximum altitude. Text depends on zoom distance. A preceding arrow will show the allowed direction if the airway is one-way. Victor airway with label showing name, type (Victor or Both), minimum and maximum altitude. Text depends on zoom distance. A preceding arrow will show the allowed direction if the airway is one-way. ILS with glideslope. Label shows ident, frequency, magnetic heading, glideslope pitch and DME indication if available. 52 Map Display Legend Localizer. Label shows ident, frequency, magnetic heading and DME indication if available. Procedures See chapter Procedures for more detailed information on all the legs. Symbol Description SID, STAR, approach or transition leg in preview with distance, direction and magnetic course at each leg. SID, STAR, approach or transition leg which is part of the flight plan. Missed approach leg in preview. Missed approach leg which is a part of the flight plan. Gray yellow filled circle indicates a procedure point which is not a navaid but defined by course and/or distance from a navaid, an altitude restriction or manual termination. A black circle indicates an overfly waypoint. Can be a procedure point or a navaid. Fly a heading, track or a hold until manually terminated by ATC. Intercept the next approach leg at a course of about 45 degrees. Procedure leg that is terminated when reaching the given altitude. A fix defined by a course or heading and distance to a navaid. This fix is defined by a heading or track which is terminated by reaching a DME distance. Intercept a course to the next fix at an angle of about 45 degrees. Airport Diagram Runway, taxiway, helipad and apron colors indicate surface type. White is used for an unknown or invalid surface type given by an add-on developer. 53 Map Display Legend Symbol Description Runway with length, width, light indicator ( L ) and surface type. Runway end with ident and magnetic heading. Displaced threshold. Do not use for landing. Overrun area. Do not use for taxi, takeoff or landing. Blast pad. Do not use for taxi, takeoff or landing. Taxiway with name and center line. Closed taxiway. Semi transparent dotted aprons and taxiways indicate that no surface is drawn. It might use a photo texture or simply the default background. Tower. Red if a tower frequency is available. Otherwise just view position. Fuel GA ramp with parking number and heading tick mark. Gate with number and heading tick mark. Second ring indicates availability of jetway. Cargo ramp Military combat parking or cargo ramp. 54 Map Display Legend Helipads. Red text indicates medical helipad. Color indicates surface. Userpoints Symbol Description Airport Airstrip Bookmark Cabin Closed Error Flag Helipad Location Logbook Marker Mountain Obstacle Pin POI - point of interest Seaport 55 Map Display Legend Unknown VRP - visual reporting point Waypoint Elevation Profile Legend Symbol Description Ground with departure elevation on the left and destination airport elevation on the right. Flight plan altitude. Top of descent with distance to destination. Minimum safe altitude for flight plan. This is elevation plus 1000 feet rounded up to the next 500 ft. The 1000 feet buffer can be changed in the dialog Options on the tab Flight Plan Minimum safe altitude for a flight plan segment. The same rules apply as to the minimum safe altitude for flight plan. User aircraft if connected to the simulator. Labels show actual altitude and climb/sink rate. User aircraft trail if connected to the flight simulator. 56 Map Display Compass Rose Compass Rose The compass rose indicates true north, magnetic north, aircraft heading and aircraft track. User aircraft heading, track, distance rings and markers are shown if Little Navmap is connected to a simulator. The rose is centered around the user aircraft if connected. The compass rose is kept centered in the current view if not connected to a simulator. Magnetic declination is based on the declination in the center. The size is adapted to the map view size but not larger than 1000 nm and not smaller than 4 nm. Line thickness can be changed in dialog Options on the tab Map Display . Indicators True north. Magnetic north. Distance circles and marks from user aircraft if connected. Solid line shows aircraft track in degrees magnetic if connected. Dashed line shows aircraft heading in degrees magnetic if connected. Examples Picture above: Compass rose without simulator connection. Picture above: Compass rose centered around user aircraft. 57 Map Flight Plan Editing Map Flight Plan Editing The flight plan drag and drop editing mode is enabled by default. It can be toggled using the toolbar or Flight Plan -> Edit Flight Plan on Map Main Menu -> . You can use the keyboard, the mouse wheel or the map overlays to scroll and zoom while editing the route. Note that the flight plan drag and drop editing is based on the assumption that a direct connection between departure and destination already exists. Always select departure and destination first if you would like to build you flight plan manually. This will connect both points with a great circle line. Based on this line you can start to add navaids to your flight plan. Note that selecting airways is not possible. The cursor will change into a cross if a new navaid can be added to a leg. A cursor will be shown if a present navaid can be replaced by another one or if a user position can be moved. The following functionality is available: Click on a flight plan leg: Starts editing and adds a new waypoint depending on where the next click is done: On a single airport and navaid: Object is inserted into the flight plan segment. On multiple airports or navaids: A menu pops up that allows you to select the object to be inserted. No airport and no navaid: A user-defined position is inserted into the flight plan. Click on waypoint: Starts editing and replaces the selected waypoint with an object depending on where you click next: On a single airport and navaid: Object replaces the selected waypoint. On multiple airports or navaids: A menu pops up that allows to pick the object that should replace the selected waypoint. No airport and no navaid: A user-defined position replaces the waypoint. Click on departure or destination: Replaces the departure or destination with an object depending on where you click next: On a single airport: Airport replaces the departure or destination. A default runway is assigned as start position if the departure is replaced with a new airport. On a navaid: Object replaces departure or destination which results in an invalid flight plan. The flight plan can be saved and loaded (a warning will be shown) but is unusable by the flight simulator. On multiple airports or navaids: A menu pops up that allows to select the object that replaces departure or destination. No airport and no navaid: A user-defined position replaces the waypoint resulting in an invalid flight plan. Right-clicking, pressing the escape key or any click outside of the map window: Cancel current operation. Limitations if procedures are used: You can not add navaids in or between procedures, nor can you delete procedure legs. The cursor will not change shape when you hover over a procedure. The following is not allowed: Add a waypoint between departure airport and SID. Add a waypoint between STAR or approach and destination airport. Add a waypoint between STAR and approach or transition. Move or remove the first or last waypoint of a procedure. All departure or destination procedures are removed if the departure or destination airport is moved or replaced. The same applies if waypoints are prepended before or appended after departure or destination. 58 Map Flight Plan Editing Picture above: Inserting a navaid into a flight plan leg by clicking and moving the leg line. A tool tip for the navaid is shown. Picture above: Replacing VOR TRA in the flight plan with another one by simply clicking and moving the waypoint TRA onto KLO. A selection menu pops up for disambiguation. 59 User-defined Waypoints User-defined Waypoints User-defined waypoints (or userpoints) allow for adding, editing, searching, exporting, and importing bookmarks, points of interest, waypoints and more. You can pick freely which types you want to see as icons on the map. Picture above: An overview of userpoint functionality showing information on the left dock window, highlighted userpoints on the map, userpoints selected in the search window on the right, and the drop down menu opened by clicking the userpoint icon in the dock window. User-defined Waypoint Search The functionality of the search filters and the result table is similar to the airport and navaid search. See Search Dock Window for information about search filters and buttons. Additional context menu items and buttons allow adding, editing, and deleting of userpoints. Top Buttons and additional Menu Items See Search Result Table View Context Menu for a description of common context menu items across all search dialogs. Add Userpoint Add a user-defined waypoint to the userdata. Some fields of the new userpoint dialog are populated automatically depending on a selected userpoint or, if nothing is selected in the search result table, based on previous additions. This allows to quickly add similar userpoints to the database without the need to re-enter all the information. Note that you have to add the coordinates manually if the dialogs starts empty i.e. nothing was selected in the result table. Add userpoints with the map context menu Add Userpoint to avoid this and have the coordinates set automatically. 60 User-defined Waypoints See below for more information about the add dialog. Edit Userpoint Open the edit dialog for one or more userpoints. The edit dialog shows a column of checkboxes on the right side if more than one userpoint is selected. These allow to choose the fields to edit. See below for more information about the add dialog. Delete Userpoint Remove the selected userpoints after a confirmation dialog. Reset Search Clear search filters and revert to showing all entries in the search result table view. Clear Selection Deselect all selected entries in the table and remove any highlight circles from the map. Help Display a quick help in the tooltip. Click to open this chapter of the manual in the default browser. Menu Button Drop down menu button that allows to hide or show search options. The drop down menu prefixes menu items with a change indicator * to show that the related filter row has modifications. Add Userpoints Dialog The dialog is shown when selecting Add Userpoint userpoint search tab, or selecting Add Userpoint in the map context menu, using the top button in the from the context menu in the search result table. The dialog will be populated automatically depending on the selected map context, the selection in the search result table or previous additions. Type can be selected from a drop down list or entered freely. The field Description The field Visible from allows multi line text and special characters. Formatting like italic or bold is not supported. allows to define visibility on the map depending on zoom distance. The zoom distance (viewpoint distance to earth surface) for the current map view is shown in the Statusbar. The user point will be visible for all zoom distances smaller than the value in Visible from . Maximum value is 3000 nm and minimum value is 1 nm. 61 User-defined Waypoints Valid coordinates are required to confirm the dialog. See Coordinate Formats for a detailed description of the recognized coordinate formats. A label below the coordinates displays the parsed coordinates or an error message in case the coordinates could not be parsed. All other text fields are optional and can be left blank. The userpoint is removed on next startup of Little Navmap when Temporary userpoint. Delete on next startup. is checked. The button Reset clears all fields with exception of the coordinates and sets the type of the userpoint to Bookmark . Picture above: Add dialog that has been populated automatically by context. The user right-clicked on an airport and selected Add Userpoint Airport Frankfurt am Main (EDDF) . Edit Userpoints Dialog A single Userpoint The edit dialog shows the same edit fields as the dialog used to add userpoints above. Additional metadata shown at the bottom: Last Change: Date and time of import, creation or change. Imported from file: File and path of source file from CSV, X-Plane or Garmin import. You can filter the userpoint search for this name. Temporary userpoint - will be deleted on next startup. This indicates that the userpoint is temporary. The button Reset undoes all manual changes and reverts all fields to their original state. 62 User-defined Waypoints Picture above: Edit dialog for a single userpoint. Multiple Userpoints If more than one userpoint was selected for editing, the edit dialog shows a column of checkboxes on the right side. If checked, the field to the left is unlocked and any text entered will be assigned to the respective field in all selected userpoints. Unchecked fields will not be altered for any of the userpoints. In combination with the powerful search function, this allows for bulk changes like fixing an invalid region and simultaneously changing the visibility range for the affected userpoints: 1. Search for all userpoints with the invalid region. 2. Select all the resulting userpoints, e.g. by clicking on one of the userpoints among the search results and pressing Ctrl+A or by clicking on the top left corner of the column header. 3. Right-click one of the highlighted userpoints and select 4. Click the checkbox to the right of the Region: 5. Click the checkbox to the right of the Visible from: 6. Click OK Edit Userpoints from the context menu. field and change the region. field and adjust the value. . 63 User-defined Waypoints Picture above: Edit dialog for more than one userpoint. The fields Region and Visible from will be changed for all selected points. All other fields remain unchanged. Types The userpoint type can be any text string. If the text matches an entry from the list below, the appropriate icon is used. Otherwise, the icon for Unknown is used. Types and icons can be customized and new types can be added. See Userpoint Category Icons for information on how to do this. Some types are used as defaults when adding new userpoints. This depends on the context, i.e. what was below the cursor when right-clicking on the map. Note that the userpoint types cannot be translated to other languages for now. Airport: Default when creating a userpoint on top of an airport. Airstrip Bookmark: Default type for new userpoints. Cabin Closed airport Error Flag Helipad 64 User-defined Waypoints Location Logbook: Type of automatically added logbook entries for takeoff and landing. See menu item Create Logbook entries. Marker Mountain Obstacle Pin POI Seaport Unknown: Type named Unknown and all types which do not match the default types in this list. VRP: Visual reporting point. Waypoint: Default when creating a userpoint on top of a navaid. CSV Data Format The CSV data format is aligned to the format already used around the flight simulator community and other applications. Each row in the file represents a user-defined waypoint. The minimum fields for import are Type , Name , Ident , Latitude and Longitude . Only Latitude and Longitude need to be filled, the rest can be empty. All twelve fields are saved when exporting userpoints as CSV. Also, the multi line field Description is enclosed in quotes if needed and preserves line breaks. English number format (dot . as decimal separator) is used in import and export to allow exchange of files on computers with different language and locale settings. Little Navmap uses UTF-8 encoding when reading and writing files. This is only relevant if you use special characters like umlauts, accents or others. Otherwise encoding does not matter. If an application fails to load a CSV file exported by Little Navmap, use LibreOffice Calc, Microsoft Excel or any other spreadsheet software capable of reading and writing CSV files to adapt the exported file to the format expected by that application. See Comma-separated values in the Wikipedia for detailed information on the format. Example for an absolute minimal userpoint consisting of coordinates only: ,,,49.0219993591,7.8840069771 65 User-defined Waypoints Visible from will be set to the default of 250 nm and the userpoint will be shown using the icon after Unknown import. Example for a minimal userpoint record with type Mountain , ident and name for import: Mountain,My Point of Interest,MYPOI,49.0219993591,7.8840069771 Visible from will be set to the default of 250 nm after import. Example for an exported userpoint with type Mountain and all fields set: Mountain,My Point of Interest,MYPOI,49.0219993591,7.8840069771,1200,2.0085027218,"View,Interesting,Point","Interesting poi nt ""Eselsberg"" - nice view",ED,250,2018-05-17T17:44:26.864 Take note of the following challenges when parsing CSV files: In the field enclosed in double quotes since it contains commas. The field description Tags , the list "View,Interesting,Point" is "Interesting point ""Eselsberg"" - nice view" is enclosed in double quotes since the text itself contains a pair of double quotes ( "Eselsberg" ) which are, in turn, escaped by another double quote each. CSV Fields Position Name Required Empty Allowed Comment 1 Type Yes Yes One of the predefined or user-defined types. The icon for Unknown is used if the type does not match one of the known types. 2 Name Yes Yes Free to use field. Used for Garmin export. 3 Ident Yes Yes Required only for Garmin and X-Plane export. Has to be a unique valid identifier with maximum of five characters for these exports. 4 Latitude Yes No Range from -90 to 90 degrees using dot decimal separator 5 Longitude Yes No Range from -180 to 180 degrees using dot decimal separator. 6 Altitude No Yes Must be a valid number if used. Unit is always feet. 7 Magnetic variance No Yes Ignored on import and set to a valid calculated value on export. 8 Tags No Yes Free to use field. GUI has no special tag search. 9 Description No Yes Free to use field which allows line breaks. 10 Region No Yes Two letter ICAO region of a userpoint or waypoint. Used for X-Plane export. Replaced with default value ZZ on X-Plane export if empty. 11 Visible from No Yes Defines from what zoom distance in nautical miles (shown on Status Bar) the userpoint is visible. Set to 250 nm if empty on import. 12 Last update timestamp Yes ISO date and time of last change. Format is independent of system date format settings. Format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss . Example: 2018-0328T22:06:16.763 . Not editable in GUI. No . as . as 66 User-defined Waypoints X-Plane user_fix.dat Data Format This allows to read and write the X-Plane default and has to be saved to user_fix.dat file for user-defined waypoints. The file does not exist by XPLANE/Custom Data/user_fix.dat . The format is described by Laminar Research in a PDF file which can be downloaded here: XP-FIX1101-Spec.pdf. The file consists of a header and a number of rows for the user fixes. Each row has five columns which are separated by space or tab characters. There are five columns of data in the file: 1. Latitude 2. Longitude 3. Ident 4. Airport ident 5. Region Example for user_fix.dat : I 1101 Version - data cycle 1704, build 20170325, metadata FixXP1101. NoCopyright (c) 2017 achwodu 50.88166700 12.58666700 PACEC ENRT ZZ -36.29987335 174.71089172 N0008 NZNI ZZ 99 Note that, while the user-defined waypoints are not displayed on the X-Plane map, they can be selected and used to build flight plans in the X-Plane stock GPS and FMS. Import Example line from user_fix.dat above: 50.88166700 12.58666700 PACEC ENRT ZZ The coordinates are read into the Little Navmap userpoint coordinates. The fix ident PACEC is read into the Ident field in Little Navmap. The fix airport ENRT The region (invalid or no region) is read into the Region field in Little Navmap. ZZ Type will be set to (enroute: no airport here) is read into the Tags field in Little Navmap. Waypoint for all imported fixes. Export The mapping is the same as for the import. Ident to fix ident. Tags to fix airport. Region to fix region. All other fields are ignored. The ident is adjusted to match a up to five digit and letter combination. A generated ident is used if that is not possible or the ident is empty. Fix airport is always ENRT when exporting. 67 User-defined Waypoints The region is adjusted for a two letter digit and letter combination. ZZ is used if that is not possible or the region is empty. The ident has to be unique in the user_fix.dat . Therefore it is recommended to set a unique ident for each waypoint manually or leave the field empty so Little Navmap can generate an ident during export. Garmin user.wpt Data Format The Garmin user waypoint file is a CSV file. Each row in the file represents a unique user waypoint. There must be four columns of data in the file: 1. Waypoint ident 2. Waypoint name or description 3. Latitude 4. Longitude Example of a user.wpt file: MTHOOD,MT HOOD PEAK,45.3723,-121.69783 CRTRLK,CRATER LAKE,42.94683,-122.11083 2WTER,2NM WEST TERRACINA,41.28140000,13.20110000 1NSAL,1NM NORTH SALERNO TOWN,40.69640000,14.78500000 The waypoint ident can be up to 10 numbers or capital letters but the GTN will shorten the name to the first 6 characters. No special characters or symbols can be used. Little Navmap adjusts the ident accordingly. The waypoint name can be up to 25 numbers, capital letters, spaces, or forward slash / characters. The name is displayed when selecting waypoints to provide additional context to the pilot. Little Navmap adjusts the name according to limitations. Import Example line from above: user.wpt MTHOOD,MT HOOD PEAK,45.3723,-121.69783 The ident The name MTHOOD is read into the Ident field in Little Navmap. MT HOOD PEAK is read into the Name field in Little Navmap. The coordinates are read into the Little Navmap userpoint coordinates. Type will be set to Waypoint for all imported waypoints. Export Mapping of fields is same as import but all fields are adjusted to limitations. Note: If an imported waypoint ends up being within 0.001° latitude and longitude of an existing user waypoint in the GTN, the existing waypoint and name will be reused. Export XML for FSX/P3D BGL Compiler This export option creates an XML file which can be compiled into an BGL file containing waypoints. The region and ident fields are required for this export option. If region is empty or otherwise invalid waypoints are of type NAMED ZZ is used. All . 68 User-defined Waypoints See Prepar3D SDK documentation for information on how to compile and add the BGL to the simulator. Example:Database Backup Files Little Navmap creates a full database backup on every start since undo functionality is not available for userpoints. You can also use the CSV export to create backups manually since CSV allows to export the full dataset. See Userdata for information about database backup files. 69 Online Networks Online Networks The online network functionality allows to connect to VATSIM, IVAO or other online networks which publish whazzup.txt files. This covers display of information for centers, clients and servers on the map. Network specific information like user names, active centers/towers, frequencies, flight plans and much more are displayed world wide without limits like distance to the user aircraft. Note that all related window tabs, menu items and toolbar buttons are hidden if online networks are disabled which is the default. Access to online networks can be enabled and configured in the dialog Options on tab Online Flying. Predefined options for the well known networks are available as well as freely configurable ones. Picture above: An overview of all online network related windows, tabs and buttons. Simulator and Online Aircraft Duplicates Little Navmap fetches data from online networks using an interval of three minutes depending on settings and network. The program also fetches AI or multiplayer aircraft from the simulator which are updated about two times a second. These aircraft are injected into the simulator by the various online clients so they are visible within the simulator. Therefore, the user aircraft and other client aircraft can appear duplicated on the map. Little Navmap tries to remove these duplicates by matching the aircraft registration (simulator) and the client callsign (online network). Aircraft can appear duplicated if this information is not available which is the case for X-Plane. Refer to the configuration of your online network tool how to add this information. 70 Online Networks Map Display Clients Online network clients or their aircraft are displayed on the map using the symbol. This includes simulator aircraft that were recognized as online network clients. The user aircraft is always displayed using the yellow simulator. Use the Show in Search or a similar symbol depending on aircraft type and map context menu item to see your own aircraft in the list of online clients. Information for online aircraft is shown on the tab Online Clients in the Information Dock Window. All other functionality like context menu, double-click, tooltips, map highlights and other are the same as for the other aircraft. See Aircraft and Ships in the legend for all symbols. Picture above: Online network clients/aircraft in search tab, map, tooltip and information window. Centers Online centers are displayed as circular airspaces in Little Navmap and provide the same functionality as the other airspaces (tooltips, information and more). They can be enabled separately from the other airspaces by using the button or menu item Show Online Network Airspaces. Note that the circles do not represent the real airspaces and are only used to indicate the presence of an active center, tower, ground or other position. Detailed information for online centers/airspaces is shown on the tab Online Centers in the Information Dock Window. The following types are available and can be enabled in the drop down menus on the airspace toolbar or sub menu Airspaces: 71 Online Networks Observer: Circle size is taken from the Flight Information (Center): Uses Delivery (Clearance): Uses Visual Range Visual Range Visual Range value of the center. . . Ground: Shows a circle with a diameter of 10 nm. Tower: 20 nm circle. Approach: 40 nm circle. ACC (Center): Uses Departure: Uses Visual Range Visual Range . . The size of the circle shapes can be changed in the configuration file. See Online Network Center. Picture above: Online network center/ATC in search tab, map, tooltip and information window. Online Network Client Search Online Network Center Search The functionality of the search filters in these two tabs and the result tables are similar to the airport and navaid search. See Search Dock Window for information about search filters, buttons and context menu items. Online Server Search Displays all online servers in a table and has no search functionality. You can use the context menu to copy parts of the result table like the IP address. 72 Search Dock Window Search Dock Window The search dock window contains several tabs with similar functionality that allows to search for objects by name, ident or other criteria. Airport, navaid, userpoint and online search tabs contain multiple rows of search filters. These rows can be switched on and off with the drop down menu on the menu button on the top right in the airport, navaid and userpoint search tabs. The drop down menu prefixes menu items with a change indicator * to show that the related filter row has modifications. You can use this to find out why a search does not give the expected results. If you do not get the expected results or no results at all use the press Ctrl+R Reset Search menu item, button or to clear all search criteria. Filters are defined by various controls which are mostly self explaining. Only text filters and the tri-state checkboxes like Lighted , Approach or Closed need a few extra remarks below. All filters can be used together where all conditions have to be met ( and operator). All filters except the distance search filter are applied immediately. The distance search is applied after a short delay for each change. Entering three or four characters in the ICAO Code field of the airport search tab will trigger a quick search which ignores all other filters and shows the airports matching that partial or full ICAO code. A tooltip on the blue help button on the top right shows information about searching. Text filters The standard is to search for entries that start with the entered text. The placeholder * stands for any text. Once a * is included in the term, the standard search (match start of text) is no longer used. In that case you might have to add a * at the end of the search term as well to get the expected result. The search is negated (find all entries that do not match) if the first character in a search box is a Note that all of the above does not apply to numeric fields like Runways: Min or Altitude: Max - . . Tri state checkboxes These are used to filter airports by presence of certain facilities or properties. Below are the states as they are shown in Windows 10: Black Box: Condition is ignored. Checked: Condition must match. Empty Box: Condition must not match. Colors and look of these checkboxes vary with theme and operation system. So instead of gray another color might be used (red fill on Linux or a - for macOS). Distance search 73 Search Dock Window This function is only available in the airport and navaid search. This function allows you to combine all other search options with a simple spatial search. The checkbox Distance has to be selected to enable this search. The result will include only airports or navaids that are within the given minimum and maximum range of nautical miles from the search center. This allows you to quickly search for a destination that is within the range of your aircraft and fulfills other criteria like having lighted runways and fuel. The center for the distance search is highlighted by a symbol. To restrict the search further you can select a direction (North, East, South and West). Check the drop down menu for the change indicator search does not give any or unexpected results. Use Ctrl+R * and the search fields for any remaining text if the distance Reset Search in the context menu of the result table or press to clear all search criteria. Picture above A complex distance search: Find all airports within a distance between 200 and 400 nautical miles from Frankfurt (EDDF). Airports should have a rating greater than 0 and should have at least one lighted runway. Military and closed airports are excluded. The resulting airports are highlighted on the map by selecting them in the search result table. 74 Search Dock Window Picture above A complex search for scenery: This example shows how to find specific add-on scenery by using the Scenery Path search field. This shows all airports of the Orbx New Zealand South Island add-on scenery that have lighted runways. Search Result Table View All selected elements in the table view will be highlighted on the map using a black/yellow circle. See Highlights for more information. Use Shift+Click or Ctrl+Click to select two or more elements (multi-selection). Header The header of all table views allows the following manipulation: Click on the top left corner of the column header: Select all result rows. Click on a column header: Sort ascending or descending (only for search result tables - not for flight plan table). Click and drag on the column header: Change column order. Double-click on column border: Automatically fit column size to content. Click and drag on column border: Change column width. Click into the empty space below all rows: Deselect all entries and remove highlights on the map. The above applies to all table views in the program and partially also to the tree view of the procedure search. The program saves the sort order, column widths and positions until Reset View is selected in the context menu. 75 Search Dock Window Picture above: Airport search result table. All additional search options are hidden by using the drop down menu of the menu button on the top right. Picture above: Navaid search limited to ICAO region LI (Italy) and VOR, VORTAC and TACAN stations that have a range of 100 or more nautical miles. Mouse Clicks A double-click on an entry in the table view shows either an airport diagram or zooms to the navaid or other feature. Additionally, details are shown in the Information dock window. Single click selects an object and highlights it on the map using a black/yellow circle. Top Buttons Available buttons and menu items depend on search tab. Reset Search Clear search filters and show all entries again in the search result table view. Clear Selection Deselect all entries in the table and remove any highlight circles from the map. Help Display a quick help in the tooltip. Click to open this chapter of the manual in the default browser. Menu Button Drop down menu button that allows to hide or show search options. The drop down menu prefixes menu items with a change indicator * to show that the related filter row has modifications. You can use this to find out why a search does not give the expected results. Search Result Table View Context Menu Available menu items depend on search tab. 76 Search Dock Window Show Information Same as the Map Context Menu. Show Procedures Open the procedure search tab of the search dock window and display all procedures for the airport. See Procedure Search for more information. Show on Map Show either the airport diagram or zooms to the navaid, userpoint or other features on the map. Follow Selection The map view will be centered - not zoomed in - on the selected feature when this function is enabled. Filter by Entries including/excluding Use the field under the cursor to set a search filter that includes or excludes the text of the field. This is only enabled for text columns. Reset Search Clear search filters and revert to showing all entries in the search result table view. Show All The table view does not show all entries initially for performance reasons. This menu item allows to load and show the whole search result. The view switches back to the limited number of entries after a search filter is modified or the sort order is changed. The number of all, visible and selected entries is shown at the bottom of the tab. Be aware that showing all navaids and airports can take some time especially if they are highlighted on the map when selecting all entries in the search result. The program does not crash but needs a few seconds to highlight all the objects on the map. Show Range Rings Show Navaid range Remove all Range Rings and Distance measurements Set as Flight Plan Departure 77 Search Dock Window Set as Flight Plan Destination Add Position to Flight Plan Append Position to Flight Plan Same as the Map Context Menu. Copy Copy the selected entries in CSV format to the clipboard. This will observe changes to the table view like column order and sort order. The CSV includes a header line. Select All Select all visible entries. To select all available entries the function Show All has to be used first. Clear Selection Deselect all entries in the table and remove any highlight circles from the map. Reset View Reset sort order, column order and column widths to default. Set Center for Distance Search Same as the Map Context Menu. 78 Search Dock Window - Procedures Search Dock Window - Procedures The tab Procedures allows previewing and adding approach and departure procedures to the flight plan. Procedures of a selected airport are arranged in a tree which indicates the dependencies between approaches and transitions. Note that the SID and STAR names are limited to 5 characters in FSX and P3D due to a limitation in the BGL file format. Therefore procedure names are slightly modified. However, this does not apply to procedures from a Navigraph or X-Plane scenery database. See the Procedures chapter of this manual for more details. Procedure legs are shown when a procedure node is expanded in the tree. Procedures can be filtered by runway and type. Right-click on a procedure to get more options in the context menu, like centering the map on the procedure or adding it to your flight plan. Use the context menu of the flight plan table to remove procedures like any other waypoint. See Delete Selected Legs or Procedure. Procedure legs are highlighted in red if one or more navaids could not be resolved. A warning dialog will be displayed if you try to add this procedure to a flight plan. Picture above: Showing a transition and a RNAV approach. Start and endpoint of a transition leg are highlighted on the map. Procedure Tree Legs are shown in dark blue while missed approach legs are shown in dark red color. Bold red text indicates an error in the leg. The procedure is incomplete and should not be used in a flight plan. Description Course °M : Either description of the procedure or flight instruction for procedure legs. : Magnetic course for a leg. Dist./Time : Distance of flying time for a leg. Holds can have a leg time in minutes or a leg distance in nautical miles. Ident : Ident of the initial fix or name of the procedure. Fix name for legs. Restriction : Either minimum altitude for en route airway segment, procedure altitude restriction or procedure 79 Search Dock Window - Procedures speed limit. A / separates altitude and speed restriction. The following altitude restrictions exist for procedures: Number only: Fly at altitude or speed. Example: 5.400 or . 210 Prefix A : Fly at or above altitude or speed. Example: A 1.800 Prefix B : Fly at or below altitude or speed. Example: B 10.000 . or B 220 . Range: Fly at or above altitude one and at or below altitude two. Example: Altitude and speed limit: Values separated by Speed limit only: A prefixed Remarks / / . Example: A 8.000, B 10.000 A 8.000, B 10.000/B220 . . indicates no altitude but a speed restriction. Example: /B250 . : Shows fly-over, turn direction or related navaid for a procedure leg. Top Buttons Type Filter (All Procedures) The type filter is not available for an FSX or P3D stock database. A navdata update is needed to get SID and STAR procedures. This filter is always available for a X-Plane database which contains SIDs and STARs already in the stock data. The type filter allows the selections below: All Procedures : SID, STAR and approaches Departure Procedures Arrival Procedures : Only SID : STAR and approaches Only Approaches and Transitions : No SID and no STAR The respective transitions are always shown. Runway Filter (All Runways) This filter is always available and helps to find procedures for a certain departure or arrival runway. Clear Selection Deselect all entries in the table and remove any highlight circles from the map. Help Open this chapter of the manual in the default browser. Procedure Tree Context Menu Show on Map Center the map on the selected procedure. Follow Selection The map view will be zoomed on the selected procedure when this function is enabled. Insert into Flight Plan / Use as Destination / Use as Departure 80 Search Dock Window - Procedures Text and functionality of this menu item depends on the selected procedure type and whether the procedure's airport is already the departure or destination airport of the current flight plan. Use the context menu of the flight plan table to remove procedures. See Delete Selected Legs or Procedure. If a transition is selected, the corresponding procedure (approach, SID or STAR) is added or replaced as well. Insert ... into Flight Plan : This menu item will add the selected procedure to the current flight plan. A procedure of the same type (SID, STAR or approach with or without transition) will be replaced if already present in the flight plan. Use ... as Destination or Use ... as Departure : This will add or replace the destination or departure airport and add the selected procedure. If the flight plan is empty, the departure or destination airport is added to the flight plan as well. Expand All / Collapse All Expand all procedures so that their legs and transitions are shown or collapse the tree. Reset Search Clear search filters and revert to showing all procedures in the tree. Clear Selection Deselect the currently selected procedure and remove the preview from the map. Reset View Reset column order and column widths to default. 81 Navigation Databases Navigation Databases Little Navmap can use up to two databases in parallel: 1. Simulator database: Created by reading the scenery library of FSX, P3D or X-Plane. 2. Navigation database: Provided by Navigraph. Does not have to be compiled and can be updated by the Navigraph FMS Data Manager. Little Navmap is bundled with a navigation database from a recent AIRAC cycle that is enabled per default. See Install Navigraph Updates on my home page for information how to update Little Navmap's navigation data. Three display modes can be selected from the menu Scenery Library as shown below. Use Navigraph for all Features Uses only information from the Navigraph database. Note that airport information is limited in this mode. This means that aprons, taxiways, parking positions, runway surface information and fuel information are not available. Additionally, smaller airports might be missing. Runway layout might not match the runway layout in the simulator if you use stock or older airport scenery. An advantage of this mode is that approach procedures always match the airport runway layout. Picture above: Airport diagram for EDDN from simulator scenery (X-Plane) as shown in the modes Navigraph Database and Use Navigraph for Navaids and Procedures Do not use . Picture above: Airport EDDN from the Navigraph database while Use Navigraph for all Features is enabled. Note missing runway surface information and missing aprons, taxiways and parking positions. 82 Navigation Databases Do not use Navigraph Database Completely ignores the Navigraph database and shows only information read from the simulator scenery. Use Navigraph for Navaids and Procedures Default mode after installation or update of Little Navmap. This mode blends navaids and other features from the Navigraph database with the simulator database. This affects the map display, all information windows and and all search windows. The following features are taken from the simulator database when using this mode: Airports (also Search dock window, tab Airport ) Aprons Taxiways Parking positions COM frequencies ILS The following features are taken from the Navigraph database: Navaids (waypoints/intersections, VOR, NDB, marker) which affects: Search dock window, tab Navaid Flight plan calculation Route Description Procedures (approaches, SIDs and STARs). This affects: Search dock window, tab Procedures Loading and display of procedures from flight plans. Airways Airspaces Limitations in this mode Little Navmap ignores any mismatches between procedures and runways due to airport updates and will not display a warning. Update an airport using payware or freeware scenery if you find that an approach or departure procedure does not start at a runway end of an airport. Procedures cannot be recognized when selecting ident (e.g. Kulik Lake for all Features LKK to Show Procedures PAKL in the menu if an airport has changed its ICAO ). If you suspect such a case use the mode Use Navigraph to get the procedures for the airport. The airport search all Features : ident changed from Procedures only considers procedures available in the simulator. Switch to Use Navigraph for to look for airports that have procedures from the Navigraph database. ILS placement or presence might not match approach procedures if an airport has a new ILS which is not present in stock scenery or an old scenery add-on. If you encounter an ILS approach without ILS station, switch to Navigraph for all Features Use to overcome this limitation. Using the fsAerodata navdata update will mitigate or even remove all of the limitations above since it will synchronize the simulator scenery with the Navigraph database. 83 Navigation Databases Picture above: An extreme example for runway/procedure mismatch. The approach from the Navigraph database cycle 1707 ends at the not visible runway 09 while the outdated scenery from FSX shows the airport at the wrong position. EDVK was rebuild north of Calden in 2013. The OpenStreetMap backgound shows the new airport. 84 Flight Plan Formats Flight Plan Formats Little Navmap supports several flight plan formats, all of which have different limitations. Only some of these formats can be loaded and saved. The program uses different Save as ... file dialogs instead of just one. This means the directory for each file format is retained separately, removing the need to navigate back and forth between the FSX flight plan directory, the P3D flight plan directory and the X-Plane FMS output directory. Note the difference between current file name while Save Flight Plan as ... Save as ... and Export Flight Plan as ... : Export does not change the does. Feature Table The table below shows the capabilities of Little Navmap and the supported flight plan formats (X = supported, 0 = not supported): Read Write Airw. VFR/ IFR User Wpt. Names Dep. Parking Cruise Alt. Ground speed Proc. FSX PLN annotated X X X X X X X X X FSX PLN X X X X X X X 0 0 FS9 PLN clean X 0 X X X X X 0 0 FSC PLN X 0 X 0 X 0 0 0 0 X-Plane FMS 11 X X X 0 X 0 X 0 X X-Plane FMS 3 X X 0 0 X 0 X 0 0 FLP X X X 0 0 0 0 0 X Reality XP GNS FPL 0 X 0 0 X 0 0 0 0 Reality XP GTN GFP 0 X X 0 X2 0 0 0 X Flight1 GTN 0 X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 PMDG RTE 0 X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 TXT 0 X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 Majestic Dash FPR 1 0 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 IXEG 737 FPL 0 X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 FLTPLAN for iFly 0 X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 ProSim 0 X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 Format companyroutes.xml PLN for BBS Airbus 85 Flight Plan Formats UFMC 0 X X 0 0 0 0 0 FPL for XFMC 0 X X 0 0 0 0 0 0 X X 0 0 0 X 0 0 X 0 0 0 0 0 0 Flight Factor corte.in GPX Procedure waypoints are excluded from all file formats by default, except for GPX. You have to use the GPS or FMS in the simulator to select procedures. You can enable saving of waypoints by checking the menu items Save Waypoints for Approaches and/or Save Waypoints for SID and STAR. A dialog is shown if any unsupported features are detected in the current flight plan when trying to save a plan. You can disable this dialog for future saves if you know what you are doing. The current file name and type will change if you save a plan to a format that is readable and writable. This does not happen when exporting. An example shows how the program deals with the limited formats: 1. Create a flight plan including procedures. 2. Save as PLN - current filename changes to new file name NAME.pln . 3. Save as FMS - a warning is shown and after saving the current filename changes to new 4. Restart program - NAME.fms NAME.fms . will be reloaded and procedures are lost. 5. Now export as GFP - Current filename remains NAME.fms . User Waypoint Names User waypoint names will be adapted to format limitations when saving. That means that waypoint names can change when reloading a flight plan. PLN: Maximum length for FSX or Prepar3D is 10 charaters and no special characters are allowed. Unsupported characters will be removed and the length will be truncated. FMS: No spaces allowed. These will be replaced with underscores ( _ ). FLP: All user waypoint names will be replaced by coordinates. FSX PLN The format FSX PLN is used as a default format because it supports most features and allows to include additional information in form of annotations which will be ignored by flight simulators and most other tools. Note that P3D v4.2 overwrites the flight plan when loading, which erases all annotations. Save a copy of the plan to another location if you like to keep all information about procedures or speed. FS9 PLN File format of the Flight Simulator 2004. Uses the same PLN extension as the FSX PLN format. Little Navmap can only read this format. Therefore a warning dialog is shown before overwriting a file with the newer FSX PLN format. Clean PLN 86 Flight Plan Formats This is the same as the FSX PLN but without additional annotations which contain information about selected procedures or ground speed. Use this format if an application cannot deal with the annotated format. FMS 11 (X-Plane) New X-Plane FMS format which can be loaded into the stock GPS, the G1000 and the FMS of X-Plane 11.10. This is the default save format for X-Plane FMS now. Use the export function to save old FMS version 3 files. This format is supported as of X-Plane 11.10. It can already be used in the beta versions but might crash XPlane version 11.05 and below. Little Navmap can read and write this format. Store these files into the Output/FMS plans directory inside the X-Plane directory. FMS 3 (X-Plane) X-Plane FMS format which can be loaded into the stock GPS and FMS of X-Plane 10 and 11.05. The format is very limited and basically stores only a list of waypoints. Little Navmap can read and write this format. Store these files into the Output/FMS plans directory inside the X-Plane directory. FLP A format that can be read by the X-Plane FMS (not the X-Plane GPS), Aerosoft Airbus and other add-on aircraft. Supports airways and procedures. You can load these files into the X-Plane FMS including airway information. Procedures are saved in the FLP but cannot loaded yet by the FMS. You have to select these manually after loading the flight plan. Store these files into the Output/FMS plans directory inside the X-Plane directory if you want to use them in X-Plane. FPL (Reality XP Garmin GNS) Flight plan format as FPL file usable by the Reality XP GNS 530W/430W V2. This file format can only be exported. Reading is not supported. See below for information on known problems when exporting flight plan data for the GNS. Little Navmap considers the GNSAPPDATA environment variable if set. See the GNS manual for more information. The default directory to save the flight plans for the GNS units is C:\ProgramData\Garmin\GNS Trainer Data\GNS\FPL for all simulators. The directory will be created automatically by Little Navmap on first export if it does not exist. GFP (Reality XP Garmin GTN) Save flight plan as GFP file usable by the Reality XP GTN 750/650 Touch. This file format can only be exported. Reading is not supported. See below for information on known problems when exporting flight plan data for the GTN. Little Navmap considers the GTNSIMDATA environment variable if set. See the GTN manual for more information. 87 Flight Plan Formats Garmin GTN Trainer 6.41 The default directory to save the flight plans for the GTN units is C:\ProgramData\Garmin\Trainers\GTN\FPLN for all simulators. The directory will be created automatically by Little Navmap on first export if it does not exist. Garmin GTN Trainer 6.21 If you're using the trainer version 6.21 then the default path is C:\ProgramData\Garmin\GTN Trainer Data\GTN\FPLN . You have to create this directory manually and then navigate to it in the file dialog when saving. Little Navmap will remember the selected directory. GFP (Flight1 Garmin GTN) This is the flight plan format used by the Flight1 GTN 650/750. This file format can only be exported. Reading is not supported. See below for information on problems when exporting flight plan data for the GTN. The default directories to save the flight plans for the GTN units are: Prepar3D v3: C:\Program Files (x86)\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3\F1TGTN\FPL Prepar3D v4: C:\Program Files\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\F1TGTN\FPL Flight Simulator X: . . C:\ProgramFiles(x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator X\F1GTN\FPL You might need to change the user privileges on this directory if your saved flight plans do not show up in the GTN. Give yourself full control and/or ownership of this directory to avoid this. A typical symptom is that you can save the flight plan in Little Navmap and you can also see the saved plan in Little Navmap's open dialogs but it does not show up in the GTN unit. Change the privileges of the export directory as mentioned above if that is the case. The file is a simple text format containing only one line of text. Example for the content of a flight plan file named CYPU.gfp KEAT- : FPN/RI:F:KEAT:F:EAT.V120.SEA.V495.CONDI.V338.YVR.V330.TRENA:F:N50805W124202:F:N51085W124178:F:CAG3:F:N51846W124150:F:CYPU RTE (PMDG) A PMDG RTE file. File location depends on the used aircraft but is usually PMDG\FLIGHTPLANS in the simulator base directory. TXT (JARDesign and Rotate Simulations) A simple file format usable by JARDesign or Rotate Simulations aircraft. Location depends on the used aircraft which is usually in the X-Plane directory aircraft . The file is a simple text format containing only one line of text. Example for the content of a CBZ9CYDC.txt TXT file named : CBZ9 SID AIRIE V324 YKA B8 DURAK STAR CYDC FPR (Majestic Dash) Flight plan format for the Majestic Software MJC8 Q400. Note that the export is currently limited to a list of waypoints. The flight plan has to be saved to YOURSIMULATOR\SimObjects\Airplanes\mjc8q400\nav\routes . 88 Flight Plan Formats Note that the FMC in the Dash will show invalid coordinates when you press INFO on a waypoint or airport. The flight plan, navigation and autopilot are not affected otherwise. FPL (IXEG Boeing) Exports the current flight plan as a FPL file usable by the IXEG Boeing 737. The format is the same as TXT but with a different file extension. The file should be saved to XPLANE\Aircraft\X-Aviation\IXEG 737 Classic\coroutes . You have to create the directory manually if it does not exist. corte.in (Flight Factor Airbus) A format for the Flight Factor Airbus. The file is not truncated and flight plans are appended when saving. Flight plans are saved in a slightly extended ATS route notation which also allows to save the cruise altitude and approach procedures. Edit the file with a simple text editor if you want to remove flight plans. Example: RTE ETOPS002 EINN 06 UNBE2A UNBEG DCT 5420N DCT NICSO N236A ALLEX Q822 ENE DCT CORVT KJFK I22R JFKBOS01 CI30 FL360 RTE EDDFEGLL EDDF 25C BIBT4G BIBTI UZ29 NIK UL610 LAM EGLL I27R LAM CI25 FL330 FLTPLAN (iFly 737NG) Flight plan format for the iFly 737NG for FSX or P3D. The file has to be saved to YOURSIMULATOR/iFly/737NG/navdata/FLTPLAN . Procedures cannot be saved. companyroutes.xml (ProSim) A flight plan format for ProSim. The flight plan is appended to the file companyroutes.xml when saving. Remove flight plans manually in a text editor. Little Navmap creates up to two backup files when saving the flight plan: companyroutes.xml_lnm_backup.1 companyroutes.xml_lnm_backup and . Procedures cannot be saved. Example: PLN (BBS Airbus) This format is for the Blackbox Simulations Airbus for FSX or P3D. Save this to Simulation/Company Routes or YOURSIMULATOR/BlackBox Simulation/Airbus A330 YOURSIMULATOR/Blackbox depending on aircraft type. This format cannot save procedures. UFMC (Universal Flight Management Computer) 89 Flight Plan Formats A flight plan format for the UFMC. The format does not allow saving of procedures. Save the flight plan to XPLANE\Custom Data\UFMC\FlightPlans . FPL for X-FMC (Universal FMC for X-Plane) Save flight plan as FPL file for the X-FMC. The format does not allow saving of procedures. The file should be saved to Path to XPLANE\Resources\plugins\XFMC\FlightPlans . GPX GPX is not a flight plan format. The GPS Exchange Format can be read by Google Earth and most other GIS applications. The flight plan is embedded as a route and the flown aircraft trail as a track including simulator time and altitude. The route has departure and destination elevation and cruise altitude set for all waypoints. Waypoints of all procedures are included in the exported file. Note that the waypoints will not allow to reproduce all parts of a procedure like holds or procedure turns. Notes about the Garmin Formats GFP and FPL Various problems can appear when reading exported flight plans into the Garmin units. Most of these are a result of the Garmin navigation database which uses data of an older AIRAC cycle (mostly 1611 at the time of writing). Updated simulator or add-on databases (like the one in Little Navmap) can use the latest navdata or an old one from FSX or P3D stock data. X-Plane 11.10 stock navdata is currently based on 1611. Any waypoints, airways or procedures that are removed, added or renamed over time can cause locked waypoints or other messages when reading a flight plan into the GNS or GTN. It is easy to remove locked waypoints within the GNS or GTN to enable the flight plan to be activated. Refer to the documentation of the Garmin unit. Little Navmap allows to change the Garmin export to replace all waypoints with user-defined waypoints to avoid locking. While this is a sufficient approach to avoid the locked waypoints it comes with a few limitations: Departure and destination airport are not saved as user-defined waypoints. These have to exist in the Garmin navigation database. Navaid information like frequencies cannot be displayed since the waypoint cannot be related to the radio navaid. Procedures like SID and STAR cannot be saved with the flight plan and have to be selected manually. The GTN (not the GNS) changes all names to a generic USERWPT... scheme. The export of user-defined waypoints can be enabled in the options dialog on tab Flight Plan . 1 . The FPR format does allow saving of airways and procedures but this will be implemented in a future release of Little Navmap. ↩ 2. User-defined waypoints will be renamed when loading into the GTN. ↩ 90 Flight Plan Dock Window Flight Plan Dock Window Upper Part The top shows a label that contains departure, departure position (parking, runway or helipad), destination, flight plan distance, traveling time, used procedures and flight plan type. Besides the label there are three input fields on top of this dock window: Speed (kts): Ground speed. The value of this field is used only for calculating traveling times in the table view: Leg Time and ETA (estimated time of arrival at a waypoint given 0:00 as start time). It is saved as an annotation with the flight plan and not used for simulator user aircraft calculations. Cruise altitude (ft): This value is saved with the flight plan and is also used to calculate an airway flight plan based on given altitude. This field is set automatically to the minimum altitude for a flight plan if a plan along Victor or Jet airways is calculated and altitude restrictions were found. See Calculate based on given Altitude. Flight Plan Type (IFR or VFR): This is saved with the flight plan. Flight Plan Table The table view allows the same operations as the search table view except sorting. See here for more information. All selected elements in the flight plan table view will be highlighted on the map using a black/green circle. See Highlights for more information. Use Shift+Click or Ctrl+Click to select two or more elements (multi-selection). The active flight plan leg is highlighted in magenta when Little Navmap is connected to a simulator. Procedure legs have dark blue color and legs of a missed approach have a dark red color. If a waypoint of a flight plan cannot be found in the database it will be displayed in red. This can happen if the used AIRAC cycles do no match. The same applies to airways. The position on the map is still correct. Picture above: The waypoint ALTAG and parts of the airway V324 could not be found in the database. Table Columns Ident : ICAO ident of the navaid or airport. Region Name : Two letter region code of a navaid. : Name of airport or radio navaid. Procedure Type Approach or : The type of this leg's procedure. Missed Airway or Procedure Restriction SID , SID Transition , STAR , STAR Transition , Transition , . : Contains the airway name for en route legs or procedure instruction. : Either minimum altitude for en route airway segment, procedure altitude restriction or procedure 91 Flight Plan Dock Window speed limit. A / separates altitude and speed restriction. The following altitude restrictions exist for procedures: Number only: Fly at altitude or speed. Example: 5.400 or . 210 Prefix A : Fly at or above altitude or speed. Example: A 1.800 Prefix B : Fly at or below altitude or speed. Example: B 10.000 . or B 220 . Range: Fly at or above altitude one and at or below altitude two. Example: Altitude and speed limit: Values separated by Speed limit only: A prefixed Type / / . Example: A 8.000, B 10.000 A 8.000, B 10.000/B220 . . indicates no altitude but a speed restriction. Example: /B250 . : Type of a radio navaid. Freq. : Frequency or channel of a radio navaid. Range : Range of a radio navaid. Course °M: ** This is the start course of the great circle route connecting the two waypoints of the leg. Use this course at departure if you travel long distances without navaids. Be aware that you have to change you course constantly when traveling along a great circle line. Direct °M: ** This is the constant course of the rhumb line connecting two waypoints of a leg. Depending on route and distance it can differ from the course of the great circle line. Use this course if you travel along airways or towards VOR or NDB stations. Opposed to the course shown by the flight simulator GPS unit this will give you the precise radial when approaching a VOR or NDB on a flight plan. Distance : Distance of the flight plan leg. Remaining Leg Time ETA : Remaining distance to destination airport or procedure end point (usually the runway). : Flying time for this leg. Calculated based on the given ground speed. : Estimated time of arrival. This is a static value and not updated while flying. Remarks : Turn instructions, flyover or related navaid for procedure legs. Picture above: The Flight Plan dock window. The flight plan uses a SID for departure and a STAR, a transition and an approach for arrival. Mouse Clicks A double-click on an entry in the table view shows either an airport diagram or zooms to the navaid. Additionally, details are shown in the Information dock window. A single click selects an object and highlights it on the map using a black/green circle. Top Button Clear Selection 92 Flight Plan Dock Window Deselect all entries in the table and remove any highlight circles from the map. Flight Plan Table View Context Menu Show Information Same as the Map Context Menu. Show on Map Show either the airport diagram or zoom to the navaid on the map. The zoom distance can be changed in the dialog Options on the tab Map . Move Selected Legs up/down Move all selected flight plan legs up or down in the list. This works also if multiple legs are selected. Airway names will be removed when waypoints in the flight plan are moved or deleted because the new flight plan legs will not follow any airway but rather use direct connections. Procedures or procedure legs cannot be moved and waypoints cannot be moved into or across procedures. Delete Selected Legs or Procedure Delete all selected flight plan legs. Use Undo if you delete legs accidentally. The whole procedure is deleted if the selected flight plan leg is a part of a procedure. Deleting a procedure deletes its transition too. Edit Name of User Waypoint Allows to change the name of a user-defined waypoint. The length of the name is limited to 10 characters. Calculate for selected Legs This is a submenu containing entries for flight plan calculation methods as described here: Calculate Radionav, Calculate high Altitude, Calculate low Altitude and Calculate based on given Altitude. Calculate a flight plan fragment between the first and last selected waypoint. All existing legs in between are deleted and replaced with the calculated flight plan fragment. This menu is only active when more than one flight plan leg is selected and neither the first nor the last selected row is a procedure. You can either select the first and the last leg ( whole range of legs ( Shift+Click Ctrl+Click ) and start the calculation or you can select a and drag) before calculation. This function can be useful if you have to cross oceanic legs that are void of airways: 1. Set departure and destination. 93 Flight Plan Dock Window 2. Find the last waypoint on an airway before entering the ocean. Choose the closest to the flight plan line. Add the waypoint to the flight plan. 3. Select departure and this waypoint and calculate the flight plan fragment. 4. Repeat the process for the first waypoint on an airway close to the coast of your destination continent. 5. Select this waypoint and the destination and calculate the flight plan fragment. While not entirely realistic, this is a sensible workaround until Little Navmap supports NAT or PACOT tracks. Show Range Rings Same as the Map Context Menu. Show Navaid range Show the range rings for all selected radio navaids in the flight plan. Simply select all legs of the flight plan and use this function to display a range circle for each radio navaid in the flight plan. Otherwise, the same as the Map Context Menu. Remove all Range Rings and Distance measurements Same as the Map Context Menu. Copy Copy the selected entries in CSV format to the clipboard. The CSV will include a header. This will observe changes to the table view like column order. Select All Select all flight plan legs. Clear Selection Deselect all currently selected flight plan legs and remove any highlight circles from the map. Reset View Reset the column order and column widths to default. Set Center for Distance Search Same as the Map Context Menu. 94 Flight Plan Procedures Procedures General Departure and arrival procedures will typically be used when flying an airliner, but smaller aircraft, too, have to use at least an approach procedure at their destination when flying IFR. Flight simulator stock data provides only approaches and transitions. SIDs and STARs are not available. These can be added by navdata updates. An airline flight containing all variations can use the following procedures or segments: 1. Departure airport 2. SID 3. SID Transition 4. En route airway system 5. STAR transition 6. STAR 7. Transition to approach 8. Approach 9. Destination A small aircraft IFR flight can use the following procedures or segments: 1. Departure airport 2. En route airway system 3. Transition to approach 4. Approach 5. Destination Note that transitions make only sense together with an approach, a SID or a STAR which will guide you to or from the runway. You can select a transition only together with the respective procedure (although the SID may be empty and consist only of a transition). If you delete a procedure from the flight plan, its transition will be deleted too. Procedure information is saved together with a flight plan as an annotation in the PLN file and will be restored by Little Navmap when loading the flight plan. Procedure waypoints are excluded from all flight plan formats by default. You have to use the GPS or FMS in the simulator to select procedures. Procedure waypoints are not saved in the flight plan since the PLN format does not support all the different leg types and the flight simulator would not be able to display them correctly. Select the procedures manually in your GPS or FMC as needed. You can enable saving of waypoints by checking the menu items Save Waypoints for Approaches and/or Save Waypoints for SID and STAR. Inserting a Procedure into a Flight Plan Right-click on an airport in the map, the airport search table, or the flight plan table, and select Show Departure Procedures dock window Search , Show Arrival Procedures Show Procedures ) from the context menu. This will show the tab Procedures (or in the . Insert a procedure into the flight plan using the context menu in the procedure tree view. See Procedure Search for more information. Deleting a Procedure from a Flight Plan 95 Flight Plan Procedures Deleting a Procedure from a Flight Plan Deleting a single leg that is part of a procedure will remove the whole procedure and its transition. Deleting a leg that is part of a transition will remove only the transition. Picture above: About to remove the transition MUN of the approach RNAV BEGEN from the flight plan. Limitations when editing a flight plan with procedures Deleting a leg of a procedure will remove the whole procedure from the flight plan. You cannot move a procedure leg up or down neither can you move or add a flight plan leg into a procedure. You cannot add waypoints in between procedures (e.g. between a STAR and an approach). Waypoints can only be added to the route between departure and arrival procedures. You cannot add waypoints between departure airport and a SID procedure. You cannot add waypoints between arrival procedure and destination airport. If you delete or replace the departure airport all SID procedures are removed too. If you delete or replace the destination airport all approach and arrival procedures are removed too. Flying Procedures Procedure legs are pre-calculated, with the exception of holds and procedure turns. This means you can fly them mostly as they are drawn on the map. If in doubt about how to fly a leg (e.g. if too many lines are overlapping) look at the procedure table in the flight plan window. 96 Flight Plan Procedures Holds No entry or exit procedure is shown. You have to find a proper entry procedure yourself. Holds have a straight leg flying time in minutes or a distance. If a time is given, fly the hold as usual: 1. Enter at the fix using a proper entry procedure 2. Do a standard turn 3. Fly the straight leg for the given time (typically one minute) 4. Do standard turn 5. Fly to fix 6. Exit hold when done or instructed by ATC Do not follow the lines exactly, they are just an indicator for what to fly. An exception are holds where a distance is given for the straight leg. The hold size will match the distance in this case. Picture above: A hold with 2 nautical miles straight segment length. Enter and exit at ZUNAD and fly at or above 2600 feet. Course is 61° magnetic degrees. Exiting a Hold Little Navmap will detect when a hold is exited and advance the active leg to the next one if one of the two conditions is met: 1. If the next leg continues after or at the hold fix: When approaching the hold fix after one circuit continue straight on. The next leg will be activated after half a nautical mile up to one nautical mile. 2. If the next leg starts before the hold fix: Exit the hold at its fix. Exit right turn holds to the left and vice versa (i.e. turn outside the hold). Proceed to the fix of the next leg which will be activated. You can activate the next leg manually if you do not exit the hold at its fix. Right-click in the flight plan table on the next leg and select Activate Flight Plan Leg . Procedure turns The flight simulator data moves the turn point of a procedure turn 10 nautical miles out from the fix which is usually too far away. Fly the procedure turn as usual: Minimum one minute from the fix. Use more if you need space to catch the next fix after the course reversal. Then turn using an teardrop or a standard 45/180 degree turn. Again: Follow the procedures, not the lines. 97 Flight Plan Procedures Picture above: A procedure turn. Fly at least one minute outbound 61° from turn 180° and fly to LAMMB , then 242° to ABERN ABERN , turn left to 16°, fly one minute, . Distances All procedure legs, with the exception of holds and procedure turns, are included when calculating flight distance. This means the total flight plan distance as well as the top of descent point will change when selecting an approach or a transition. The top of descent point calculation does not consider altitude restrictions in procedures. Special Leg Types All procedure leg types ( Track to Fix , Initial Fix and more) that are shown in Little Navmap are based on the ARINC 424 path terminator concept. A deeper knowledge of these leg types is not important for the simulator pilot with the exception of two types that are added by Little Navmap. Start of Procedure : This leg is added if a procedure does not start with an initial fix but rather with a course, heading or track to a fix. It indicates the first position of the procedure and is not related to a fix. Proceed to Runway in a SID: The first leg of a SID to indicate the start position on the runway. The program might fall back to the airport center if the runway could not be found. The altitude restriction indicates the elevation of the runway. Proceed to Runway in an approach: This leg is added to an approach procedure to show the course line from a missed approach point (MAP) to the runway end. It is added if an approach does not end with a runway fix and has an altitude restriction 50 feet above the threshold. Fix Types in a Procedure Waypoints: Terminal waypoints or radio navaids. Some are marked as Radial and distance: Example: Distance to DME: Example: WIK/7nm/291°M WIK/9nm flyover in the approach table. . A fix defined by a course or heading and distance to a navaid. . This fix is defined by a heading or track which is terminated by reaching a DME distance. Intercept Course to Fix Intercept Leg Altitude : Intercept a course to the next fix at an angle of about 45 degrees. : Intercept the next approach leg at a course of about 45 degrees. : A leg or hold that is terminated by reaching a certain altitude and is used mostly on missed approaches. Since the distance depends on the aircraft, 2 nautical miles length are used for this leg. You can ignore the line and proceed to the next leg once the altitude criteria is satisfied. Manual : Fly a heading, track or a hold until manually terminated by ATC. Runway fixes are prefixed with RW . They usually have an altitude restriction a few feet above the runway. Higher altitude restrictions (i.e. > 500 ft) indicate a circling approach. 98 Flight Plan Procedures Altitude and Speed Restrictions Restrictions are shown on the map and in the flight plan table. Number only: Fly at altitude or speed. Map examples: 5400ft or 210kts Prefix A : Fly at or above altitude or speed. Map example: A1800ft Prefix B : Fly at or below altitude or speed. Map example: B10000ft or or . A200kts B240kts . . Range: Fly at or above the first altitude and at or below the second altitude. Map example: A8000B10000ft . Same for speed. Related Navaids Many fixes have a related or recommended navaid. This can be a VOR, NDB, ILS or a waypoint. The related navaid comes with radial and distance values that can be used to locate waypoints when flying without GPS or simply for cross checking the position. Missed Approaches Missed approach legs are activated once the simulator aircraft passes the last point of an approach. The display of remaining flight plan distance will switch to display of remaining distance to last missed approach leg. No missed approach legs are activated if missed approaches are not shown. Leg Highlights on the Map Up to three points will be highlighted when clicking on a procedure leg in the tree in the search window: A small blue circle shows the beginning of the leg. The end of the leg is shown by a large blue circle. A thin circle shows the location of the recommended or related fix if available. Invalid Data A leg entry will drawn red if a navaid was not resolved during the scenery database loading process. This happens only when the source data is not valid or incomplete. In this case, the resulting procedure is not usable and a warning dialog will be shown if essential navaids are missing. 99 Flight Plan Edit Position Edit Flight Plan Position This dialog allows to edit a user-defined flight plan position that was added with Add Position to Flight Plan or Append Position to Flight Plan. Name You can enter any string but all invalid characters will be removed when saving as a FSX/P3D PLN file. Other file formats have more limitations. Allowed are upper and lower case letters, digits, underscore _ and space. All other characters are removed when the flight plan is saved and long names are truncated to 10 characters. Coordinates You can also edit the coordinates directly in this dialog besides using the drag and drop Map Flight Plan Editing. This can be useful if you'd like to add waypoints with well known coordinates like visual reporting points. The tooltip of the coordinate input field shows the available formats. See Coordinate Formats for more information. Picture above: Editing a user-defined flight plan position. 100 Flight Plan Route Description Flight Plan Route Description This dialog allows you to create a flight plan from a route description as generated or provided by various online services. The New Flight Plan from Route Description dialog opens with the route description for the current flight plan which also contains information about speed and cruise altitude if enabled. The top half of the dialog holds the route description input field, while the bottom half shows any messages, warnings or errors that occur during reading. The menu button provides a dropdown menu than can be used to customize the generated route string. The description parser will try to use as much of the route as possible even if parts of the flight plan like waypoints or airways cannot be found or names are ambiguous. You will see warnings in the bottom half if that is the case. If a route covers a long distance and contains a waypoint name which is not unique, a wrong waypoint might be added to the flight plan. Correct or remove this waypoint manually. Many waypoints and airways will not be found if route descriptions from the latest AIRAC sources are used together with FSX/P3D stock data from 2005. It is recommended to use a navigation data update for the stock scenery when reading route descriptions from online sources like RouteFinder, Online Flight Planner, SimBrief or SkyVector. If a navdata update is not an option, pick the online service's AIRAC cycle that is closest to the cycle the navigation data of your flight simulator is based on. Note that even flight plans calculated in Little Navmap cannot be converted back exactly in some cases. This happens due to navaid ambiguities like NDB and VOR stations having the same names or errors in the source data. The cruise speed and altitude are used to create the flight plan if given. Otherwise the cruise altitude is automatically determined by the flight plan type (IFR or VFR) and the minimum altitude of the used airway segments. SID and STAR procedures require a navdata update except for X-Plane which already comes with a complete navigation database. 101 Flight Plan Route Description Picture above: A route description that was read successfully with a few warnings about ignored elements. The waypoint could not be found. Speed, altitude, SID and STAR were recognized. The ground speed of 433 knots is LLL calculated based on given mach number 0.74 and standard atmosphere conditions. Buttons : Copy the current description as plain text to the clipboard. To Clipboard From Clipboard : Insert text from clipboard into the input field. The inserted text is converted to upper case and all invalid characters are removed from the text. Update from Flight Plan : Create the route string from the current flight plan again. Use this after changing settings with drop down menu button. Read Route Description : Reads the route description and displays any messages, warnings and errors in the bottom half of the dialog. The current flight plan is not affected by this action. / IFR : Defines the type of the generated flight plan and the automatically determined cruise altitude. VFR Menu Button : Add departure and destination airport : Note that disabling this option will result in a route string which cannot be read back into a flight plan. Add DCT (direct) instructions : Add DCT Add cruise speed and altitude instruction for any direct waypoint connections in the flight plan. : Add cruise altitude from flight plan and ground speed as set in the flight plan dock window. Add SID and STAR : Add SID and STAR names if any are used for departure or arrival. Add generic SID and STAR : Add the generic SID and STAR keywords if no real SID and/or STAR were selected. : Does not insert any airway names but uses waypoints only. Add Waypoints instead of Airways : Closes the dialog and creates a new flight plan for the parsed route description and replaces Create Flight Plan the current plan. You have to click Read Route Description before you can create a flight plan. Format The route description has to follow the format rules below: FROM[ETD] [SPEEDALT] [SID][.TRANS] [ENROUTE] [STAR][.TRANS] TO[ETA] [ALTERNATES] All elements in square brackets are optional. FROM and Examples: ALTERNATES TO : These are the required 3 or 4 letter idents for departure and destination airports. KEAT , CYPU , S16 . : Alternate airports are optional and are simply appended to the flight plan. Alternates cannot be used in combination with an approach procedure. SPEEDALT ENROUTE : An optional entry that contains the cruise speed and altitude. See below for a details. : This is a list of either WAYPOINT or an AIRWAYWAYPOINT forming the actual flight plan. The first entry has to be an airport, waypoint, VOR or NDB. WAYPOINT : A waypoint, VOR, NDB, airport or user-defined coordinates. See below for a details about coordinates. A waypoint can be prefixed with an optional /SPEEDALT Examples: TAU AIRWAYWAYPOINT Examples: , to indicate a direct connection not using an airway. Waypoints can be suffixed with DCT value although this is ignored. BOMBI , AST , CL , EDDF . : Airway and end waypoint on the airway separated by a space. V495 CONDI , V338 YVR , V330 TRENA . 102 Flight Plan Route Description and SID.TRANS STAR.TRANS : Either the words transition is separated by a Examples: RDHK2.HOLLE , . SID or STAR . The generic keywords OHIO3.LFK , RDHK2 , OHIO3 SID or real SID, STAR and transition names where the optional and STAR create a direct connection to the en route part. . Features not supported ETD and ETA : Four digit departure and arrival time attached to the airport ident are ignored. WAYPOINT.SPEEDALT : For example BOMBI/N0090A060 . Altitude changes at waypoints are not supported and ignored when reading. Speed and Altitude Cruising ground speed and cruising level not separated by a space. Speed is prefixed with: K : Kilometers per hour followed by a four digit value. N : Knots followed by a four digit value. M : Mach followed by a three digit value. The mach value is converted to knots ground speed assuming standard atmosphere conditions at the give flight altitude. Altitude is prefixed with: F :Flight level in three digits. S : Metric flight level in three digits of tens of meters. A : Altitude in hundreds of feet in three digits. M : Altitude in tens of meter in four digits. Examples: 410 knots at flight level 310. N0410F310 M071F320 Mach 0.71 at flight level 320. K0790M0710 790 kilometers per hour at 7100 meters. Coordinates Coordinates can be supplied in different formats: Degrees only (7 characters): Two digits and north/south indicator plus three digits and east/west indicator. Example: 51N010E Degrees and minutes (11 characters): Two digits degrees, two digits for minutes and north/south indicator. Then three digits for degrees, two digits for minutes and east/west indicator. Example: 4010N03822W . Degrees, minutes and seconds (15 characters): Two digits degrees, two digits for minutes, two digits for seconds and north/south indicator. Then three digits for degrees, two digits for minutes, two digits for seconds and east/west indicator. This format is used by SkyVector for example. Example: 481200N0112842E . 103 Flight Plan Route Description North Atlantic track points (NAT). Two digits degrees north and two digits degrees west followed by character Example: 5010N . N . Coordinate waypoint pairs with degrees and minutes as above and prefixed with north/south and east/west indicator. Examples: N4200 W02000 or N4200/W02000 . Garmin GFP format (13 characters) north/south indicator, two digits degrees, three digits for minutes by 10. Then east/west indicator, three digits degrees, three digits minutes by 10. This format is used by the Flight1 GTN 650/750. Example: N48194W123096 Flight Plan Description Examples Frankfurt Main (EDDF) to Fiumicino (LIRF): Direct connection: EDDF LIRF or EDDF DCT LIRF . VOR to VOR: EDDF FRD KPT BOA CMP LIRF . Same as above with departure time ( EDDF1200 FRD KPT BOA CMP LIRF1300 ETD ) and arrival time ( ETA ) which both will be ignored: . Same as above on flight level 310 at 410 knots: EDDF N0410F310 DCT FRD DCT KPT DCT BOA DCT CMP DCT LIRF Using Jet airways: EDDF ASKIK T844 KOVAN UL608 TEDGO UL607 UTABA UM738 NATAG Y740 LORLO M738 AMTEL M727 TAQ LIRF Same as above on flight level 310 at mach 0.71 with an additional speed and altitude at NATAG which will be ignored: EDDF M071F310 SID ASKIK T844 KOVAN UL608 TEDGO UL607 UTABA UM738 NATAG/M069F350 Y740 LORLO M738 AMTEL M727 TAQ STAR LIRF User-defined waypoints with degree/minute notation and an alternate airport LIRE : EDDF N0174F255 4732N00950E 4627N01019E 4450N01103E LIRF LIRE Flight plan using SID and STAR procedures with transitions: KPWA RDHK2.HOLLE ATOKA J25 FUZ J33 CRIED J50 LFK OHIO3.LFK KHOU Flight plan using the generic SID and STAR keywords: KPWA SID ATOKA J25 FUZ J33 CRIED J50 LFK STAR KHOU 104 Flight Plan Elevation Profile Dock Window Flight Plan Elevation Profile Dock Window This dock window shows the ground elevation and flight plan cruise altitude together will all flight plan waypoints. It is only available when a flight plan is loaded. The user aircraft will be shown too if Little Navmap is connected to the simulator. Elevation processing is done in the background since data has to be downloaded and computation is CPU intensive. Therefore, the update of the elevation display can take from a few seconds up to half a minute. This background update is started after creating or changing the flight plan or when new elevation data was downloaded. The display will be updated accordingly whenever new data is available. Close the Flight Plan Elevation Profile window if you think that it causes performance problems or stutters. All updates will stop once the window is closed. Be aware that the elevation display covers only the flight plan and will not change the depiction if you get off flight plan with your simulator aircraft. The flight plan is only shown at cruise level and the descent segment. Although, you will see your user aircraft and trail climbing and descending. Online Elevation Data Note that the online elevation data does not cover all countries and currently ends at 60 degrees north. The data contains multiple known errors. The calculation of online elevation points is limited to flight plan segments not longer than 2000 nautical miles to avoid overloading. Add more waypoints or calculate a flight plan to avoid this limitation. Offline Elevation Data Using the freely downloadable GLOBE - Global Land One-km Base Elevation Project elevation data has several advantages: Faster updates World wide coverage No known errors Display of altitude below the cursor in the status bar See the dialog Cache and Files in the options dialog for instructions how to download and install the GLOBE data. Profile Window Additional information is shown in a label on top of the window if the mouse is hovered over the diagram. The corresponding position within the flight plan is highlighted on the map too. Following information is shown in the top label if connected to a flight simulator with an active session: Distance from user aircraft to flight plan destination Distance to the top of descent In addition, the information below is shown in the top label when hovering the mouse over the diagram: From and to waypoint 105 Flight Plan Elevation Profile Dock Window Distance from departure and to destination from the position of the mouse cursor. Ground elevation at cursor position. Flight plan cruise altitude above ground. Safe altitude for the current flight plan leg at the position of the mouse cursor. For more information see the Navmap tab in the Legend dock window or the Nav Map Legend for details. Picture above: Flight plan elevation profile with line indicating the mouse hovering position. Orange lines show minimum safe altitude for flight plan segments. Top of descent point is shown on the upper right part of the window. 106 Information Dock Window Information Dock Window This dock window contains text information about airports in several tabs as well as information for one or more navaids, airways in another tab plus an additional tab showing airspace information. A tab Weather also includes decoded weather information for the selected airport. All information can be copied to the clipboard as formatted text. Use the context menu of the text fields or use to select all and Ctrl+C Ctrl+A to copy the content to the clipboard. Information is shown when selecting one of the Show Information for ... context menu items in the map, flight plan dock window or the search result table. One airport and all navaids are loaded into the information display if multiple objects are close to where you right-clicked on the map. A blue link the tab Map allows jumping to the shown airport or navaid on the map. Additional links for helipads are available in Runways/Helipads . An airway is always displayed with all its waypoints. Click any blue waypoint link to center the map around the waypoint. The information about airports and navaids includes one or more links at the bottom of the object information in section Scenery . These links point to the matching BGL (FSX, P3D) or DAT (X-Plane) files that contain information about the airport or navaid. Click the links to open the containing folder in your file manager (e.g. Windows Explorer). If possible, the matching file will be selected automatically. Multiple links can appear for airports since these can be modified by multiple BGL or DAT files from different add-on sceneries or navdata updates. 107 Information Dock Window Picture above: Airport information overview. Additional tabs show information for runways, COM frequencies, approaches and weather. 108 Information Dock Window Picture above: Navaid information. Two navaids were close to the cursor when clicked. Simulator Aircraft Dock Window This dock window shows information about the user aircraft and about AI or multiplayer aircraft in several tabs. Little Navmap has to be connected to the simulator to enable this feature. See Connecting to a Flight Simulator for more information on this topic. Tab Aircraft Gives an overview about the user aircraft and shows type, weight and fuel information. 109 Information Dock Window Picture above: Aircraft information when connected to a Flight Simulator. Tab Progress Shows information similar to a flight management computer about the user aircraft. This covers flight plan progress, altitude, speed, ambient and environment parameters. 110 Information Dock Window Picture above: Progress and ambient information of the current flight situation. Some fields or tables like Waypoint Next are only available when a flight plan is loaded. Tab AI / Multiplayer Information about an AI or multiplayer aircraft from the simulator (not online networks) or ship is displayed in this tab if a vehicle is clicked on the map. 111 Information Dock Window This also includes the aircraft's departure and destination airports that can be shown on the map by clicking on the blue links (only for FSX or P3D and if a flight plan is filed). Note that information on AI aircraft is limited on X-Plane. Only position, altitude and heading can be displayed. Picture above: Information about an AI aircraft. Legend Dock Window Contains two tabs: One tab Navmap explaining the various airport and navaid symbols and a tab Map which shows the general legend for the base map like the OpenStreetMap for example. The contents of the Navmap legend are also available in the online manual: Nav Map Legend. Note that the general map legend is not available for all map themes. 112 Weather Weather Little Navmap can display METARs from several sources: FSX or P3D if connected. This also applies to network setups. X-Plane real time weather from the METAR.rwx file. Not available when Little Navmap runs on a different computer than your flight simulator. NOAA online weather service VATSIM network online weather service HiFi Simulation Technologies: Active Sky Next (ASN) AS16 Active Sky for Prepar3D v4 (ASP4) You can define in the tooltips or the tab Options Weather dialog on the in the Information Weather tab which sources are used to display the METAR information in dock window. You have to set the base path for X-Plane in the Load Scenery Library dialog to enable reading of the weather file. Certain features like regions of manually created weather files are not supported. METARs are shown in the airport tooltips and on the sources is available in the tab Weather Airport overview tab. Decoded weather information for all . The date and time information of the decoded weather display is highlighted in red if the METAR information is older than six hours. Notes about X-Plane weather: Little Navmap can only read the X-Plane METAR.rwx file which contains downloaded online weather. The program cannot read custom weather situations from X-Plane. If you use custom weather, Little Navmap only has access to the local weather around the aircraft. Be aware that Little Navmap might display information from an obsolete or inactive downloaded weather file. 113 Weather Picture above: Decoded weather information from two online sources. Flight simulator is not connected. Flight Simulator Weather information from a flight simulator or the X-Plane METAR.rwx falls in one of three categories, depending on the selected airport: Station : The airport has a weather station. This is the most precise weather indication. Nearest : The selected airport has no weather station and the report from the closest existing weather station was fetched. The ident of the closest station as well as distance and elevation are shown in the METAR and on the decoded weather tab. Note that the this weather station is not necessarily an airport. Interpolated (not for X-Plane): The weather is interpolated by the flight simulator using three stations closest to the selected airport. FSX and P3D only provide non-interpolated weather for airports close to the user aircraft. The weather for other airports is always interpolated. The ident of the selected airport is used in the METAR report for this kind of weather report. The flight simulator weather is updated every 15 seconds to catch changes in the weather theme. Little Navmap watches the X-Plane METAR.rwx file for changes and will apply updates immediately. Note that the nearest weather will not necessarily depict the weather at the selected station due to the interpolation between multiple stations which is done by the simulator. Online - NOAA and VATSIM Online weather from both sources is updated every 10 minutes. 114 Weather Active Sky All Active Sky programs are recognized automatically on startup for each simulator. The activeflightplanwx.txt current_wx_snapshot.txt and files are loaded and monitored for changes. Weather will be reloaded and updated in the information display if necessary. You can also select the current_wx_snapshot.txt all installed flight simulators. The file manually. In that case the METARs from this file are displayed for activeflightplanwx.txt will be loaded from the same directory. Manual file selection can also be useful if a new Active Sky version is not supported by Little Navmap yet. Departure and destination weather will be displayed if a flight plan is loaded in one of the Active Sky programs. A suffix Destination or Departure will indicate the usage of Active Sky flight plan weather on the tab Weather . This gives Active Sky users the most precise weather indication for departure and destination. Note that the indication of Departure or Destination depends entirely on the flight plan loaded in Active Sky and not the flight plan in Little Navmap. 115 Printing the Map Printing Print Map Open the print preview dialog allowing the current map view to be printed. Printing is currently limited to the screen resolution of the current map view. To get a less blurry printout enlarge the map window as much as possible. You can undock the map window to achieve this. Picture above: Print preview dialog for the current map. Print Flight Plan Print the current flight plan together with departure and destination airport information. Options for customizing the Flight Plan Table The printed flight plan table will have the same order of columns as the flight plan table in the dock window. Columns will be omitted from printing if their width is reduced to minimum size. See Table View for more information. 116 Printing the Map Picture above: The column Name is collapsed and will not be added to the printed flight plan table. Options for Departure and Destination Overview : Print the airport overview as show in the Runways / Helipads Information dock window on tab Airport . : Print runway and helipad information. Include runways with soft surface Detailed runway information : Include runways with soft surfaces like grass, gravel and others. : Include detailed information for the runway ends like approach lighting, VASI types, ILS information and more. COM frequencies Weather : Include communication frequencies like tower, ATIS, UNICOM and others. : Print the decoded weather for all enabled sources as shown on the tab Weather in the Information dock window. General options Print flight plan table Text size : Print the flight plan as seen in the flight plan table. : Reduce the text size to avoid unnecessary line breaks or increase it for better readability. Picture above: Print flight plan options dialog. 117 Load Scenery Library Dialog Load Scenery Library Dialog This dialog allows loading of the scenery library data from all four supported flight simulators into the Little Navmap internal database. The scenery library to load can be selected in the Simulator: drop down box. The dialog shows information about the currently selected database including the number of loaded airports, database version and more. FSX and P3D only: The base path and the scenery.cfg path will be shown in two text edit fields for the currently selected simulator. These fields are populated automatically, but can be changed to any other valid location. All values are saved individually for each flight simulator type. X-Plane only: X-Plane cannot be recognized automatically. You have to select the base path manually. On Windows that can be a path like C:\Simulators\X-Plane 11 , the executable being C:\Simulators\X-Plane 11\X-Plane.exe . Loading a scenery library can take from 2 to 15 minutes depending on your setup and amount of scenery add-ons. You can speed this up by excluding directories containing neither airport nor navigation data in the the Scenery Library Database Options dialog on tab. For FSX/P3D, all airports that are not located in the default on airports. For X-Plane, all airports located in the Scenery Custom Scenery directory of FSX/P3D are considered to be add- directory of X-Plane are considered to be add-on airports. Add-on airports are highlighted on the map using emphasized (bold and italic) text. If an add-on only corrects airport elevations or navigation data, it might be undesirable to display the updated airports as add-on airports on the map. You can exclude folders populated by this add-on from the add-on recognition in the Options dialog on the Scenery Library Database tab. See Options for more information about excluding scenery. If you cancel the loading process or if the loading process fails, the previous scenery library database is restored immediately. The menu Scenery Library -> Flight Simulators is synchronized with the simulator selection in the dialog. Once a database is successfully loaded, the display, flight plan and search switch instantaneously to the newly loaded simulator data. Note that the final number of airports, navaids and other objects shown in the Load Scenery Library dialog are lower than the counts shown in the progress dialog, because, after the data has been loaded, a separate process removes duplicates and deletes stock airports that were replaced by add-ons. FSX or P3D only: The program tries to find the base paths and of the Scenery.cfg Scenery.cfg files automatically. The typical locations for Windows 7/8/10 are: Flight Simulator X: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX\Scenery.cfg Flight Simulator - Steam Edition: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX-SE\Scenery.cfg Prepar3D v2: C:\Users\YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2\Scenery.cfg Prepar3D v3: C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3\Scenery.cfg Prepar3D v4: C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\Scenery.cfg An error dialog is shown after loading if any files could not be read or directories were not found. In this case you should check if the airports of the affected sceneries display correctly and show the correct information. The error dialog allows copy and paste of formatted text which is useful for error reporting. 118 Load Scenery Library Dialog The Load Scenery Library dialog shows the last time of loading ( Last Update: ), the program and the database version. Major database version differences indicate incompatible databases. The program will ask if the incompatible databases can be erased on startup before the scenery database can be reloaded. Minor database differences indicate compatible changes where a reload is recommended but not required. X-Plane Airports and Navdata Little Navmap reads airport and navaid data from X-Plane's *.dat files. To check a version of a file you can open it in a text editor that is capable of dealing with large files. The first lines of the file will look like: A 1100 Generated by WorldEditor 1.6.0r1 1 1549 0 0 0A4 Johnson City STOLport ... The first number in the second line is the file version. Here it is 1100 . Little Navmap can read the following X-Plane scenery files: Airports ( apt.dat ): Version 850 up to 1100. This covers X-Plane 10 airports and older add-on scenery. Newer files than 1100 might work but are not tested. Navdata ( , earth_awy.dat earth_fix.dat and earth_nav.dat ): Version 850 up to 1100. This excludes X-Plane 10 navdata files. Newer files than 1100 might work but are not tested. Procedures ( Airspaces ( in the ICAO.dat *.txt Additionally the files CIFP ): The included user_fix.dat and directory): All procedures from X-Plane 11. usa.txt and all files in OpenAir format. See next chapter for more information. user_nav.dat in the X-Plane directory Custom Data are read. X-Plane Airspaces All files in OpenAir airspace format will be loaded when reading the X-Plane scenery library. You can also copy airspaces from a present FSX or Prepar3D database if you own these simulators. See Copy Airspaces to X-Plane Database. Note that airspace files can have errors which may prevent the loading of an airspace file. These hard errors are reported after loading the scenery library. Other errors only affecting single airspaces or the geometry are reported in the log file only. X-Plane 11 comes with a single airspace file that can be found in data/airspaces/usa.txt YOUR_XPLANE_DIRECTORY/Resources/default . Additional airspace files can be downloaded from the OpenAirspace Directory, Soaring Services, openAIP or Luftraumdaten Deutschland for example. Airspace files must have a .txt extension and are loaded from the following directories by Little Navmap: YOUR_XPLANE_DIRECTORY/Resources/default data/airspaces YOUR_XPLANE_DIRECTORY/Custom Data/Airspaces YOUR_ACCOUNT_NAME/Documents/Little Navmap/X-Plane Airspaces where Documents is the documents directory in your language. The files can be encoded in any UTF format but must have a BOM to be recognized properly. Otherwise Windows ANSI coding ( Windows-1252 ) is used. Special characters like umlauts or accents are not displayed correctly in names if the encoding is not correct. All other functionality is unaffected. You can convert the files using any advanced editor like Notepad++ for example. 119 Load Scenery Library Dialog Airspaces will appear as duplicates in the map if an airspace file is found in more than one of these directories. If X-Plane crashes when loading certain airspace files, move these files to the folder Plane Airspaces Documents/Little Navmap/X- instead. This way, the airspaces are at least available in Little Navmap which is more error tolerant. Load Scenery Library Dialog Options Simulator : Select the simulator to load, show database statistics in the label above. Reset Paths : Reset all paths back to default values. Flight Simulator Base Path and Select ... usually the directory containing the scenery.cfg : The path to the base directory of the selected flight simulator. This FSX.exe or Prepar3D.exe . This is the base for all relative paths found in the file. Scenery Configuration File and Select ... (only FSX and P3D): The file scenery.cfg of the simulator. You can also create copies of the original file, modify them by removing or adding sceneries and select them here for loading. Read inactive Scenery Entries (only FSX and P3D): This will read all scenery entries, also the inactive/disabled ones. This is helpful if you use a tool to disable scenery before flying but still want to see all add-on sceneries in Little Navmap without reloading. Read Prepar3D add-on.xml packages (only P3D v3 and v4): If enabled, reads P3D v4 or v3 These are read from subdirectories of C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons Load add-on.xml C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\Prepar3D v4 Files\Add-ons packages. and . : Starts the database loading process. You can stop the loading process at any time and the previous database is restored. The dialog is closed and the program will switch to show the loaded database once it is successfully loaded. Close : Keep all settings and changes in the dialog and close it without loading anything. Picture above: Load Scenery Dialog. Scenery data is already loaded for FSX. 120 Load Scenery Library Dialog Picture above: Progress dialog shown while loading the scenery library into Little Navmap's internal database. 121 Connecting to a Flight Simulator Connecting to a Flight Simulator The setup procedure is different for local connections and remote (networked) connections to a flight simulator. Little Navmap can connect directly if all programs are running on the same computer. The Little Navconnect agent is needed if Little Navmap is used on a remote computer. Local Connection All Simulators Open the connection dialog in Little Navmap by selecting Main Menu -> Tools -> Flight Simulator Connection and choose the simulator to which the connection should be established. Picture above: Little Navmap connect dialog set up for a local connection to FSX or P3D. The connection will be established manually. Select Connect directly to local Flight Simulator Now click Clicking Enable Connect Close . . The dialog will close and Little Navmap will try to establish a connection in the background. keeps all changes and closes the dialog without establishing a connection. Connect automatically if you do not want to connect manually. The start order of programs does not matter if this is checked and Little Navmap will find the simulator once it is started or when it is already running. This is the recommended setting. Deselect Fetch AI or multiplayer aircraft or Fetch AI or multiplayer ships to disable the transfer of this information to the program. This can be useful for performance reasons if you use large amounts of AI but do not want to see it in Little Navmap. X-Plane 122 Connecting to a Flight Simulator You have to intall the included Little Xpconnect plugin to use Little Navmap as a moving map with X-Plane. The plugin is bundled with Little Navmap and can be downloaded separately too. Copy the whole plugin directory into the directory Little Xpconnect installation. The complete path should look like plugins in the directory Resources in the X-Plane .../X-Plane 11/Resources/plugins/Little Xpconnect You can check the X-Plane plugin manager to see if it is loaded correctly. When connecting with Little Navmap select the option Connect directly to a local X-Plane simulator . Remote Connection User aircraft and weather information is transferred to Little Navmap on a remote computer by using the Little Navconnect agent on the flying computer which circumvents the error prone and tedious setup of a remote SimConnect connection. Note that weather information cannot be transferred across a remote connection from X-Plane. You have to extract the ZIP archive that contains littlenavmap.exe and littlenavconnect.exe on both computers. Then load the scenery database on the computer running the simulator and copy the database over to the remote computer. See Running without Flight Simulator Installation for details. Make sure that the major versions of Little Navmap and Little Navconnect match, otherwise you might get an error message. Use the version of Little Navconnect which is included in the Little Navmap download archive if unsure. For X-Plane you also have to install the Little Xpconnect plugin. See the file README.txt in directory Little Xpconnect for installation instructions. Start Little Navconnect on the Flying Computer Little Navconnect is bundled together with the Little Navmap download archive. Start Little Navconnect ( littlenavconnect.exe ) on the computer running the simulator and take note of the message that is printed in the logging window. You only need the colored values which tell you the name and address of the computer running the simulator. You can use the IP address or the hostname. Little Navconnect can print multiple IP addresses or hostnames depending on your network configuration. This can happen if you have Ethernet plugged in and are connected using wireless LAN too, for example. You have to try if you are unsure which one to use. Also make sure to set up the Windows firewall properly to allow communication between littlenavmap.exe and littlenavconnect.exe on both computers. Picture above: Little Navconnect is running and waiting for a Flight Simulator. It is running on the computer win10.fritz.box with the IP address 192.168.2.13 Change the port in Little Navconnect's Options . dialog if you see an error message like shown below: 123 Connecting to a Flight Simulator [2016-07-27 16:45:35] Unable to start the server: The bound address is already in use. Start Little Navmap on the Client / Remote Computer Open the connection dialog in Little Navmap by selecting Main Menu -> Tools -> Flight Simulator Connection . Picture above: Connect dialog with correct values to access the computer running the simulator and Little Navconnect as shown above. Now do the following after opening the dialog: 1. Select Connect to a remote Flight Simulator . 2. Add the value for hostname. This can be either the hostname or the IP address printed by Little Navconnect. 3. Check the value for the port. 51968 is the default value and usually does not need to be changed. 4. Click connect. The dialog will close and Little Navmap will try to establish a connection in the background. Establishing a connection can take some time, depending on your network. The aircraft will show up on the map and on the Simulator Aircraft dock window once a flight is set up and loaded on the simulator. If no flight is loaded yet (i.e. the simulator still shows the opening screen), you will see the message Simulator Aircraft Connected. Waiting for update. in the dock window. Note that it can take a while until an error is shown if you used the wrong values for hostname or port. Selecting Connect automatically is recommended. The start order of all three programs (simulator, Little Navconnect and Little Navmap) does not matter if this is checked and the programs will find each other. Deselect Fetch AI or multiplayer aircraft or Fetch AI or multiplayer ships in Tools -> Options of Little Navconnect to disable the transfer of this information across the network. This can be useful for performance reasons if you use large amounts of AI but do not want to see it in Little Navmap. Connect Dialog Options Disconnect Connect : Disconnect the current session and stop automatic reconnect. : Try to connect. An error dialog will be shown if no connection can be established. Little Navmap will constantly try again if Connect automatically is enabled. 124 Connecting to a Flight Simulator Close : Close the dialog without any changes to the current connection status. Connect automatically : Little Navmap will try to connect constantly if this is enabled. This is the recommended setting. All connection attempts will stop immediately if you deselect this button. You have to click Update Time Interval Connect once to start the automatic connection attempts after checking this button. : Allowed range is 50 milliseconds up to 1 second. Little Navmap fetches data from a simulator using this time interval. Increase this value if you experience stutters or lag in the simulator. A lower value will result in more fluid map updates in Little Navmap. Fetch AI or multiplayer aircraft and Fetch AI or multiplayer ships : Disables fetching of AI vehicles. These settings are applied immediately. Note that ship traffic is not available for X-Plane. 125 Checking for Updates Checking for Updates Little Navmap will automatically check its home page for available updates on startup. Frequency and update channels are configurable. See below for configuration options. You can always check manually for updates by selecting Main Menu -> Help -> Check for Updates . Note that the installation still has to be done manually. Notification The dialog showing available updates contains a change log, various other messages and one or more download links. Ignore this Update Pressing this button will put the shown version on a blacklist. You will not see any reminders for this version again but for newer versions. This button is not visible when checking manually. Note that a manual check for updates ignores the blacklisted updates. Remind me Later Dismiss the dialog. You will be notified again on next startup depending on selected frequency. You can also press the escape key to trigger this action. This button is not visible when checking manually. Picture above: Update notification dialog showing an available beta version including change log and download link. Options Check for Updates: Daily Select , Weekly or Main Menu Manual -> Help . -> Check for Updates to search manually for new versions. 126 Checking for Updates Note that the daily or weekly check is only done when starting the program. Update Channels: Stable Versions only : This will show only notifications for tested and stable versions with a complete manual. Stable and Beta Versions : Will additionally check for beta/test versions. Beta versions are program releases that already contain all planned features for a stable release but are still not tested carefully. The manual might be incomplete. Stable, Beta and Development Versions : Little Navmap will also show notifications for development releases. These are neither complete nor well tested. Features might change over time and the manual is not updated for new functionality. A backup of all settings is recommended before running a development version. Check for Updates now Checks for updates immediately. This will use the current settings as shown in the dialog. It will also show notifications for updates that were ignored by pressing the Ignore this Update Picture above: Update notification settings in dialog Options on the notification dialog. . 127 Options Dialog Options Dialog Most options are self-explaining and tooltips contain more detailed explanations if applicable. You can immediately check the effect of your changes on the map display by moving the dialog and pressing The button Apply Options to the side . Restore Defaults only restores the options of this dialog back to default. Other settings like map display, table views or dock window positions are not affected. To reset all saved settings completely see Troubleshoot. Startup Allows to customize what should be loaded and shown on startup of Little Navmap. You can also configure the frequency of the automatic update check and channels. See Checking for Updates for more information. User Interface Has options for text sizes in information windows and flight plan as well as the search result table. You can also change the overall style for the graphical user interface. The user interface styles contain a Night mode that can be used for night flights in dark rooms. You can also dim the map and elevation profile display. A restart is not needed but recommended after changing a style. The colors for the styles Fusion and Night can be changed by editing configuration files. See Customize for more information. This tab also contains options to force the program language and locale settings (number, date and time formats) to English if you do not want to use a translated user interface. 128 Options Dialog Picture above: Tab User Interface using the style Night . Map Has map related customization options. Allows to set the click sensitivity, zoom distances and more. Map Display This tab contains options for symbol and text sizes, flight plan and aircraft trail colors and more. The right side of the tab contains a tree view that allows to select the text labels that should be shown at airports, user aircraft and AI/multiplayer aircraft. Picture above: Tab Map Display . Units You can change all units that are used by Little Navmap on this tab between nautical, imperial and metric. Mixed settings like meter for altitude and nautical miles for distance are possible. Note that any numbers used in the program are not converted when changing units. That means that you will have a minimum altitude buffer of 1000 meter after changing the setting Altitude and Elevation from feet to meter. This also applies to flight plan altitude. Therefore, do not forget to adapt these numbers after changing units. Simulator Aircraft Allows to change various aspects around the display of the user aircraft. All settings resulting in a more fluid aircraft display will use more CPU and can potentially induce stutters in the simulator. Center map on aircraft and next flight plan waypoint 129 Options Dialog The map is zoomed to show both the aircraft and the next active waypoint on the flight plan if this is enabled. The default mode is to simply center the map on the aircraft. The map will fall back to the default mode if no flight plan is loaded. Do not use box mode for following the aircraft. Move the map constantly. Map will follow the aircraft constantly when checked. This is also used for waypoint Center map on aircraft and next flight plan . This option will cause Little Navmap to consume more CPU resources while flying. Simulator aircraft scroll box size (percent of map window size) Smaller values keep the aircraft centered and will move the map often. Large values will update the map only when aircraft reaches map boundary. This setting is ignored when Center map on aircraft and next flight plan waypoint is checked and a flight plan is set. Keep active leg on top of flight plan table The active (magenta) leg will be shown on top of the flight plan table when a new leg is activated. Allow scrolling and zooming in the map The map will stop following the aircraft for the given time if the user does any interaction with the map like scrolling or zooming. You can quickly check out the destination or your overall progress, and after you stop interacting with the map, Little Navmap will return to following your aircraft. Jump back to aircraft and resume aircraft following after this time Time until aircraft following is activated again after any map interaction like scrolling or zooming. Cache and Files Map Display Here you can change the cache size in RAM and on disk. These caches are used to store the downloaded images tiles from the online maps like the OpenStreetMap, OpenMapSurfer or OpenTopoMap. All image tiles expire after two weeks and will be reloaded from the online services then. Note that a reduction of size or erasing the disk cache is done in background and can take a while. The RAM cache has a minimum size of 100 MB and a maximum size of 2 GB. The disk cache has a minimum size of 500 MB and a maximum size of 8 GB. Flight Plan Elevation Profile The bottom part of this tab allows to install the the freely downloadable GLOBE - Global Land One-km Base Elevation Project elevation data. Download the ZIP archive from the link in the dialog and extract it. Select the extracted directory using Directory ... so, that it points to the files a10g to p10g Select GLOBE . The label in the dialog will show an error if the path is invalid. 130 Options Dialog Picture above: Tab Cache and Files with properly selected GLOBE elevation data. Flight Plan Here you can set preferences for flight plan calculation or adjust the rule of thumb for the top of descent display. Weather You can select the various weather sources that should be shown in the Information dock window or in the map tooltips. The weather type METAR.rwx Flight Simulator will either display weather from the FSX or P3D connection or from X-Planes weather file. Active Sky can only be selected if either Active Sky Next, AS16 or Active Sky for Prepar3D v4 are installed or the weather file is selected directly. Selecting the Active Sky weather file directly can be useful if you run a networked setup. Use Windows shares or a cloud service to get access to the file on the remote computer. The URLs of the NOAA and VATSIM weather can be modified if you like to use another source or the services change the URLs. The test buttons for the online weather services can also be used to find out if Little Navmap can connect to Internet. Check your firewall settings if these fail. 131 Options Dialog Picture above: Tab Weather with manually selected Active Sky weather file on a network share. Online Flying This tab allows to change settings for online networks. Note that all related window tabs, menu items and toolbar buttons are hidden if this is set to None . See Online Networks for an overview. Not all networks might be enabled depending on release. Picture above: Tab Online Flying with VATSIM network enabled. Online Service None Disables all online services and hides all related window tabs, menu items and toolbar buttons. No downloads will be done. VATSIM Uses the predefined configuration for the VATSIM network. No other settings are needed. The update rate depends on configuration and is typically three minutes. 132 Options Dialog IVAO Uses the predefined configuration for the IVAO network. No other settings are needed. The update rate depends on configuration and is typically three minutes. Custom with Status File This option allows to connect to a private network and will download a further links to e.g. the whazzup.txt status.txt file on startup which contains file. Custom This option allows to connect to a private network and will periodically download a whazzup.txt file which contains information about online clients/aircraft and online centers/ATC. Settings Status File URL URL of the status.txt file. You can also use a local path like C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\status.txt . This file is downloaded only on startup of the program. A push button Test allows to check if the URL is valid and shows the first few lines from the downloaded text file. This does not work with local paths. The status file format is explained in the IVAO documentation library: Status File Format. Whazzup File URL URL of the whazzup.txt file. You can also use a local path like C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Documents\whazzup.txt . This file is downloaded according to the set update rate. A push button Test allows to check if the URL is valid. The test does not work with local paths. The whazzup file format is explained in the IVAO documentation library: Whazzup File Format. Update Every Sets the update rate that defines how often the whazzup.txt file is downloaded. Allowed values are 30 to 1800 seconds, 180s being the default. You can use smaller update rates for private online networks to improve map display updates. Do not use update rates smaller than two minutes for official online networks. They might decide to block the application if downloads are excessive. Format IVAO or VATSIM . Depends on the format used by your private network. Try both options if unsure. Scenery Library Database Allows to configure the loading of the scenery library database. Note that these paths apply to all Flight Simulators, FSX, P3D and X-Plane. You have to reload the scenery database in order for the changes to take effect. 133 Options Dialog Select Paths to exclude from loading All directories including sub-directories in this list will be omitted when loading the scenery library into the Little Navmap database. You can also use this list to speed up database loading if you exclude directories that do not contain airports or navaids (landclass, elevation data and others). Select Paths to exclude add-on recognition All scenery data that is found outside of the base flight simulator Scenery directory is considered an add-on and will be highlighted on the map and also considered during search for add-ons. You can use this list to modify this behavior. Add-ons, like Orbx FTX Vector or fsAerodata add scenery files that correct certain aspects of airports like elevation, magnetic variance or others. All these airports will be recognized as add-on airports since all their files are not stored in the base flight simulator Scenery directory. Insert the corresponding directory into this list to avoid unwanted highlighting of these airports as add-ons. Picture above: Tab Scenery Library Database with three directories excluded from loading and two directories excluded from add-on recognition. Examples Provided your simulator is installed in C:\Games\FSX . ORBX Vector Exclude the directories below from add-on recognition. Do not exclude them from loading since you will see wrong airport altitudes. C:\Games\FSX\ORBX\FTX_VECTOR\FTX_VECTOR_AEC C:\Games\FSX\ORBX\FTX_VECTOR\FTX_VECTOR_APT Flight1 Ultimate Terrain Europe 134 Options Dialog Exclude these directories from loading to speed up the process: C:\Games\FSX\Scenery\UtEurAirports C:\Games\FSX\Scenery\UtEurGP C:\Games\FSX\Scenery\UtEurLights C:\Games\FSX\Scenery\UtEurRail C:\Games\FSX\Scenery\UtEurStream C:\Games\FSX\Scenery\UtEurWater ORBX Regions Exclude these directories from loading: C:\Games\FSX\ORBX\FTX_NZ\FTX_NZSI_07_MESH C:\Games\FSX\ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_CRM07_MESH C:\Games\FSX\ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_NRM07_MESH C:\Games\FSX\ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW07_MESH C:\Games\FSX\ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PFJ07_MESH 135 Running without Flight Simulator Installation Running without Flight Simulator Installation You can use littlenavmap.exe on all computers no matter if SimConnect or a flight simulator are installed or not. Follow these steps if you want to install Little Navmap on a computer not containing any flight simulator installation for a networked setup, for example. No functionality is affected except direct connect capability which are not needed in this case. This scenario is typically used when connecting to the flight simulator to watch the progress of a flight remotely. Flight plans can be created, loaded and saved on the client computer. You only have to make sure that these are transfered to the flight simulator computer using Windows shares or by other means. These instructions apply to Windows, macOS and Linux computers equally. 1. Install Little Navmap on both your flying computer and the client computer without simulator. 2. Start it on the flying computer and generate the scenery library databases. See Load Scenery Library Dialog above for more information. 3. Select Main Menu -> Scenery Library -> Show Database Files on the flying computer. This will open the directory containing the database files in a file manager like Windows Explorer or Apple Finder. You will find one or more database file like little_navmap_fsx.sqlite , little_navmap_p3dv3.sqlite or little_navmap_xp11.sqlite . 4. Exit Little Navmap on the flying computer. 5. Start Little Navmap on the client/remote computer and select Scenery Library -> Show Database Files . 6. Exit Little Navmap on the client computer so you can copy the datbase files. 7. Copy the database files to your client computer using network shares, USB sticks or whatever you like. Use the file manager windows opened by the procedures above. 8. Start Little Navmap on the client computer. The menu Scenery Library should contain an entry for each copied database file or no entry at all if only one database file was copied. Airport icons should be visible on the map in either case. There is no need to reload the scenery library database now since you just copied a fully populated database file. See the Connecting to a Flight Simulator for information about networked setups. 136 Customize Customizing General Little Navmap creates multiple configuration files in the directory C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel when started. These allow extended customization of the program. The files use the Windows- INI style that has groups in square brackets and key=value lines. See here for more information about this type of configuration files. Note that you have to restart Little Navmap to see any changes. Also, do not edit the files while Little Navmap is running since it might overwrite your changes. To undo all changes simply delete a file. It will be created again containing the default values when Little Navmap is started. Single lines can also be deleted and will be restored with the default value when Little Navmap is started. Keys and values are case sensitive. Order in the files is not important if the keys remain in their respective sections. The program might reorder the keys when saving or updating the files. Version Some of the INI files contain a section [Options] with a key Version as shown below. [Options] Version=2.0.1 Do not delete this since Little Navmap relies on this information when updating the file. It will reset the file occasionally whenever the default settings change. A backup will be created to save your user customizations. Add this version section to all new files. Otherwise, Little Navmap might reset the content. Examples for backup files: little_navmap_mapstyle_backup_2.0.0.ini or little_navmap_mapstyle_backup.ini . The file will be backed up and reset if you delete or change the version. GUI Only two user interface styles can be customized. These are Fusion and Night and can be found in the dialog User Interface tab of the options dialog. These two styles are available on all operating systems. Two files are generated that allow the customization for all window, button and dialog colors. These are: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel\little_navmap_fusionstyle.ini C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel\little_navmap_nightstyle.ini The key names in these files are derived from the Qt palette options. Each key consists of the group and role name separated by an underscore. See below for more information on the color formats used. See here for more information about groups and roles. Online Network Center 137 Customize The configuration file C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel\little_navmap.ini allows to change the size of the online network center circles. Radius is in nautical miles. The visual range is used if radius is -1. No circle is drawn if the value is 0. Do not delete this file since it contains all program settings, map history, opened files and more. Edit only the keys shown below. [Online] CenterRadiusACC=-1 CenterRadiusApproach=20 CenterRadiusDelivery=-1 CenterRadiusDeparture=-1 CenterRadiusFIR=-1 CenterRadiusGround=5 CenterRadiusObserver=-1 CenterRadiusTower=10 Map Display The file allows to customize various aspects of C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel\little_navmap_mapstyle.ini the map display and is currently limited to colors and pens. Most key names are self explaining. See below for more information about color values. Color Format Color can be in one of these formats which are commonly used in web design: #RRGGBB each of R, G, B and A is a single hex digit. Each color value ranges from 00 - FF (decimal 0-255) #AARRGGBB first two digits contain the alpha/transparency value. 00 equals to fully tranparent and FF (decimal 255) to opaque. SVG color name SVG color name is one of the colors defined in the list of SVG color keyword names provided by the World Wide Web Consortium; for example, steelblue or gainsboro . Note that you cannot enter an alpha channel value if you use a color name. You can use the w3schools color picker to get the hex values for a color. Examples: Active_Highlight=#308cc6 AlertFillColor=darkred ApproachFillColor=#3060808a Pen Format A pen contains the following values in a comma separated list: Color as described above Pen width as a floating point value measured in pixels. You have to use . as decimal separator no matter what your locale defines. Pen style. One of the following values: Solid , Dash , Dot , DashDot and DashDotDot . Examples: RestrictedPen=#fd8c00, 2, DashDotDot 138 Customize ModecPen=#509090, 2, Solid NationalParkPen=#509090, 2.1, Solid Icons To change an icon download it from the Github source repository Icon Resources or extract the included file Navmap/customize/icons.zip Little . Modify the icon and save it into the settings directory C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel . Little Navmap will automatically detect and use the icon on next startup. The format is limited to SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Tiny 1.2 Specification) where advanced graphics effects like textures will not work. You can use the free vector drawing program Inkscape to edit the icons. Restart Little Navmap to see the changes. User, AI and Multiplayer Aircraft Icons All icons for user, AI/multiplayer aircraft, helicopters and ships are stored in the program but can be overloaded by the user. The icons are: aircraft_boat_ground_user.svg aircraft_boat_ground.svg aircraft_boat_user.svg aircraft_boat.svg aircraft_helicopter_ground_user.svg aircraft_helicopter_ground.svg aircraft_helicopter_user.svg aircraft_helicopter.svg aircraft_jet_ground_user.svg aircraft_jet_ground.svg aircraft_jet_user.svg aircraft_jet.svg aircraft_small_ground_user.svg aircraft_small_ground.svg aircraft_small_user.svg aircraft_small.svg aircraft_online.svg aircraft_online_ground.svg The suffixes are chosen by vehicle type, status (ground or airborne) and user or AI/multiplayer. The icon is for airborne vehicles if ground icons are prefixed with is missing and for AI/multiplayer vehicles if aircraft user is missing. For historical reasons all . Userpoint Category Icons Icons for userpoint categories are stored in the program but can be overloaded by the user as well. Default category icons can be overloaded with another icon by placing a file with one of the default category names in the settings directory. New categories can be added by placing a new icon adhering to a certain name pattern in the default directory. 139 Customize userpoint_Airport.png userpoint_Airstrip.png userpoint_Bookmark.png userpoint_Cabin.png userpoint_Closed.png userpoint_Error.png userpoint_Flag.png userpoint_Helipad.png userpoint_Location.png userpoint_Logbook.png userpoint_Marker.png userpoint_Mountain.png userpoint_Obstacle.png userpoint_Pin.png userpoint_POI.png userpoint_Seaport.png userpoint_Unknown.png userpoint_VRP.png userpoint_Waypoint.png The text between the first underscore Places.png creates a new category Do not use special characters like _ and the My Places / .png ending defines the category. For example userpoint_My . for categories. Only letters, digits, space, underscore and dashes are allowed. Umlauts and accented characters are no problem. 140 Creating or adding Map Themes Creating or adding Map Themes To add an arbitrary online or offline map to Little Navmap simply add the map directory from a downloaded or self created map theme to the data\maps\earth directory. The full path to the DGML file (see links below for more details about DGML) describing the map must be Programs\Little Navmap\data\maps\earth\opencyclemap\opencyclemap.dgml c:\Own if you like to add the OpenCycleMap for example. The DGML file can refer to an online map service or included offline map data. Usually a map theme contains many more files than only the DGML. The menu Main Menu -> Map -> Theme and the toolbar drop down box will receive an entry for each additional map theme. The options Show Country and City Names and Show Hillshading are enabled for all additional map themes but might not work depending on properties defined in the map's DGML file. More maps and information about map configuration and DGML files can be found here on the Marble/KDE pages: Download more maps for the Marble widget (only Earth maps are supported in Little Navmap ): Additional Maps A tutorial that shows how to create a map theme based on tiled images: Marble/CustomMaps A tutorial showing how to create a map theme based on OSM Slippy Maps: How to create map themes based on OSM slippy maps How to create a historical map for Marble: Historical Maps for Marble 141 Coordinate Formats Coordinate Formats This chapter briefly describes the recognized coordinate formats in flight plan position dialogs and userpoint dialogs. The input field shows a message below which indicates if the coordinates were recognized and shows the translated coordinates in the preset format as chosen in dialog on tab Options Units . A red message is shown in case of error. Check the displayed translated coordinates to verify that your input was parsed correctly. Picture above: Editing a user-defined flight plan position. Tooltip gives a quick help on coordinate formats. General Latitude has to be first and longitude second. N/S and E/W designators are required. Case does not matter. Degree, minute and second signs can be omitted if numbers are separated by spaces. A space is only required to separate latitude and longitude or degrees/minutes/seconds if no unit signs are used. Decimal separator can be period (English) or the locale dependent separator like e.g. comma (German). Other Formats These have to be given exactly as shown in the examples. Degrees and minutes: Degrees only N44124W122451 Degrees and minutes N14544W017479 or S31240E136502 4620N07805W Degrees, minutes and seconds Degrees and minutes in pair NAT type , 46N078W 481200N0112842E N6500 W08000 or (Skyvector) N6500/W08000 5020N Examples Degrees, minutes and seconds: Degrees and decimal minutes: Decimal degrees only: N49° 26' 41.57" E9° 12' 5.49" N54* 16.82' W008* 35.95' 49.4449° N 9.2015° E or , or 49° 26' 41.57" N 9° 12' 5.49" E N 52 33.58 E 13 17.26 or 49° 26.69' N 9° 12.09' E N 49.4449° E 9:2015° 142 Files Files Logs Log files of Little Navmap are stored in these directories: Windows: Linux: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\abarthel-little_navmap.log /tmp/abarthel-little_navmap.log macOS: /var/folders/RANDOMIZED_DIRECTORY_NAME/abarthel-little_navmap.log The program keeps three log files and rotates these on each startup. So you may find up to three logs: abarthel-little_navmap.log , abarthel-little_navmap.log.1 and abarthel-little_navmap.log.2 . Make sure to send the correct log file after a crash. The program will rotate the log files on restart. If unsure send all copies in a Zip-file. If you like to report an issue when loading the scenery database: Load the database and quit the program. Then copy the log file to another folder before restarting the Little Navmap. Configuration All configuration files for my programs are stored in these directories: Windows: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel Linux and macOS: little_navmap.ini $HOME/.config/ABarthel : INI style configuration file. Text file. little_navmap.history little_navmap.track : The map position history. Binary file. : The user aircraft track. Binary file. Three more configuration files are created for customization of colors and styles: little_navmap_fusionstyle.ini little_navmap_nightstyle.ini little_navmap_mapstyle.ini : INI style configuration file for customizing the GUI colors of the style : As above but for the style Night Fusion . . : INI style configuration file. Text file. Used for customization of the map display. See Customization for more information. Little Navmap might reset these files when updated, but only after creating backup files. Disk Cache The disk cache that is used to store all the downloaded online map tile images can be found here: Windows C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\.marble\data Linux and macOS: $HOME/.local/share/marble You can delete the cache manually to save space if Little Navmap is not running. Databases Databases are stored in the directories: Windows: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ABarthel\little_navmap_db Linux and macOS: $HOME/.config/ABarthel/little_navmap_db 143 Files All these databases are SQLite files which can be viewed with e.g. DB Browser for SQLite if you're interested in relational databases. Do not modify, move, rename or delete databases while Little Navmap is running. Scenery Library The number of files depends on which simulators you have installed and which scenery libraries you've loaded. The files are: little_navmap_.sqlite : An empty dummy database. little_navmap_fsx.sqlite : Flight Simulator X little_navmap_fsxse.sqlite : Flight Simulator - Steam Edition little_navmap_p3dv2.sqlite : Prepar3D v2 little_navmap_p3dv3.sqlite : Prepar3D v3 little_navmap_p3dv4.sqlite : Prepar3D v4 little_navmap_xp11.sqlite : X-Plane 11 little_navmap_navigraph.sqlite : Navigraph navdatabase. Can be either the included database or an update installed by the Navigraph _FMS Data Manager. Userdata The file little_navmap_userdata.sqlite contains the user-defined waypoints. Little Navmap creates a backup copy on startup and keeps up to four backup files: to little_navmap_userdata_backup.sqlite.3 little_navmap_userdata.sqlite little_navmap_userdata_backup.sqlite . You can copy these files back to the original database if you did something wrong. Other Database Files Additional files like little_navmap_compiling.sqlite , little_navmap_compiling.sqlite-journal little_navmap_temp.sqlite , , little_navmap_temp.sqlite-journal little_navmap_onlinedata.sqlite , or little_navmap_onlinedata.sqlite-journal are used by temporary processes like the database compilation or online network data. These can be ignored. 144 Tutorials - General Tutorials General The tutorials are based on: FSX or P3D scenery but can be easily adapted to X-Plane. An already loaded scenery database which normally happens right after the first startup. The stock navigation data of FSX or P3D. Differences might appear if you use navdata updates or airport scenery add-ons. All functions will be referred by the names in the main menu by using Menu Name -> Menu Item . The icons are shown as well, so you can find the buttons on one of the toolbars. Screenshots will provide more help. Quick Start To have a clean common base, I recommend the following: Select Window -> Reset Window Layout Use the map theme OpenStreetMap Reset the map display settings in to get all the dock windows back into their default place. with hill shading Map -> enabled. Reset Display Settings to make sure that all needed features are shown on the map. Select File -> New Flight Plan to start with a clean flight plan. Tutorials 1. Building a VFR Flight Plan This tutorial will show how to create a simple flight plan based on the map and its context menus. 2. Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures This long tutorial will show you how to create a more complex IFR flight plan including approach procedures. It introduces the advanced airport search functionality, the spatial search and the automatic flight plan calculation. 145 Tutorial - Building a VFR Flight Plan Building a VFR Flight Plan General This tutorial will show how to create a simple flight plan based on the map and its context menus. The flight will take us through the lovely valleys of the French alps. You can use this flight plan for any small aircraft like the free Flight1 Cessna 162 SkyCatcher or the default Cessna 172. The flight will only go through Class E airspace. There is no need to contact ATC. The flight plan is: Meythet (LFLP) Parking 11, Ramp GA Small to Challes-les-Eaux (LFLE), 41 nm, 0 h 24 m, Direct Departure Airport Find the departure airport: Click into the map and zoom to the French Alps. You can use the following functions to navigate: The map overlay on the left. The mouse (click and drag) to move and the mousewheel to zoom. The cursor keys to move and the keys + and - for zooming in and out (click into the map window to activate it before using the keys). Use the back and forward buttons to jump in the position history like a web browser. See also Map Display. Look for the departure airport Meythet (LFLP) around here: Closer with tooltip: 146 Tutorial - Building a VFR Flight Plan Now: Zoom in until you see the airport diagram showing taxiways, runway details, parking positions and more. Zoom in further until you see the white parking numbers. Right-click on the center of one of the green ramp parking spots (11 is used here). Choose Select Airport Meythet (LFLP) / Parking 11 as Flight Plan Departure in the context menu. This will select your departure parking position which will be highlighted by a black/yellow circle. The airport will be added to the flight plan as departure too. You can also click on the airport icon and select it for departure. A runway will be automatically assigned as departure position. 147 Tutorial - Building a VFR Flight Plan En Route Waypoints We add the waypoints now: Scroll along the valley to the south east across the lake Lac d'Annecy. Click Append Position to Flight Plan . The clicked position will be added as an user-defined waypoint to the end of your plan. Click undo or redo Another function is if you don't like what you just added. Add Position to Flight Plan which will insert the clicked position to the nearest flight plan leg. You can use this to add user-defined positions, airports or navaids in the middle of a flight plan. The nearest leg will be chosen automatically by Little Navmap. Little Navmap will automatically assign names to the user-defined waypoints. You can leave these as they are or replace them with a more meaningful name. To change a waypoint name right-click on the user waypoint and select Edit Name of User Waypoint . Use nearby villages, mountains, lakes or other points of interest. The flight simulator limits the name to a certain length and to certain characters. Nothing will be added to the name if it is too long or if you type the wrong characters. 148 Tutorial - Building a VFR Flight Plan Keep adding points and stay away from the mountains until you're at Challes-les-Eaux (LFLE) . Destination Airport To add the destination: Right-click on Select Challes-les-Eaux (LFLE) Set Airport as Flight Plan Destination . Now there is a flight plan. Yours might look a bit different. 149 Tutorial - Building a VFR Flight Plan You can also use the drag and drop feature to move points or add new ones. Enable it by checking Edit Flight Plan on Map Flight Plan -> and click on a flight plan waypoint to move it. Click on a flight plan leg to add a new waypoint into this leg. See Map Flight Plan Editing for more information. Cruise Altitude Change the flight plan type to VFR if not already done. 150 Tutorial - Building a VFR Flight Plan Now check the cruise altitude: Look at the flight plan elevation profile. There is a red line indicating the minimum safe altitude. Adjust the flight plan cruise altitude until you're above the red line. Select Flight Plan -> Adjust Flight Plan Altitude to get the correct altitude adjusted by the hemispherical rule. Note that the default hemispherical rule is not correct for France until you change it in the options dialog, but I'll avoid this for the sake of simplicity now. You probably noticed that you will get close to ground near the destination. Be prepared to circumvent some mountains there. Airspaces Now look if your flight plan touches any airspaces. Click into one of the airspaces nearby start and destination and have a look at the information dock window. There are several airspaces: Geneva TMA Sector 8 which starts at 9,500 feet above mean sea level (MSL). This is higher than our cruise altitude and won't affect us. Two Class E airspaces. The information window notes for these: IFR only Controlled, IFR and VFR, ATC clearance required for . No problem because we will fly using VFR. The situation is similar at the destination. 151 Tutorial - Building a VFR Flight Plan Groundspeed Now adjust the speed to your expected ground speed. This allows the program to estimate flying time for the whole plan and for the legs. The speed is saved as an annotation in the PLN file. So when you load the plan into Little Navmap it will restore the given speed. The speed value has no effect in the simulator. Note that the plan is static and will not change during flight. Save the plan using File -> Save Flight Plan . The program usually finds the right directory for the flight plans and gives a sensible name by default. Flying Follow the steps below to get a moving map and see your aircraft in Little Navmap: Open the dialog Connect using Tools -> Flight Simulator Connection and check if Connect automatically is selected. Enable it if not. Little Navmap will find the simulator no matter if it is already started or will be started later. Click Connect Enable Map which will close the dialog. -> Center Aircraft . The map will jump to the simulator aircraft and keep it centered if an active flight is loaded, i.e. the simulator is not in the opening screen. Start the simulator if not already done, load the flight plan and go flying. 152 Tutorial - Building a VFR Flight Plan See also Connecting to a Flight Simulator. Looking at Places while Flying The program will stop following your aircraft if you start any action that zooms in to an airport or navaid (double-click, toolbar button or link in the information window): Double-click on the destination airport for example to zoom to the airport diagram. When done click the back button Then enable Map -> Center Aircraft until you are back at your aircraft. again to keep the aircraft centered. 153 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures This tutorial will show you how to create a more complex IFR flight plan including approach procedures. It introduces the advanced airport search functionality and the automatic flight plan calculation. While this tutorial looks quite lengthy it is normally a matter of half a minute to get a flight plan if you know where to go. The planning effort shown here is bigger to highlight some of the more advanced features of the program. You should at least read through the VFR tutorial Building a VFR Flight Plan. The flight plan will go across the UK using an IFR capable aircraft. Its maximum range should be more than 600 nautical miles including reserves and a cruise altitude of 10,000 feet. I will not go into detailed fuel planning procedures in this tutorial. That is another story for another time. The tutorial assumes the following preconditions: You left your aircraft at Bembridge (EGHJ) at the end of the last flight or treat this as you home base. You don't know where you want to fly today. You know the requirements for your aircraft: Range Minimum runway length Hard runways Need a parking spot at the destination Fuel for flying back Cleanup Search Go to the dock window Search and follow the steps below: Right-click into the result table and select Reset Search to get rid of all search criteria that may affect the query. Click the menu button from Mark and make sure that the search groups Facilities , Runway , Parking and Distance are checked. Deselect all others you don't need. 154 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures Assign Departure Now look for the departure airport: Enter EGHJ in the ICAO Code search field on the top left (case does not matter). Right-click on the airport in the result table. Choose Set as Flight Plan Departure . This will assign a default runway as a start position. 155 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures Your flight plan has one entry now. This is already sufficient if you want to fly a pattern and like to see distance, speed and time information to the airport. Starting from a runway is not quite realistic. Let's select a parking position: Go to Flight Plan -> Select a Start Position for Departure . Choose one of the GA small ramp positions. Click Ok and the position will be highlighted on the map. 156 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures Alternatively you can also select the start position directly on the map's context menu as described in the VFR tutorial. See also Set as Flight Plan Departure Search for Destination Now look for a suitable destination airport: Right-click on Select EGHJ in the search result again. Set Center for Distance Search . You can also do this in the map. This is the center point for the spatial search. Clear the ICAO Code search field now (it is a common mistake to leave the text fields filled when doing distance searches which will give you an empty result table). We will now look for airports that are in range of the aircraft but not too close. Also, certain criteria have to be fulfilled, like having parking spots that fit the aircraft and a runway which is long enough. You can also find airports in aircraft range by using the range rings where you can right-click into the map on your departure airport and select Show Range Rings , although this function does not allow the detailed airport filters. We will use the spatial search instead of range rings since we'd like to see only suitable airports for out aircraft. Check the following in the airport search tab: 1. Rating : We'd like to get airports that are either add-ons or have basic scenery requirements, like taxiways, parking spots and more. Everything else is boring. 2. : Show only airports that have procedures to spice up the approach a bit. Procedures 3. Deselect Military and Closed (click the checkboxes twice): This will return only civilian airports and avoid airports that have all runways closed. 4. Also check Avgas so we can fill up for our return trip and don't have beg for fuel at a nearby road. 157 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures 5. In the combo box Any or no Ramp select At least Ramp GA small . This will include only airports in the result that have suitable parking spots. 6. In the combo box Any Surface select Any is Hard to avoid airports having only soft surfaced runways. 7. Select a minimum runway length of 2,500 feet for your aircraft in the field Runways: Min: . See also Search Dock Window - Airports and Navaids. You can also limit the maximum runway length if you are looking for a short landing challenge, but not now. The search result changes on the fly while doing all these adjustments, though we are not there yet: Check Distance: to activate the spatial search. Change the maximum distance to 600 and the minimum to 400 nautical miles (to avoid short hops). The result table will now update with a small delay since the distance search is more complex. To find only airports north of your position select North in the combo box Any Direction . Note that the search result is sorted by distance with the closest airport first. Choose an airport for your trip. We use Wick (EGPC) for this tutorial. Right-click on Wick in the result table. Select Show Information Select the tab Weather . This will fill the tabs in the dock window Information . and look for the wind direction to get an idea of the expected landing runway. Start AS16 or Active Sky Next if you are using these. For this tutorial we assume that the winds favor runway 13. 158 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures See also Weather. Select an Approach Procedure We'll select an approach procedure now: Go back to the search result. Right-click on the airport Wick again. Select Choose Select Choose Runway 13 Expand All in the All Runways . This will pop up the procedure search tab. Show Procedures combo box to see only approaches for 13. in the context menu to see also the transitions for each approach. Approach VORDME 13 FD13 using Transition (Full) WIK10 since we expect to land on runway 13 and arrive from south. The top label in the procedure search shows Wick (EGPC) Approach VORDME 13 FD13 Transition (Full) WIK10 for the selected approach and/or transition. You can also see a preview on the map. Right-click on the transition and select Show Approach and Transition on Map . This will center the procedure on the map. You can hover the mouse over the waypoints of the approach to see more information in a tooltip. You can also click on the legs in the procedure tree to see the respective start and end points. 159 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures The procedure looks sufficiently complicated to make an interesting approach. More information on procedure search: Search Dock Window - Procedures. Also see Procedures for general information on procedures. If you like what you see right-click again on the transition and select Use EGPC and Approach and Transition as Destination . This will do two things: 1. Add Wick as the destination airport to the flight plan. Any previous destination in the flight plan will be replaced. 2. Add the approach and its transition to the flight plan. The procedure legs use a dark blue color and the missed approach legs use a dark red color in the flight plan table. Flight plan en route legs are black. Again, any previous procedure is replaced with this new one. About adding transition and approaches: Approaches and transitions are closely related which is already indicated by the tree structure in the procedure search tab. You can add an approach alone but a transition always belongs to an approach. You have to select the transition to add or show both, approach and transition. Calculate a Flight Plan 160 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures Now we have the departure airport, an approach procedure and the destination all connected by a line. Next is the en route part of the flight plan: Set IFR as the flight plan type in the dock window Flight Plan . This allows the automatic flight plan calculation to adjust the cruise altitude. Click Flight Plan -> to start the automatic flight plan calculation for Victor airways. Calculate low Altitude The calculation will create a route from your departure airport to the intial fix of the transition. The flight plan cruise altitude is automatically adjusted according to the hemispherical rule (the rule can be changed in Tools or IFR -> on the tab Options Flight Plan ), the altitude restrictions of the airways and the flight plan type ( ). You can see the minimum altitude for each airway segment in the flight plan table in the column The altitude can also be adjusted according to the hemispherical rule by clicking Altitude Flight Plan -> VFR Restriction . Adjust Flight Plan . Now the minimum altitude of 16,000 feet is a bit too high. Therefore, try an alternate calculation method which limits your cruise altitude: Enter 10,000 feet in the Flight plan altitude Click on Calculate based on given Altitude Flight Plan -> field. . This will result in a flight plan that uses only airways having a minimum altitude below or equal to 10,000 feet. Note that you can get a mix of Victor and Jet airways depending on used altitude. The calculation might also fail if you set the cruise altitude too low. Use this flight plan for now. Save the plan using File -> Save Flight Plan . The program usually finds the right directory for the flight plans and gives a sensible name by default. The waypoints of the approach procedure are not saved in the flight plan. You have to select the approach in your GPS or FMC in the simulator or fly it by radio navaids and a stopwatch. What Little Navmap saves in the PLN are the procedure names which allows the program to restore the approach when loading the PLN file. The top label in the flight plan dock window reads now: Bembridge (EGHJ) Parking 1, Ramp GA Small to Wick (EGPC) Via WIK10 and VORDME FD13 to runway 13 517 nm, 5 h 10 m, Low Altitude 161 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures Adjust the ground speed in the flight plan dock window according to the used aircraft to get a better time estimate. The plan might look different, depending if you use stock navaids or navdata updates. Now you can check if you pass through any airspaces: Enable airspaces by selecting Check Map -> Airspaces -> Map -> Airspaces -> Show Airspaces At flight plan cruise altitude if not already done. in the menu or the toolbar menu button. 162 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures This will display only airspaces on the map that are relevant for your cruise altitude. You can also select only Below 10000 ft to see all relevant airspaces in the climb or descent phase. Use the tooltips on the map to get information about airspaces like type, minimum and maximum altitude. Flying Open the dialog Connect using Tools -> Flight Simulator Connection and check if Connect automatically is selected. Enable, if not. Litte Navmap will find the simulator no matter if it is already started or if it is started later. Click Connect . See also Connecting to a Flight Simulator. 163 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures Enable Map -> . The map will jump to the simulator aircraft and keep it centered. This will Center Aircraft happen only if an active flight is loaded, i.e. the simulator is not in the opening screen. Start the simulator if not already done, load the flight plan and go flying. Top of Descent A top of descent indication is displayed on the map and in the elevation profile which also shows the distance from top of descent to the destination. This number includes the distance of approach procedures (excluding holds). Note that altitude restrictions are not considered yet in the top of descent calculation. You can change the descent rule in Tools -> on the tab Options Flight Plan . The default is 3 nautical miles for 1,000 feet. The tab Progress Progress section: in the dock window Simulator Aircraft will show the distance to the top of descent in the Flight Plan Flight Plan Progress To Destination: 74 nm Time and Date: 21.05.17 12:33 UTC Local Time: 14:33 CEST TOD to Destination: 64 nm To Top of Descent: 10,1 nm The section Altitude will show the vertical path deviation after passing the top of descent: Altitude Indicated: 5,090 ft Actual: 5,051 ft Above Ground: 5,051 ft Ground Elevation: 0 ft Vertical Path Dev.: -511 ft below ▲ Changing Procedures Now the weather has changed requiring an approach to runway 31: Right-click on the destination airport at the bottom of the flight plan table. Choose Show Procedures . Then change the runway filter to Runway 31 . Expand the approach VORDME 31 to see the transition. Select the transition. 164 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures The label on top of the window shows now Approach VORDME 31 FD31 Transition (Full) CHINN . Right-click on the selected transition. Choose Use EGPC and Approach and Transition as Destination from the context menu which will replace the current procedure in your flight plan with the new one. The top label in the flight plan dock window reads now: Bembridge (EGHJ) Parking 1, Ramp GA Small to Wick (EGPC) Via CHINN and VORDME FD31 to runway 31 526 nm, 5 h 15 m, Low Altitude To completely get rid of a procedure: Select any leg of the procedure in the flight plan table. Right-click and choose the Del Delete selected Leg or Procedure to remove the whole procedure. Alternatively press key. If ATC clears you to the initial fix of the procedure: 1. Delete any intermediate waypoints between your current aircraft position and the initial fix of the procedure: Rightclick in the flight plan table and select Delete selected Leg or Procedure for all waypoints between your current aircraft position and the initial fix or start of the procedure. Avoid deleting your approach (you can also right-click on a flight plan waypoint on the map and delete it from the context menu). 2. Then right-click on your aircraft on the map and select Add Position to Flight Plan . This will give a direct connection from your current aircraft position to the start of the procedure which you can use to get course and distance to the intial fix. Below: After changing the approach procedure and adding a user-defined waypoint at the aircraft position to the flight plan. Now we get course and altitude indications for a direct leg to the start of the transition (43 nm and 314 degrees magnetic course). 165 Tutorial - Building an IFR Flight Plan with Approach Procedures Going Missed I recommend hiding the missed approaches on the map by unchecking Map -> Show Missed Approaches . This helps uncluttering the map display. If the missed approach is not shown: The progress window shows distance and time to destination. Activating the next leg (shown in magenta color) will stop if the destination (i.e. the runway threshold) is reached, even when passing the threshold. If the missed is shown and the aircraft passes the runway threshold: The first leg of the missed approach is activated and simulator aircraft progress will display the remaining distance to the end of the missed procedure. 166 Tips and Tricks Tips and Tricks Show all Navaid Ranges of a Flight Plan Select all legs in the flight plan table, then right-click on any leg and select Show Navaid Range . This will place a range ring around every radio navaid in the flight plan. See also Show Navaid range. Remove the range rings by selecting Remove all Range Rings and Distance Measurements . Use the measurement lines to get a VOR Radial Intersection Measurment lines can start at airports or navaids where they use the magnetic variation if available. You can use them to find an airport by radial and distance if you like to navigate the old fashioned way. Below is an example that gets radial and distance from two VORs for NDBs or waypoints. Note the suffix M ETUO . Measurement lines can also start at which indicates magnetic course. See also Measure GC Distance from here and Measure Rhumb Distance from here. 167 Tips and Tricks The same can be used when flying airways without GPS. In the example below fly 323 degrees magnetic to VOR SFD (radial 143). You are at intercept 302° to GWC WAFFU when the DME shows 13.7 nautical miles. Then turn left to 280°M until you . 168 Tips and Tricks Use the measurment lines for Approach Guidance Right-click on the airport and choose Measure Rhumb Distance from here . Pull the line using the opposing course to 3 nautical miles out to get guidance for the final approach. Search for Add-On Airports You can use the scenery path to look for add-on airports of a certain developer. Click on one of the add-on airports and copy the relevant part of the path from the information window. Insert this path fragment into the input field in the airports tab of the search dock window. Add * Scenery Path at the beginning and at the end since it is only part of a path. See also Text Filters. Select all in the result table to get all airports highlighted on the map. Use the Search Function to plan a Round the World Trip The spatial search function is useful to plan a round the world tour. Assume you'd like to go east: 169 Tips and Tricks 1. Go to the dock window Search , right-click into the result table and select Reset Search to get rid of all search criteria that may affect the query. 2. Set your departure airport. 3. Right-click on your departure airport in the search or on the map and select . Set Center for Distance Search This is the center point for the spatial search. 4. Add any additional criteria in the search like lighted runways, procedures, fuel, minimum runway length and more. 5. Adjust the minimum and maximum distance, set direction to East and click the checkbox before Distance . 6. Select all in the result table to see the airports on the map. 7. Choose your next destination airport. 8. Add as destination. 9. Calculate plan. 10. Fly. 11. Back to 2. until you are done around the world. Picture below shows a query result for airports in the east. Note that the black/yellow highlight circles have tooltips too no matter if the airport is visible or not. 170 Tips for old and slow Computers Tips for old and slow Computers Save CPU Cycles Dialog Options -> Map Dialog Options -> Simulator Aircraft -> Details while scrolling ... -> : Use Normal ... Simulator Aircraft scroll box size ... : Use a higher value to reduce map updates. Close the window Flight Plan Elevation Profile . It will stop all background processing when closed. Avoid airspaces. Switch them off using the Switch off all AI traffic in the dialog Use the map projection Mercator Connect button on the airspaces toolbar. . See here. . It consumes less resources since it can use the downloaded image tiles as is and does not transform them to the spherical format. Reduce Memory Consumption Replace the complete section [Settings] in the little_navmap.ini with the section below to reduce cache sizes. [Settings] DatabaseCacheKb=5000 InfoQueryAirportCache=100 InfoQueryAirportSceneryCache=100 InfoQueryAirwayCache=100 InfoQueryApproachCache=100 InfoQueryComCache=100 InfoQueryHelipadCache=100 InfoQueryIlsCache=100 InfoQueryNdbCache=100 InfoQueryRunwayCache=100 InfoQueryRunwayEndCache=100 InfoQueryStartCache=100 InfoQueryTransitionCache=100 InfoQueryVorCache=100 InfoQueryWaypointCache=100 MapQueryAirspaceLineCache=100 MapQueryApronCache=100 MapQueryHelipadCache=100 MapQueryParkingCache=100 MapQueryRunwayCache=100 MapQueryRunwayOverwiewCache=100 MapQueryStartCache=100 MapQueryTaxipathCache=100 Troubleshoot Program crashes on start up: Delete the settings and the database files. In Windows 7, 8 or 10 these can be found in c:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Appdata\Roaming\ABarthel little_navmap.ini , little_navmap.track , . Delete (or better: rename or move) the files little_navmap.history and the directory little_navmap_db . Try to delete the database first if these cause the problem. Then try to delete the settings files if removing databases did not help. Program starts slowly: This can happen if a distance search is enabled in one of the search tabs. The search is executed at each start. Simply disable the distance search or reset the search options to avoid the slow startup. Online maps do not load or update: Check your firewall settings if Windows blocks any outgoing connections. Also check if the offline mode was not enabled accidentally in menu the internet by going to the options dialog on tab Weather File . Check if Little Navmap can connect to . Use one of the buttons Test for NOAA or VATSIM 171 Tips for old and slow Computers weather. Little Navmap cannot reach the internet if these fail. Zoom can be too fast when using a touchpad with OpenStreetMap, OpenTopoMap or one of the other online map themes. Use the and - Plain , Simple or Atlas map themes or use the overlay zoom buttons or the keyboard ( + ). side-by-side configuration error: You are running Little Navmap on a computer without simulator (i.e. no SimConnect) installation if you get this error. Use littlenavmap-nosimconnect.exe functionality except direct connection and scenery database loading. Note: used anymore as of Little Navmap version 1.4.4. You can use instead which provides all is not littlenavmap-nosimconnect.exe on all computers no matter littlenavmap.exe if SimConnect is installed or not. Search shows no result or unexpected results: Check the drop down menu for the change indicator and * the search fields for any remaining text if the distance search does not give any or unexpected results. Use Search in the context menu of the result table or press Ctrl+R Search or flight plan tables shows strange column names like program is updated. Use Reset View Reset to clear all search criteria. airport_id or others: This can happen if the in the context menu of the result table. Online maps like OpenStreetMap or OpenTopoMap maps can end up blurred when using functionality like Center Flight Plan or Go to Home . Zoom once in and out using the mouse wheel, overlay zoom buttons or keyboard to fix this. The flight plan elevation profile has errors or invalid elevation data: The online elevation data contains several known errors. Use the recommended GLOBE offline elevation data. See here for information how to install the offline data. OpenStreetMap shows a dark gray background on some places without hill shading coverage (for example New Zealand). Use another map theme or switch off hill shading for the OpenStreetMap. Loading of the scenery database takes too long: Exclude scenery directories containing only landclass, elevation data or other for Little Navmap irrelevant data. You can do that in the Library Database Options dialog on the tab. See Options. Crash while loading the scenery library database: You can exclude scenery directories in the on the Scenery Scenery Library Database Options dialog tab if loading of an add-on BGL causes the program to crash. Do not restart the program after it shows the crash dialog and instead load the log file which is typically C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp\abarthel-little_navmap.log . The path may vary depending on your Windows installation. Search for the last line in the log-file that looks like: [2016-10-14 22:58:21.903 default INFO ] unknown: ==== "404 of 521 (77 %)" "APX41080.bgl" Now search for APX41080.bgl and exclude its directory from loading in the Options dialog. Known Problems Some airport add-ons do not modify the stock airports but only add new scenery and buildings. These add-ons will not be recognized as such and are therefore not highlighted on the map (italic and underlined text). Add-on developers have to use all kind of workarounds to avoid FSX or P3D limitations which means the display and information given for add-on airports is not always correct. A lot of these changes are also done to make AI behave properly. Typical examples are: Airports without runways, airports with runway dimensions 0 by 0 ft or 0 ft runway width, taxiways with 0 ft width, seemingly closed taxiways, duplicate airports, duplicate runways in water, taxiways in water, military gates at civilian airports and more. Route description parsing can skip waypoints in rare cases even for previously calculated flight plans. This can happen due to fragmented airways, errors in the source data or ambiguities between navaids. Some KML/KMZ files do not show up on the map. Adding a center point pushpin to the KML/KMZ file can fix this. Coverage for online elevation and OpenStreetMap hill shading data is limited and currently ends at 60 degree north. Use the OpenTopoMap, OpenMapSurfer or Stamen Terrain map themes which have world wide coverage for hill shading. There are errors in the online elevation source data (like in northern Italy, Po Valley or Lake Titicaca in Peru and 172 Tips for old and slow Computers Bolivia) which will show up in the flight plan elevation profile. The Mercator projection shows occasional display problems depending on zoom distance like horizontal lines near the anti meridian or missing flight plan segments. The Marble floating map overlays on the map can be configured but do not save all settings except their visibility. Flight plan and airways are drawn using great circle lines instead of rhumb lines. Distance and course are not affected by this. Magnetic variance is partially not set (for example VORDME Cambridge Bay YCB) or inconsistent between airports an adjacent navaids. This is an error in the source. Airports are misplaced (for example Cabo San Lucas, MM15 in Mexico) compared to the background maps. This is an error in the source data and cannot be fixed. Map printouts can be fuzzy since they depend on screen resolution. As a workaround increase the size of the visible map window. Very long route legs can disappear from the map when zooming in. The label is still visible though. Tooltips of large airspaces can appear at wrong places. Scrolling the map can be very slow for some complex X-Plane airports. The wrong procedures are restored sometimes if the flight plan is reloaded when an airport has more than one procedure with the same name. Procedures are drawn incorrectly in some cases. The airport search attribute Procedures does not work correctly in the mixed database. It will show only simulator airports having procedures instead of using the Navigraph airport status. How to report a Bug If something goes wrong send me any involved files like KML, PLN or BGL (if copyright permits), Little Navmap's log file and configuration file which both can be located in the about dialog. My e-mail addresses are shown in the about dialog of Little Navmap as well. Add all necessary information: Operating system: Windows: 7, 8 or 10 macOS: El Capitan, Sierra or High Sierra Linux: which distribution and version Simulator: X-Plane: 10, 11.05 or 11.10 beta version FSX, FSX SE, P3D V4 or V4.1 Add any flight plans or other files if involved in the error Please add all steps that are necessary to reproduce the error. If possible send me the log file. Please compress log files using zip to avoid stuffing my mailbox. When an error occurs during loading of the scenery library send me the offending file if size permits. The full name and path of the file is shown on top of the error dialog if a specific is the cause. If you're concerned about privacy when sending log files: The log files will contain all system paths (like your Documents directory) which will also include your username as a part of the path. They might also contain your computer's name and IP address in your network. I would suggest you remove this information if you're concerned about it. 173 Tips for old and slow Computers In no case are file names of anything but the flight simulator or its configuration files included. No names or contents of personal files are included in the log files. I strongly recommend sending the log files by private forum message or by email and not attach them to forum posts where they are publicly visible. 174 Glossary 3D X-Plane airport which contains at least one 3D object. May be a fully constructed major airport. Add-on airport This is an airport that was found outside the Flight Simulator default scenery folder when loading the database. Arrival Procedure Approach, transition or STAR procedure. BGL A binary file with the extension BGL which is part of a flight simulator scenery containing airport, navaid or airway information. These files can also contain traffic, landclass, elevation or other information which is not relevant for Little Navmap. DAT A text file format used by X-Plane to store airport, navaid and procedure information. Departure Procedure SID procedure. CSV Comma-separated values text file. DME Distance measuring equipment or a radio navaid. Empty airport An airport that has no taxiways, no parking positions or gates, no aprons and is not an add-on airport and is not a water airport. Fix This term refers to a waypoint, radio navaid or an calculated point on a procedure. 175 Glossary FLP Flight plan format used by the X-Plane FMS, Aerosoft Airbus and other add-on aircraft. FMS X-Plane flight plan format. FS9 Flight Simulator 2004. FSX Flight Simulator X or Flight Simulator - Steam Edition. GIS A geographical information system like Google Earth for example. Initial Fix This is the first fix of a procedure. Navaid VOR, VORTAC, TACAN, NDB or waypoint/intersection. NDB Non directional beacon - radio navaid. P3D Prepar3D v2 to v4. Parking GA ramp, cargo ramp, fuel box or gate. PLN FSX and P3D flight plan format. Can save all information in flight plans using annotations. 176 Glossary Procedure Approach, transition, SID or STAR. Radio navaid VOR, VORTAC, TACAN or NDB. Rating Airport zero to five star rating depending on facilities. Scenery Library Database This is an internal database (SQLite) that is created by Little Navmap when reading all the flight simulator BGL or DAT files. It allows fast complex searches and map display. SID Standard instrument departure. SimConnect A programming interface that allows applications to read and write flight simulator parameters. STAR Standard terminal arrival procedure. Usually followed by a transition and an approach. Start position Used for departure in flight plans. Either runway, helipad, GA ramp, cargo ramp, fuel box or gate. TACAN Tactical air navigation system - radio navaid used by military aircraft. VOR VHF Omni Directional Radio Range - radio navaid. VORDME 177 Glossary VHF Omni Directional Radio Range with distance measuring equipment- radio navaid. VORTAC Co-located VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) beacon and tactical air navigation system (TACAN) beacon. Userpoint A user-defined waypoint like a bookmark, point of interest or visual reporting point (VRP). VRP Visual reporting point for VFR flights. A userpoint type. POI General point of interest. A userpoint type. Flight Plan Position A user-defined waypoint which is part of the flight plan. 178 License License This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses. 179 EFMA RUNGA N872 TEB N623 BEDLA N866 NEGIL ESGT LGIR SUD UJ65 TRL UM601 RUTOM M601 QUENN Q123 LULIX P167 GINOX UM601 BCN UN975 SELVA LEDA
Source Exif Data:
File Type : PDF File Type Extension : pdf MIME Type : application/pdf PDF Version : 1.4 Linearized : No Author : Unknown Create Date : 2018:07:09 10:23:56+00:00 Producer : calibre 3.21.0 [https://calibre-ebook.com] Description : Title : Table of Contents Publisher : GitBook Subject : Creator : Unknown Language : en Metadata Date : 2018:07:09 12:23:56.582862+02:00 Timestamp : 2018:07:09 12:23:49.580814+02:00 Page Count : 179EXIF Metadata provided by EXIF.tools