newtech

newtech

Well Known Member
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Garmin has been very busy adding new features to it's already excellent 696 GPS. One of the new features is the ability to import and export flight plans using the SD Memory Card. Why is this such a great feature? When you have the 696 linked to your Icom A-210 or Garmin Com it will send the frequencies of your next Way-Point to the A-210. It really becomes a nice feature when you have all of the facilities you might be talking to entered as Way-Points.

It is much easier entering a detailed flight plan into a flight planning program than it is entering all of the way-points into the 696 by hand. The problem is, the only flight planning programs I could find that will export a flight plan in the .FPL format the 696 uses are programs that cost several hundred dollars to license. I get the AOPA Flight Planning program free with my membership. It supports exporting a flight plan but only in .GPX format :( ; Gotta love multiple standards :confused:

The solution? Garmin could accept both .FPL and .GPX for input; AOPA FLight Planner could output in both .GPX and .FPL; I could find a free flight planner that supported .FPL; or I could write a simple .GPX to .FPL (actually XML) translator.

There are several Unix/Linux programmers in VAF so I thought I would toss this out for discussion. I have been designing and writing Unix software since the early V6 Unix days (circa early 1970's) and will probably go ahead and cobble together a simple translator; but a polished filter to take the AOPA Flight Planner export file format as its input and output an XML file following the .FPL style rules would be a useful project.

Your thoughts?
 
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For what it's worth, I believe some of the free flight planning sites such as FltPlan.com have a "Save to Garmin" format that will do what you want.

mcb (didn't invent the .FPL format, btw)
 
mburch said:
For what it's worth, I believe some of the free flight planning sites such as FltPlan.com have a "Save to Garmin" format that will do what you want.

mcb (didn't invent the .FPL format, btw)
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Thanks Matt,
I just finished transferring a flight plan to the Dominican Republic from FltPlan to my 696. Simply plugging in the SD Card, containing the saved flight plan, allowed me to import the flight plan which resulted in it showing up in the 696's Flight Plan directory. This is so cool, thanks Garmin for continuing to refine the 696.

Now we just need to get AOPA's ear and have them add the .FPL output file format to their Flight Planner. Better yet would be for SkyVector to add the ability to save to a .FPL file.
 
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newtech said:
It is much easier entering a detailed flight plan into a flight planning program than it is entering all of the way-points into the 696 by hand. The problem is, the only flight planning programs I could find that will export a flight plan in the .FPL format the 696 uses are programs that cost several hundred dollars to license. I get the AOPA Flight Planning program free with my membership. It supports exporting a flight plan but only in .GPX format :( ; Gotta love multiple standards :confused: ...

There are several Unix/Linux programmers in VAF so I thought I would toss this out for discussion. I have been designing and writing Unix software since the early V6 Unix days (circa early 1970's) and will probably go ahead and cobble together a simple translator; but a polished filter to take the AOPA Flight Planner export file format as its input and output an XML file following the .FPL style rules would be a useful project.

Your thoughts?
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I am a Unix/Linux programmer and I'm responsible for the "FPlan" program (http://fplan.sf.net/) and I'd be willing to modify it to write either or both formats. In addition, I'm writing flight navigation software for cockpit use and I'd like to be able to read these formats.

Are they documented anywhere?
 
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