fg-simbrief-addon/README

FG SimBrief Importer Add-On
===========================

What Is This?
-------------

This is an add-on for FlightGear that adds a SimBrief Import dialog.

(See https://www.simbrief.com/).

What It Does
------------

The SimBrief importer can import various aspects of a SimBrief flight plan into
FlightGear. The import functionality attempts to support as many aircraft types
as possible, but due to the nature of the beast, it does not work equally well
with all of them.

Ideally, the following functionality will be supported:

- Flight Plan Route: This one imports the departure and destination airports,
  and all enroute waypoints, into the default flightplan. If "Activate
  immediately" is checked, it will also activate the flightplan.
- Departure RWY, SID: This will attempt to select the planned departure runway,
  and the planned SID, from the flightplan. Note that this will only work if
  your FlightGear navdata matches the selections from SimBrief, which may not
  be the case, especially if you're using the default FG navdata and/or an
  outdated AIRAC cycle in SimBrief.
- Arrival RWY, STAR: This will attempt to select the planned arrival runway and
  STAR. The same caveats apply as with the departure runway and SID.
- Performance Init: This sets a handful of key performance parameters;
  currently: cruise altitude and callsign.
- Payload: Imports passenger and cargo weights, and attempts to distribute them
  sensibly over available payload weight slots.
- Fuel: Imports block fuel as per the flightplan, and attempts to distribute it
  sensibly over available fuel tanks. Because the importer has no idea where
  those tanks are located, or what their priorities are, it starts at the top,
  and uses a very crude logic to detect left/right pairs. (A more sophisticated
  fuel distribution system may be provided in the future).
- Winds Aloft: Runs a background process that sets winds aloft according to the
  forecast winds in the flightplan. This will only work with Basic Weather,
  since the Advanced Weather engine runs its own wind simulation that will
  overwrite winds aloft regardless of what we set.

Supported Aircraft Types (as per 09/2021)
-----------------------------------------

                         | FPL | Dep/SID | Arr/STAR | Perf Init | Payload | Fuel |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| E-Jet-family-YV        | E-Jet uses its own version of the simbrief importer   |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| A320-family            | A320 uses its own simbrief importer                   |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| 747-8i                 | yes | yes     | yes      | yes       | yes     | yes  |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| 747-400                | yes | yes     | yes      | yes       | no      | yes  |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| 737-800YV              | yes | yes     | yes      | yes       | no      | yes  |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| 777                    | yes | yes     | yes      | yes       | no      | yes  |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| Citation-II            | yes | yes     | yes      | yes       | yes     | yes  |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| Citation X             | yes | yes     | yes      | yes       | yes     | yes  |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| CRJ700-family          | yes | yes     | yes      | yes       | yes     | yes  |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| QSeries                | yes | yes     | yes      | yes       | no      | yes  |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+
| DHC6                   | yes | yes     | yes      | yes       | yes     | yes  |
+------------------------+-----+---------+----------+-----------+---------+------+