All serious X-Plane pilots need a flight planner and as long as the resulting flight plan can be imported into X-plane, you can use any flight planner and you are good to go. However there is one absolute gem out there which many X-Plane pilots don’t know about. Little Navmap is a free, open-source application that functions as a comprehensive flight planner, moving map, navigation tool, and airport information system, fully supporting X-Plane 12. It serves as a powerful external tool designed to streamline pre-flight planning and enhance situational awareness during the flight. You can download it here. It is unbelievable that such a complex, capable, polished and incredibly useful piece of software is provided to us at no charge. A very special thanks to @albar965
You can download it here (Don’t let the date of the download post fool you, Little Navmap is constantly being updated)
LNM is really good at consolidating extensive aeronautical data and flight planning features into one interface. Its core purpose is to simplify the creation and execution of complex Area Navigation (RNAV) flight plans, A secondary purpose is to provide an understandable usable moving map to track our flight in real-time.
1.] Comprehensive Data Visualization: LNM displays crucial data layers, including airports, runways, NAVAIDs (VOR, NDB, ILS), airways, and airspace boundaries, which reflect the layout found in X-Plane’s stock and add-on scenery. This capability allows pilots to gain full positional awareness (moving map display) of the entire route and surrounding environment
2.] Advanced Route Construction: It allows graphical construction of flight plans using simple map clicks. LNM handles complex procedures, enabling the integration of SIDs, STARs, and approaches directly into the plan
3.] Performance Calculation: The tool facilitates detailed calculations, including creating and displaying an elevation profile that shows terrain, altitude restrictions, and the aircraft’s projected climb and descent path. It can also perform detailed flight and fuel planning, if necessary, utilizing calculated True Airspeed (TAS) and winds aloft data.
4.] Automation and Guidance: LNM automatically centers the map on the user aircraft and the next active waypoint during flight. It can also gather real-time performance data from the simulator aircraft to create custom performance profiles.
5.] Flight Plan Import: After you complete the flight Plan you can save it as an FMS file and import it directly into the G530, G1000 or into one of the FMC units of the bigger aircraft in X-Plane.
So, how does LNM work with X-Plane 12?
For Little Navmap to function as a real-time moving map and interact with X-Plane 12, a dedicated 64-bit plugin called “Little Xpconnect” is installed in the X-Plane plugins directory. This plugin facilitates the transfer of aircraft position, AI traffic, and weather information between the simulator and LNM. Sometimes “plugins” have a bad reputation for causing instabilities and strange behaviour in X-Plane 12. To the best of my knowledge, this plugin is 100% compatible with X-Plane 12 and has never, ever, caused any troubles in my system. It’s “performance/frame-rate cost” when flying is minimal.
You can either use Little Navmap on the “flying” computer simultaneously with X-Plane (ideally with a dual-monitor system), or you can use it on a second computer which links to the “flying” computer via your local network (Ethernet or WiFi). I prefer the latter since it allows me to use more than one screen for flying, keeping LNM completely separate.
To get the most out of LNM, there is a large manual available (online or downloadable), so RTFM !
To get even more out of Little Navmap take a look at this book on Flying-Low’s stable