Generating an Airline Schedule

Schedules builds a roster out of a real airline's timetable. You set the shape of the day, the app chains flights that actually connect, and accepting the result opens the roster builder with every leg already filled in.

Before you start

Schedules is under Roster in the nav. The map fills the screen and the panel on the right does the work.

Two things in Settings are worth checking first.

• SimBrief username, under the SimBrief tile. A generated roster arrives with no OFPs, so you still pull one per flight.
• Turnaround difficulty, under Roster. It is what the app uses to space the generated flights, so set it before you generate rather than after.

Nothing is saved while you are on this screen. A generated roster is a proposal until you accept it and save it in the builder.

Building the day

1. Pick an airline

The Airline list shows what we have loaded, with the number of flights in each timetable beside the name, for example EZY easyJet with 1714 flights.

• Airlines under Available can be generated from.
• Airlines under Coming Soon are greyed out. The timetable is not in yet, and picking one does nothing.
• The list grows. If the airline you fly is not there, ask on Discord.

Choosing an airline draws its whole route network on the map, so you can see where it actually goes before you set anything else.

2. Set the shape of the day

Everything except the airline and the roster start is a filter, and every filter narrows what can be chained.

• Start ICAO, optional. Leave it blank to start anywhere the airline flies from. Type four letters, or click an airport on the map.
• Aircraft type. The list is the types in that airline's timetable. Any type is the default and lets the chain change aeroplane.
• Legs, 1 to 5.
• Min minutes and Max minutes. A filter on each flight's scheduled flight time, 1 to 2000, starting at 60 and 600.
• Roster start (OBT), in UTC. This is flight 1's off blocks time, and the whole day is worked out forward from it.

Watch out: Roster start (OBT) is the one field that is not a filter. Leave it empty and you can still generate, but Accept stays greyed out and the panel tells you why.

3. Generate

Click Generate Schedule. The app takes every flight in that airline's timetable that fits your minutes and your aircraft type, picks one at random, then builds the chain forward: each flight has to depart from where the one before it arrived, and no flight is used twice.

It tries ten times before it gives up, so a chain that exists will almost always be found and an impossible one fails quickly.

The preview lists the flight number, the sector and the type for each leg, and the map swaps the route network for the chain it just built.

Do not like it? Regenerate gives you a different chain from the same filters. There is a five second cooldown between goes and the button counts it down.

4. Accept it

Accept hands the chain to the roster builder and takes you straight there. The draft arrives with:

• a name made from the airline and today's date, which you can type over;
• Advanced Roster Creation already on, so each flight carries its own aircraft type;
• every flight's route, airline code, flight number, aircraft and off blocks time.

How the times are worked out

Flight 1 goes off blocks at your Roster start (OBT). Every flight after it is placed by walking the day forward:

off blocks        =  the previous leg's in blocks + turnaround
+ taxi out        =  15 minutes
+ flight time     =  the airline's own timetable figure
+ taxi in         =  15 minutes
=  in blocks, which starts the next turnaround

The turnaround is the minimum for your tier: 40 minutes on Easy, 30 on Regular, 25 on Hard, 20 on Extreme.

Those flight times are timetable figures, not SimBrief's. Once you pull the real OFPs the air times are SimBrief's instead, and when you save the roster the builder re-checks the whole day against your minimum turnaround, moves any flight that now breaks it, and names the flight and the gap it is protecting. Treat the generated times as a good starting point, not a finished plan.

Finishing the roster

From here it is an ordinary roster, so Creating a Roster applies in full. The short version:

• Check the taxi times on each flight. The builder's default is 15 out and 15 in.
• Work through the flights in order, using Send to SimBrief, Generate OFP and Pull from SimBrief on each one.
• Review & Save, then Save Roster.
• Before pushback, re-open flight 1 in SimBrief and click Generate OFP again, so the plan your aircraft and GSX pull is the one you are about to fly.

Watch out: saving a roster while another one is active replaces it. The old roster is archived where it stands, and if it was an event roster that attempt is marked failed.

The map

The map is not decoration. With an airline selected it draws every route in that timetable, filtered live by your aircraft type, your start airport and your minutes, so you can see what you have just ruled out.

• Click an airport to set it as Start ICAO.
• ATC shows the controlled sectors and approach areas that are online on VATSIM right now.
• VATSIM Traffic shows live aircraft, and Counts puts the movement count on each busy airport.
• Those three switches are remembered between sessions.

If something goes wrong

No flights match the requested filters. Nothing in that timetable is inside your minutes, or no flight uses the aircraft type you picked. Widen the minutes first, then set Aircraft type back to Any type.

Could not build a chain that satisfies the filters within the attempt budget. Flights exist, but they do not join up. Somewhere in the chain the airline has no onward flight that also fits your filters. Ask for fewer legs, widen the minutes, or clear Start ICAO.

No routes depart from a four letter code. That airline does not fly out of that airport. Clear the field or click a different airport on the map.

Max duration must be greater than or equal to min. The two minutes boxes are the wrong way round.

Set a roster start (OBT) above before accepting. Fill in Roster start (OBT). The preview stays where it is.

The button reads Regenerate in 5s. The cooldown between generations. Wait for it.

An airline you want is greyed out. It is Coming Soon: the timetable has not been loaded yet.

No flights have been uploaded for this airline yet. The airline exists but its timetable is empty. Worth saying so on Discord.

This feature is currently disabled. Schedules has been switched off on our side, usually while something is being fixed. Nothing on your machine will change that.