Hi developers, I am a game programmer trying to create an ATC simulation game. To make the game more realistic, I would like to generate flight plan for the NPC controlled aircrafts. I have found the suggested routes in SimBrief amazing, and I would like to know if there is an API to get these planned routes without actually generating a flight plan.
For example, given the airport RJTT and VHHH and aircraft A320, it would return a list of routes like NINOX Y28 KCC V28 OLIVE Y28 ONDOC Y452 OOITA Y40 WOODY V40 FUE Z40 IGMON A1 MAGOG V512 ABBEY.
I think the current API for actually generating a flight plan would be unfeasible since it would spam the user’s dispatch list with plenty of “generated” plans. I wonder if there could be an API for simply querying the routes.
An endpoint for requesting routes is not something we currently offer. Perhaps in the future, but at the moment SimBrief’s route calculations are too CPU intensive. The use-case you proposed would call this endpoint too frequently I think, it would put too much load on the server.
You might be interested in this alternative API. It returns less data than SimBrief, but should support heavier usage as a result: API - Flight Plan Database
Thanks for your answer. Now I see the route planning could be expensive. However, I would like to know if it is also expensive to query the database for user-submitted preferred routes as they are high-quality routes that could be used or suggested by VATSIM controllers, and whether it could be provided as an API.
Hi, yes I think it would still be expensive to do so. Since each user might be using a different AIRAC cycle, the routes still need to be parsed, sorted, and in some cases modified to fit the user’s AIRAC.
In any case, the user submitted preferred routes alone wouldn’t give you the coverage you need. Only a small portion of city pairs have a user submitted route available for them.