I don’t have much to add to Ian’s post, the best way is still to vote for features so that we can gauge interest.
But I’ll try to give some more context regarding layout requests specifically below. Please don’t take this as minimizing or downplaying the validity of OFP layout requests. Personally I find the different layouts interesting as well, but there are a few reasons why they can take a bit more time to get to:
While this may be true, most people are requesting a specific layout. The amount of people that would be satisfied if a given format is added is very low. There are certainly a few users (such as yourself) who would be happy to see any new layout added, but this seems quite uncommon based on the statistics we have.
To give some actual numbers, the most popular airlines planned on SimBrief can be found here. At current writing, EWG - Eurowings is the most popular airline we don’t have a layout for (currently in 9th place). KLM (which we do have a layout for) is roughly equivalent in 10th place. Over the past 24 hours, 0.3% of users (3 in 1000) have used the KLM layout option. So we can make a rough estimate that if we were to add a EWG layout, it would probably be used by under 0.5% of SimBrief users (slightly more than KLM).
Depending on the complexity of the layout, it can take anywhere from 15 to 30 hours to program it. The recent AAL redesign took closer to 30h, in large part due to the unique layout of the NOTAMs section, but that was deemed worth it since many potential future layouts share the same NOTAMs layout (it’s since been ported to SWA, for example).
With that said, we currently have a to-do list of around 100 other requested features. Most of them are general improvements or fixes that would benefit all SimBrief users, and many of them can be done in the same amount of time as adding a single new layout. For example:
- Redispatch planning
- Adding real-world route sources for Europe and/or other countries
- A better interface for custom altitude changes enroute
- Respecting SID/STAR restrictions in the altitude profiler
- Better handling of RAD restrictions in Europe
- Including suitable enroute airports weather and NOTAMs in OFPs
- More airframe customization options (including better speed/performance adjustments)
- Adding takeoff/landing calculations for more aircraft types
- Adding a database of intersection takeoff distances to the takeoff performance tool
- Decoupling the “Step Climbs” option from the FIR/airway-specific cruise tables
- Decoupling the “Detailed Navlog” option from the creation of FMS route files
- Support for custom file names when exporting from the SimBrief Downloader
Not to mention many bug fixes, performance improvements, and general server/infrastructure work that needs to be done to keep the site responsive as it continues to grow.
The infrastructure and upkeep stuff takes priority, then user support takes a significant amount of time (such as writing this post), then critical bug fixes, then any left over time can be put towards new features. This makes it all the more important to use that leftover time for new features wisely.
But we still do manage to work on layouts from time to time. In the past year we’ve added or updated the following:
| Layout | Update | Date(s) |
|---|---|---|
| WZZ | Completely new LIDO-based layout added | December 13th 2024 |
| AAL | Major redesign based on new FLIGHTKEYS system, most sections changed in some way, completely new navlog style, completely new NOTAMs layout | June 20th 2025 |
| SWA | Moderate redesign based on new FLIGHTKEYS system, new NOTAMs layout | July 4th 2025 |
| DLH | Moderate redesign based on latest info | August 22nd 2024 |
| BAW | Light to moderate redesign based on latest info | August 12th 2024 |
| EIN | Light to moderate redesign based on latest info | August 9th 2024 |
| UAE | Light to moderate redesign based on latest info | Various updates over the past year |
| RYR | Light redesign based on latest info | August 7th 2024 |
Not including various minor updates and fixes to a few other layouts over the past year (namely DAL and UAL).
If I had to guess, this is probably the update cadence you can expect in a given year. One or two new layouts and minor to moderate updates for a few other existing ones.
At present we don’t have any layouts currently in progress. AFR might get a moderate update and JBU might get a major redesign at some point. When it comes to new layouts, we don’t have any info about the EWG layout so we can’t add it currently. SAS would be the next highest in the list, but it’s a table-based (Sabre or Flightkeys?) layout that takes even more time to program than the LIDO-based ones, which makes it even harder to get to I’m afraid.
Hope this was helpful in some way!
Best regards,