Hello there.
This is the first time I’ve posted in this forum and i wouldn’t normally be looking for support but something wierd has come up and i can’t make head or tail of it.
So, i generated a simbrief flight from KLAX to KMIA. The initial alternate was set to either KJAX or KTPA.
After i inserted the payload for a custom airframe. this flight was supposed to be for a b748F, the alternate changed from KTPA or KJAX to KAGS.
Once again, this happened on a generated flight from KMIA to KJFK.
Initially, it came up with the alternate KPHL and then changed it once again after inserting payload and time, same aircraft type by the way, to the manchehster regional airport in boston.
I would like to point out that this is not a critical issue, but it’s just a little wierd that on the flight from lax to mia ags was chosen which is over 400 miles away from the destination.
I hope someone has any idea why simbrief is doing this and can shed some light on this situation.
Thanks and good day.
Hi,
Lately in Florida, in the afternoon/evening, thunderstorms are often forecast for most airports south of JAX. SimBrief avoids planning an alternate if any thunderstorms are forecast around your arrival time, which can result in having to select an alternate that is quite a bit farther away.
One reason your alternate might have changed during planning is if you changed your departure time, for example. Sometimes all it takes is to change your departure time by 30 minutes, and your original alternate might now be forecasting thunderstorms at your new arrival time, making it no longer suitable.
If you prefer, in the Alternate Airports section of the Flight Options page, you can choose to optionally ignore thunderstorms when choosing an alternate:
Best regards,
hi there.
That might explain the florida flight, but not the jfk flight, unless that is also predicting thunder storms.
And the wierd thing is when i changed my departure time, i got the usual pop up stating that this would change any etops and or alternate scenarios and whatever, i hit yes on that and the alternate stayed the same as the intial routing.
Only after inserting payload, fraight passengers etc, did my alternate change.
I’m just a little confused. if the alternate was gonna change, surely it should change once the time had changed, and not after payload and stuff was slotted into consideration no?
Sorry if i’m being difficult, but i don’t really understand the logic behind the sudden shift of alternates.
One more thing, i only started seeing this problem occur recently. or at least, if it had been occuring for a while i didn’t notice it.
Thanks and i hope you have a good day.
Hi,
in my experience the choice of ALTN in most cases does not make much sense. Often even a standard ALTN for a specific airport is not even listed.
Unfortunately when generating a flight you can’t choose an alternate airport manually as the filed is greyed out. I really don’t understand the reason for this as it is in any case up to the captain to check whether or not an ALTN is suitable, which includes weather situation.
That is why I would suggest to allow a manual selection not only at the DEP and ARR fields but also in the ALTN field. Pilots who are unsure and prefer to trust in the choice Simbrief offers may continue to rely on the suggestions by not entering an ICAO code at the ALTN field.
This is not normal. You can absolutely manually enter any alternate you would like on the SimBrief flight options page.
Please provide a screenshot of the “greyed out” field if possible.
Best regards,
Oh yes, my apologies, I checked it, it really IS possible to enter an ICAO code manually. Sorry, maybe I was just puzzled by they grey entry. So disregard pls. 
Good news, thanks!
I have also made some improvements to the alternate selection again. The update from last week actually resulted in worse alternates for some airports (such as EDDF), which should be better now.
Best regards,
Sorry, but one more thing:
I start planning by choosing DEP, ARR and (now ) ALT. Unfortunately the selection of my manually inserted ALT is overwritten though by selecting select an airframe, which I do next. It oviously switches back to AUTO. This is not helpful and makes manual inputs obsolete. In my eyes a manually selected ALT should never be overwritten automatically. If a pilot is unsure, because he has no idea which airports may be suiteable, he can leave it on “Auto” anyway.
Hi, this is a limitation of the current system. Since the alternate airport is re-evaluated based on aircraft type (runway length requirement and max diversion distance might change, for example).
The best thing I can suggest when creating a new flight is to select your aircraft type before customizing your alternate. I’m not sure if or when this aspect might get improved at the moment.
Best regards,