I’ve been attempting to create in SimBrief a flightplan to fly from YLIL to YMEN. I get an error message “ … unknown departure airport”. I’ve read other reports in your FAQ etc but they relate more to “addons” (whatever they are). I’m trying to simply enter a flight plan into SimBrief. If i could work out how to do it, I would attach a screen shot of the error.
Hi Chris,
Please see FAQ - Missing Airports in Charts, SimBrief, and FMS Data. YLIL is a private airport so unlikely to be included in the Jeppesen data.
Cheers
Ian
YMEN is in Simbrief’s database; YLIL is not (so the error is solely caused by YLIL not being found).
As Ian suggested, perhaps the fact that YLIL is private is why it’s not included in Jepp’s data.
Interestingly, it is seemingly listed in the AIP:
1.3 The aerodrome directory is published as En Route Supplement Australia (ERSA) Facilities (FAC) which lists certified aerodromes along with their availability and conditions of use.
Maybe this is enough to add the airport and runway to the Simbrief database?
Regards,
Tim
Hi Tim,
I may have overlooked something in your posted links, but I can’t find any essential coordinates for YLIL. No Airport Reference Point, no runway threshold coordinates, only text/descriptions.
In addition to this:
These documents are dated 25 Nov 2025, so when this airport could be included within the subsequent 2-3 cycles, but it is unlikely when the basic requirements from above are missing.
Cheers
Richard
No runway coordinates sadly, but there seems to be an ARP?
374131S 1452159E
Also exists in the older ERSA:
Sadly, without runway thresholds it’s a bit difficult to add indeed.
Even the YSSY “FAC” doesn’t seem to have those so I guess they may be elsewhere in the AIP, but I haven’t found where.
Regards,
Tim
Hi Tim,
Thanks for your comments on this issue. Very helpful.
I’ll try a few other flight plans avoiding Lilydale. X-Plane has managed to represent Lilydale runways in a way that looks to me be pretty accurate. I wonder what their source of data is?
I can’t speak for Sydney … I’ve never flown into Sydney. 
Thanks again,
Chris
X-Plane scenery is partially crowdsourced and either way does not need an “authoritative” source like the country’s official AIP.
Jeppesen’s database (used by Navigraph and Simbrief under license, but also by real-world aviation professionals), on the other hand, does need to be based on official data.
Simbrief does have a small number of “tailored records”, added before their acquisition by Navigraph. But new additions do need an authoritative source, possibly because otherwise the developers would be spending half their time adding every airport under the sun.
There are feature requests to be able to use latitude/longitude coordinates as start points and endpoints on Simbrief (although search seems to be failing me right now, I can’t seem to locate such a topic).
I was just thinking a crowdsourced database or a per-user-account list of custom “waypoints” or even airports might also be helpful in that case, but that’s also probably a lot of work to implement.
In the meantime, a “typical” workaround might be to plan using the nearest available airport and adding a latitude/longitude waypoint corresponding to the airport reference point to your route; except in this case, the airport nearest to YLIL in Simbrief’s database is probably YMEN which is also your destination 
If you really must have a full briefing for such a short flight, you could plan YMEN to YMEN with 374131S/1452159E as the route, and perhaps set the alternate to NONE since you’re already carrying “double” the fuel (technically the route is YMEN DCT YLIL DCT YMEN).
Regards,
Tim
Hi Tim,
I dunno … I must be stupid. I’ve followed instructions, I’ve watched the videos, and I’ve googled several queries. And I’ve now altered my flight plan to …
DCT TELIP W720 ARBEY DCT MONTY/N0111F040 DCT ESDAN DCT
I still can’t get SI to recognize the flight plan. My alias is chrisstoltz. SI says (below my alias/userid) that SI will recognize my flight on first contact. But it doesn’t. I’ve tried several things but I always get the message that I’m not on flight following and to make contact with Melbourne Centre when airborne.
Frustrating to say the least.
Are you able to tel me what I’m doing wrong?
Cheers,
Chris
I’m a bit confused, this seems completely unrelated to your previous issue? You should probably start a new topic for this (SayIntentions-related?) issue, and perhaps also contact SayIntentions support for advice/help?
Regards,
Tim
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