Taxi routing

Plan a route

WhereGate card in the Start tab after you select a gate.

1. 01

   Select a gate or stand. The card expands with Departure and Arrival modes.

2. 02

   Departure: pick the runway in Taxi to. The route is drawn from the gate to the hold short line of that runway, with the taxiways it uses and the distance.

3. 03

   Arrival: pick the runway you landed on. The route runs from the runway exit to the gate.

4. 04

   With a SimBrief plan loaded, the planner suggests the route to your SimBrief departure runway.

• The route stops at the hold line, not on the runway. Runway crossings on the way are marked.
• Auto route rebuilds the automatic route after you changed it. Save taxi route exports it for tools that can read it.
• An airport whose scenery has no taxi network says No taxi data. Draw manually still works there.

Reshape the route

WhereDrag the green route line on the map.

1. 01

   Drag any point of the route onto another taxiway. While you drag, the point slides along the taxiway under your cursor and shows its name, and the new route is drawn in place of the old one.

2. 02

   The line turns red where there is no way through. Let go there and you keep the route you had.

3. 03

   Double-click a point you added to remove it.

4. 04

   Undo takes back any change to the route one step at a time.

• Points you add stay on the route instead of being dropped when the route passes them twice.

Draw manually

WhereDraw manually on the gate card.

When the automatic route does not match how you want to taxi, or the airport's taxi network is incomplete, press Draw manually and click the taxiways in order. The route snaps to the network where it can.

Taxiway width

Routes keep to taxiways wide enough for your stand's size class. A narrower taxiway is used only when there is no other way. Pick a stand that matches your aircraft and the route will avoid GA taxiways on a heavy.

Follow it in the Flight Strip

WhereFlight Strip, on the map or popped out, while X-Plane runs.

On the ground, the strip shows the next instruction and how far away it is: continue on B, bear left onto K, turn right onto A, cross runway 16, hold short of runway 28, arrive at stand A03. An arrow points the way and the map trims the route behind you as you taxi. The map button opens a heading-up taxi map under the strip with the route, taxiway and runway labels and your aircraft on it.

• Both work in the popped-out Flight Strip window over X-Plane.
• With a flight plan loaded and no route planned, X-Dispatch suggests a route to the flight plan runway on its own. The strip marks it Auto; a route from the gate card is marked Plan.
• The taxi map closes at takeoff and opens again only when you press the map button.
• Without X-Plane connected, the taxi map previews the route from its start.

Airports with odd taxi networks

Routing depends on the taxi network in the airport data. Some airports, often older custom scenery, have incomplete or unusual networks. If a route cannot be found, or looks wrong, use Draw manually. Fixing the scenery's taxi network in WED fixes the route for everyone.