X-Plane can load a information from a flight data recorder (FDR). This is useful primarily in accident investigation and re-creation. In that case, you would need to take the data from the “black box” of the aircraft you’re interested in and put it in a format that X‑Plane can read: the Flight Data Recorder (or ‘.fdr’) format. This is plain text file formatted in a particular way.
This document explains what fields are permitted and a brief explanation of each. Note that even if your instantaneous “snapshots” of the aircraft do not use a given parameter, your data file must use a dummy value as a placeholder.
Once you have formatted the information and saved the file, open it in X-Plane by going to the File menu and selecting “Load Flight Data Recorder File.” Pick your .fdr file by clicking on square button at bottom of explanation window.
Creating a .fdr file
Fields permitted (in any order):
- COMM: any comment
- ACFT: the aircraft file to use, with full directory path from the X-Plane folder (ex: Aircraft/Heavy Metal/Boeing 747.acf).
- TAIL: tail number of the aircraft (ex: N8141Q). Must come immediately after the ACFT line.
- TIME: ZULU time of the beginning of the flight (ex: 18:54:32).
- DATE: date of the flight (ex: 03/05/02).
- PRES: sea-level pressure during the flight in inches HG (ex: 29.92).
- TEMP: sea-level temperatre during the flight in degrees farenheit (ex: 65).
- WIND: wind during th flight in degrees then knots (ex: 230,17).
- CALI: the actual takeoff or touchdown logitude, latitude, and elevation in feet for calibration to X-Plane scenery. (ex: -118.34, 34.57, 456).
- WARN: time to play a warning sound file, with full directory path from X-Plane itself to the .wav file (ex: 10,Resources/sounds/alert/1000ft.WAV).
- TEXT: time & text to be read aloud by computer speech synthesis software (10,Copilot left the cockpit here).
- MARK: time at which a text marker will appear in the time slider (ex: 15,Approach began here).
- EVNT: highlights the flight path at the specified time, for a specified duration (ex: 10.5).
- DATA: comma-delimited floating-point numbers that make up the bulk of the .fdr data (see explanation table below)
Table of examples
*Note: Examples are from line 2 of the “Example FDR file.fdr” found in the Instructions folder of X-Plane 10.45.
Data must be entered in this order to display in the correct columns in X-Plane. Use a dummy value (such as 0) if your data does not include a particular field.
| Column Header | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|
| time secon | time in seconds from the beginning of the recording | 1.0 |
| temp deg C | temp in degrees celsius of the ambient air near the airplane at current altitude | 45 |
| lon degre | longitude in degrees | –117.20 |
| lat degre | latitude in degrees | 34.000 |
| h msl ft | height above mean sea level in TRUE feet, regardless of any barometric pressure setting or other errors | 4010 |
| h rad ft | radio altimeter indication | 0 |
| ailn ratio | aileron deflection in ratio –1.0 (left) to +1.0 (right) | 0 |
| elev ratio | elevator deflection in ratio –1.- (nose down) to +1.0 (nose up) | 0 |
| rudd ratio | rudder deflection in ratio –1.- (left) to +1.0 (right) | 0 |
| ptch deg | pitch in degrees, positive indicating up | 0 |
| roll deg | roll in degrees, positive indicating right | 0 |
| hdng TRUE | heading in degrees TRUE | 0 |
| speed KIAS | speed in knots | 250.1 |
| VVI ft/mn | indicated vertical speed in feet per minute | .2 |
| slip deg | indicated slip in degrees, positive indicating nose right | 0 |
| turn deg | turn-slip indicator deflection, positive indicating right | .4 |
| mach # | Indicated Mach number | .5 |
| AOA deg | Indicated Angle of Attack | 1 |
| stall warn | Stall warning on, 1 or 0 | 0 |
| flap rqst | Flap handle position, 0.0 (retracted) to 1.0 (extended) | 0 |
| flap actul | Flap–1 deflection ratio, 0.0 (retracted) to 1.0 (extended) | 0 |
| slat ratio | Slat–1 deflection ratio, 0.0 (retracted) to 1.0 (extended) | 0 |
| sbrk ratio | Speedbrake deflection ratio, 0.0 (retracted), (1.0 extended), 1.5 (ground-deployed) | 0 |
| gear handl | Gear handle, 0 (up) to 1 (down) | 1 |
| Ngear down | Gear #1 (nose?) deployment ratio, 0.0 (retracted) to 1.0 (down) | 1 |
| Lgear down | Gear #2 (left?) deployment ratio, 0.0 (retracted) to 1.0 (down) | 1 |
| Rgear down | Gear #3 (right?) deployment ratio, 0.0 (retracted) to 1.0 (down) | 1 |
| elev trim | Elevator trim, –1.0 (nose down) to 1.0 (nose up) | 0 |
| NAV–1 frq | Nav–1 frequency in a 5-digit integer form with no decimal | 11010 |
| NAV–2 frq | Nav–2 frequency in a 5-digit integer form with no decimal | 10930 |
| NAV–1 type | Nav–1 type (NONE=0, NDB=2, VOR=3, LOC=5, ILS=10) | 4 |
| NAV–2 type | Nav–2 type (NONE=0, NDB=2, VOR=3, LOC=5, ILS=10) | 4 |
| OBS–1 deg | OBS–1 in degrees 0 to 360 | 90 |
| OBS–2 deg | OBS–2 in degrees 0 to 360 | 270 |
| DME–1 nm | 0.0 means no DME found, any positive value means we are getting DME data | 0 |
| DME–2 nm | 0.0 means no DME found, any positive value means we are getting DME data | 0 |
| NAV–1 h-def | Horizontal (localizer) deflection, –2.5 to 2.5 dots, positive fly right | 2.5 |
| NAV–2 h-def | Horizontal (localizer) deflection, –2.5 to 2.5 dots, positive fly right | 2.5 |
| NAV–1 n/t/f | Nav–1 NAV/TO/FROM (nav=0, to=1, from=2) | 1 |
| NAV–2 n/t/f | Nav–1 NAV/TO/FROM (nav=0, to=1, from=2) | 1 |
| NAV–1 v-def | Vertical (glideslope) deflection, –2.5 to 2.5 dots, positive fly up | 2.5 |
| NAV–2 v-def | Vertical (glideslope) deflection, –2.5 to 2.5 dots, positive fly up | 2.5 |
| OM over | Over marker 0 or 1 | 0 |
| MM over | Over marker 0 or 1 | 0 |
| IM over | Over marker 0 or 1 | 0 |
| f-dir 0/1 | Flight director on, 0 or 1 | 0 |
| f-dir ptch | Flight director pitch in degrees, positive indicating up | 10 |
| f-dir roll | Flight director roll in degrees, positive indicating right | 10 |
| ktmac 0/1 | Autopilot is holding knots or mach number (knots=0, mach=1) | 0 |
| throt mode | Auto-throttle mode (off=0, on=1) | 0 |
| hdg mode | Autopilot heading mode (0=wing-level, 1=heading, 2=localizer or other CDI) | 0 |
| alt mode | Autopilot altitude mode (3=pitch sync, 4=vvi, 5=airspeed, 6=airspeed with alt arm, 7=alt hold, 8=terrain-follow, 9=glideslope hold) | 0 |
| hnav mode | Localizer CDI is ARMED for capture 0 or 1 | 0 |
| glslp mode | Glideslope CDI is ARMED for capture 0 or 1 | 0 |
| back mode | Back-course on 0 or 1 | 0 |
| speed selec | Autopilot speed selection, knots or Mach number | 0 |
| hdg selec | Autopilot heading selection, degrees magnetic | 0 |
| vvi selec | Autopilot vertical speed selection, feet per minute | 0 |
| alt selec | Autopilot altitude selection, feet MSL indicated | 500 |
| baro in hg | Barometric pressure dialed into the altimeter, inches HG | 29.9 |
| DH ft | Decision height dialed into the radio alt, feet AGL | 0 |
| Mcaut 0/1 | Master Caution alerting 0 to 1 | 0 |
| Mwarn 0/1 | Master Warning alerting 0 to 1 | 0 |
| GPWS 0/1 | Ground Proximity Warning 0 to 1 | 0 |
| Mmode 0–4 | Map mode: 0 through 4 can give different map results | 0 |
| Mrang 0–6 | Map range: 0 through 6 will give different map ranges | 0 |
| throt ratio | Throttle ratio 0.0 to 1.0 (emergency settings can actually exceed 1.0) | 1 |
| prop cntrl | Propeller RPM command, per engine | 2005.4 |
| prop rpm | Propeller RPM actual, per engine | 2005.4 |
| prop deg | Propeller pitch in degrees, per engine | 30 |
| N1 % | N1, per engine | 100.1 |
| N2 % | N2, per engine | 100.1 |
| MPR inch | Engine Manifold Pressure, per engine | 0 |
| EPR ind | Engine Pressure Ratio, per engine | 0 |
| torq ft*lb | Engine torque, per engine | 584.1 |
| FF lb/hr | Fuel Flow, per engine | 400 |
| ITT deg C | Turbine Inlet Temperature, per engine | 1000 |
| EGT deg C | Exhaust Gas Temperature, per engine | 1000 |
| CHT deg C | Cylinder Head Temperature, per engine | 0 |
Additional information
Spaces are ignored.
We only support the format as shown in our example FDR file (DATE,08/10/2004,), not the format preferred by ISO 8601.
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