Fly Your Plan: Reading the Dispatch Navlog in ACARS

You filed a SimBrief flight plan, loaded the numbers into the FMS, and pushed back. But how do you know, three hours into cruise, whether the flight is actually going the way the plan said it would?

That's what the Dispatch tab's Navlog is for. It's one of the most useful views in ACARS and one of the easiest to miss. Open it in flight and it becomes a live scorecard of your progress against the OFP: every fix, every fuel figure, every ETA, checked against the plan in real time.

Here's how to read it.

Where to find it

When you have a SimBrief OFP loaded, a Dispatch tab appears in the panel below the map, alongside Flight Events and ACARS Monitor. It has its own row of sub-tabs:

Overview · Navlog · Fuel & Wt · Perf

ACARS opens the Dispatch tab for you during preflight and starts on Perf, so you have your V-speeds and config ready for FMS entry. Once you're airborne it switches you to Navlog automatically (one time). From then on you pick whichever sub-tab you want.

Reading the table

Each row is a waypoint from your SimBrief plan. Left to right:

Column	What it tells you
FIX	The waypoint. SID/STAR fixes carry a badge; TOP OF CLIMB and TOP OF DESCENT appear as their own rows.
AWY	Airway into the fix (or DCT).
STAGE	Climb, Cruise, or Descent.
ALT	Planned altitude at the fix (shown as a flight level above 18,000 ft).
IAS/M	Planned speed. Mach up high, indicated airspeed down low.
GS	Planned groundspeed.
WIND	Head/tailwind component. Green with a + is a tailwind, red is a headwind.
DIST	Leg distance. On your active fix this flips to live distance-to-go.
TIME	Planned leg time. On your active fix this becomes a live ETA based on your current groundspeed.
FUEL REM	Planned fuel remaining at that fix.
FIR	The flight information region the fix sits in.

ACARS tracks your position along the route and highlights the fix you're flying toward so you can spot where you are at a glance.

The part that matters: are you on plan?

This is where the Navlog earns its keep. As you pass each fix, ACARS snapshots your actual fuel and elapsed time and compares them to what the plan predicted. It shows the result right in the row.

Fuel

• A green ✓ next to a fuel figure means you passed that fix on or ahead of the planned fuel. You're burning as expected or better.
• A red ▼ means you got there with less fuel than planned. You're burning heavier than SimBrief expected, from a stronger headwind, a higher cost index, or a heavier hand on the thrust.

Hover any fuel cell to see the breakdown: Planned X · Actual Y · delta. A steady string of red ▼ that keeps growing is your early warning that you may not make destination with your planned reserves. Catch it in cruise, not on final.

You can cross-check it against your own cockpit at any time. If your EWD reads FOB 28,400 LBS and the plan says you should have roughly that at the fix you just passed, you're on plan. If the aircraft is well below the planned number, the Navlog will already be flagging it red.

Time

• A green ✓ on the TIME column means you crossed that fix on time or early (there's a 60-second grace before it counts as late).
• A red ▲ means you crossed it late.

Hover for Planned · Actual · delta from takeoff. This is your running answer to "am I going to land on schedule?" String enough late fixes together and you know you're arriving behind your booked time.

On the active fix

The live row is doing something slightly different: it's projecting forward. The DIST column counts down real distance to the next fix, and the TIME column shows a live ETA computed from your actual groundspeed. Watch it move.

When the plan changes

Two things can shift under you, and the Navlog shows both:

• ATC RUNWAY — if your assigned arrival runway changes, a divider drops into the table showing old → new right where the approach diverges.
• REROUTED — if ACARS detects you're no longer flying the filed route (a new STAR assignment, or you've flown far enough off the filed track for long enough), a REROUTED badge appears and a ROUTE DEVIATION divider marks where the old plan stopped being valid. Fuel and time checks past that point pause, because comparing against a plan you're no longer flying would just be noise.

Normal ATC vectors early in the departure won't trip this. The off-route check holds off while you're still being turned toward your first fix, and only fires on a sustained deviation. It clears itself once you're back on the route.

Heads up: The named callouts (ATC RUNWAY, and a STAR change shown as old → new) rely on live ATC data from SayIntentions. Without SayIntentions you still get the fuel and time tracking above, and ACARS can still flag you as REROUTED from your own track. It just won't be able to name the new STAR or runway.

Why bother

The Navlog turns a static PDF flight plan into a live instrument. In one glance you know:

• Am I on track? The active fix is highlighted.
• Am I on fuel? Green ✓ or red ▼ on every fix you pass.
• Will I make it? A growing fuel deficit shows up hours before it's a problem.
• Am I on time? Green ✓ or red ▲ against your planned schedule.

Next time you fly, open Dispatch → Navlog once you're airborne and keep half an eye on it. It's the difference between hoping the flight is going to plan and knowing it is.