Photo by Emil Bruckner

Established in the spring of 2013, SimBrief.com was created to share a series of flight planning tools with the general Flight Simulation community. The goal is to accurately reproduce the briefing packages that real-world pilots use, as well as provide detailed fuel, time, and performance calculations based on real-world weather data. SimBrief is designed to be easy to use and is compatible with a wide variety of flight simulators and third-party aircraft.

SimBrief's navigational database is powered by Navigraph, the flight simulation community's trusted source for updated charts and navigational data. Navigraph subscribers always have access to the latest navigational data on SimBrief, while those without a subscription can freely use the default data cycle (which is slightly dated).

In April 2021, Navigraph acquired SimBrief in a continuation of the close relationship that has always existed between them. Using the data and resources Navigraph has available, this move will make for some exciting new features and better integration between both services in the future.

All told, SimBrief runs on over 150,000 lines of custom PHP code and has been in development since 2010. The systems are always being updated; users with feature requests are invited to post them in the support forum.

SimBrief is made possible by numerous third-party data providers and developers, listed below:

• The FAA's NOTAM and airport data feeds.
• The NOAA's various weather data, observations, forecasts, and services.
• The NOMADS Distribution System, without which current winds aloft fetching would not be possible.
• Wesley Ebisuzaki, who created the wgrib2 tool used to process the NOMADS GRIB2 files.
• The U.S. Geological Survey's GTOPO30 digital elevation model (DEM).
• The Leaflet JavaScript library, which powers SimBrief's interactive map feature.
• OpenStreetMap contributors, who provided the data for SimBrief's interactive map imagery.
• The Great Circle Mapper by Karl L. Swartz, which is occasionally used to depict the flight route.
• The FPDF and TCPDF libraries, either of which may be used to create downloadable PDF documents.