How do you file flight plans?

On VATSIM, first you have to find a place that will give you a reliable flight plan. There are two resources that I use all the time when planning my own online flights, or when I'm checking the plans that pilots have filed.

The first is Simroutes, which is specifically designed for the VATSIM world. You can enter the ICAO code of any airport in either the departure or the arrival spot and see a list of all the routes in the database. As these are typically entered by the air traffic control managers from around the VATSIM world, they generally represent preferred routes between two airports, which becomes very important in high-traffic areas. You can see the route on a map and even download route information for various flight simulator programs.

The second is FlightAware, which I mentioned in the first post. It shows information about real-world aviation, but only for flights that start, end, or transit near United States airspace. It shows routing and altitude, and the IFR analysis page allows you to see the frequency of use for different routes between two airports. Here's the analysis of traffic between Vancouver (CYVR) and Los Angeles International (KLAX).