Manual Airbus MCDU + SEVERAL ways to plan w SKYVECTOR, SIMBRIEF & FLIGHT AWARE!
Setting up flights; 'on the fly' or stringing them together is easy when you understand the MCDU in the Airbus A320; included FREE in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020!
You have to think of it like a Garmin GPS. The ability to create, enter/edit a FLIGHT PLAN is the same goal. It's just a very different way of going about it. Practice for awhile and it will become second nature and allow you to pick-up learning the MCDU functions in other Airliners faster. Unfortunately, there is no STANDARD among Airplane makers.
No matter what way you plan to do this you need DATA/information. Either from the world map or the other sources. Since part of the end goal is to NOT have to keep going back to the main menu/World Map every time you want to start a new flight, you will need to have tools like: SKYVECTOR, SIMBRIEF and FLIGHTAWARE. This allows you to stay in your flight and make any changes you need at any time...QUICKLY.
AIRBUS A320 NEO MCDU:
You can create an entire flight plan in the MCDU without needing other Third-Party Apps, provided you have all the information you need to input it.
To get flight planning information so that you may create a flight plan in the MCDU rapidly, I recommend using SKYVECTOR.
To create full flight plans, download the data and LOAD it into the MCDU, I recommend using SIMBRIEF or FLIGHTAWARE (Both FREE).
In this livestream I will demonstrate how to do ALL OF THE ABOVE.
SET ASIDE A GOOD AMOUNT OF TIME AND GET YOUR COFFEE READY!
HAPPY FLYING!