A quick review of the CIFP will show all kinds of old data for magnetic deviation. It’s baked into the FAA data.
If MSFS doesn’t match the CIFP, then there will be differences in navigation.
It’s baked into the FAA data because it is still an accurate representation of the physical radial alignment. “Old” data does not equate to “obsolete”.
For instance, almost every VOR in the US state of New Mexico was last calibrated to magnetic north in the year 1965, and their calibration has never been changed since then. This includes, ABQ, SAF, GUP, OTO, CNX and ONM. One of the few exceptions in New Mexico is the Deming (DNM) VOR, which did not exist in 1965, and is calibrated based on 1975 variation.
This does not mean that the physical VORs themselves are still using the same radio transmitters and antennas that were present in 1965, I would assume that each has probably been upgraded several times in the 55 years since 1965. But even if a brand new VOR transmitter were installed today at ABQ, in the process of setting up the calibration of the zero degree radial, it would be precisely set to 13 degrees clockwise of true north, just as it was in 1965, in order to preserve the alignment of existing airways that link to surrounding VORs, which are also based on 1965 magnetic variation. The actual magnetic North Pole in 2020 at ABQ is 8.3 degrees clockwise from true north.
Yep, that was explained above. I was only pointing out, and not very succinctly, that the CIFP is the “bible” reference for data, and in it, a large proportion of VOR’s are using setups from 1985 or even earlier. As you point out, not wrong, just what they are. So if VOR’s in MSFS are using current deviation, they will be off from the FAA charts.
From what I’ve read, NavBlue was not the best choice for getting nav data, especially since I imagine their main market is airliners, and the GA market for aviation data has a much wider set of airports to accomodate, if you know what I mean. For instance, I don’t know why, but many very busy airports do not have their approaches in the game. Like KASH for intance? Uncontrolled KCON has its approaches, but not the very busy towered airport KASH? Just an example.
Yes the in-game approach data for smaller US airports is often woefully lacking in the NavBlue database.
There is an issue where even if the approaches are in Navblues data, MSFS only includes them if they have a runway number in the approach name.
So it’s not all on Navblue.
Several ILS approaches are off also, 100 > 200 yards left or right to runway alignment
Just found another bugged VOR:
VKZ is tuned into my nav radio and my OBS is set to 94 degrees. I am flying directly along the 94 degree setting on my OBS. As you can see from my plane in yellow, it is off by 5 degrees
In the default nav data, VKZ is showing a variation of 6.9 degrees west. The variation for this specific VOR should be 4 degrees west.
So wait, are we back to saying that the data for these problematic VORs in both Little Nav Map and SkyVector are wrong and it’s not MSFS’ data?
Other way around… Or… Maybe all three. If you check the magnetic deviation they are listed as versus the data you can find at Airnav.com, Whichever ones don’t match Airnav.com.
No LNM is fine. It’s MSFS default VOR data that is wrong for at least some (but not all) VORs’ variation data. For those that have the wrong variation, if you track an airway on the cockpit instruments according to the published course, and track the aircraft position in LNM, it will appear to be flying offset to one side of the airway.
Just to clarify something, hopefully not causing even more confusion…
LNM can show either Navigraph data or MSFS data. MSFS data is Navblue default data unless one uses the Navigraph beta MSFS data. That makes it really convenient to compare Navigraph and Navblue data directly in LNM by toggling the data source setting. But if the LNM data source setting is set to MSFS data then LNM will be as wrong or right as MSFS is, so it cannot be used as a source of truth without confirming the setting.
Good point