Bae 146 FMS/ Simbrief does not load in correctly

I am not sure if this is the aircraft, MSFS or Simbrief but i cannot load up a flight plan correctly; I previously opened and deleted a topic before anyone could answer thinking I had it. Alas, I did not have it.

Flight plan is from LOWI(Innsbruck) to LIPZ(Venice). When i load it on the world map it looks correct, when i change the runway to gate for a cold/dark start and go into the flight, FMS shows a non-existent waypoint 81NMs away.

When i re-load it from the FMS at the gate, it skips 2-3 intermediate waypoints which is rather noticeable in Innsbruck as the autopilot takes you head first into the Alps. What am I doing wrong?

Have you tried importing the flightplan ditectly in from simbrief? You can link your simbrief account to the WT FMS. Then you can load in your flightplan directly from simbrief to FMS. It will likely still need departure runway, sid, star and approach adding in to it though.
I find that most time I use the FMS, those beed adding in and checking over.
Iā€™m using Navigraph to visually review. Vecaise of ots era the 146 does lack a PFD flight plan visual display to do this.

I have my Simbrief account connected directly to the FMS and syncing flight plans is still somewhat inconsistent. I always do a review of my flight plan once itā€™s been loaded in and more often than not, I have to make corrections directly in the FMS, in addition to manually adding SIDs and STARs.

Iā€™ve also tried flight planning in Little Nav Map and importing into MSFS flight planner, then import into WT FMS, skipping Simbrief entirely. Sometimes it works better, sometimes worse, but itā€™s similarly inconsistent.

At the end of the day I figure all this flight planning and FMS across different platforms is just complicated and havenā€™t found a way to streamline it perfectly - it always needs some tweaking in the FMS one way or another. At least Iā€™ve been flying the CJ4 and the 146 enough that I have no issues interacting directly with the WT FMS. And like BragRaindrop, I also always have LNM open on a second monitor to verify.

I just chalk it up to being part of the flight planning process (cross check everything) and I embrace the experience. But I also canā€™t ignore the fact that we could all benefit from the flight planning ā†’ FMS workflow being more reliable.

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Iā€™ve just loaded Simbrief LOWI->LIPZ into FS world map and launched the 146 sat at a gate at LOWI, and the flight plan is loaded in completely (7 pages of waypoints) including SID, STAR and departure and arrival runways. The only issues being one duplicate waypoint that needs removed at the SID->main flight plan interface and a discontinuity requiring removing between the STAR and the approach.

One thing to check if you are interfacing between MSFS world map and the 146 is make sure you have this setting turned on. Not sure if it makes a difference to loading flight plans, but I do have this enabled.
Go to-
IDX ā†’ NEXT (page 2)->MOD SET ā†’ FP SYNC ā†’ ON (the default is off)

One ofher thing I thought on is when you changed the flight plan in the world map from a runway start to a gate start. How did you do this?
The reason I ask is that there is a known bug where if you select ithe gate via the map eg. zooming in and selecting a gate, it WILL ALTER the flightplan. It shouldnā€™t but it does.
You always have to choose the gate by the menu drop down at the top above the map. Doing it this way does not change your flightplan.
There is a whole thread on this bug on here somewhere. Maybe this is what you are seeing though.

I heard about that bug, and I use the dropdown. But I also heard at this point the ā€œbugā€ happens whether or not you use the dropdown.

Here is something interesting: after you said you had to delete a duplicate waypoint, I figured why donā€™t I delete the ghost waypoint ā€œSBG4ā€ which is about 81 nm away. The FMS says I am unable to delete that one. Really weird, I can delete other waypoints but not that one and the runway one ā€œRW08ā€.

Edit: I also synced the FMS to my Simbrief
Edit2: It was the active waypoint I couldnā€™t delete, my mistake. In any case though, flight plan gets all kinds of mixed up.

Huh, I wasnā€™t aware of this bug and I always pick a gate departure by zooming in and clicking on it. In the future Iā€™ll select from the drop-down and see if the flight plans stay more accurate.

I canā€™t be sure of the status of the bug as I always choose a gate from the drop down, but thereā€™s a topic that has been kicking about for ages on this subject.

Totally agree with this statement, love the 146 but for a GA flyer the FMS really distracted from the positive experience, Simbrief, LNM and Chartfox hours lost trying to figure out whatā€™s going wrong. Iā€™m much better now but itā€™s still a pain.

Did you try loading the flightplan in from Simbrief directly? Itā€™s possible to avoid the world map entirely by doing this. (World map flightplan is still needed if you want to use ATC IFR guidance though.)

To import a flightplan from Simbrief directly in FMS go to-
IDX ā†’ NEXT (page2) ā†’ ROUTE MENU ā†’ FPLN RECALL (SB)

There is no menu/list of flightplans to search, it just loads the currently active one from Simbrief. This will load in the base flightplan minus the sids, stars, and approach, which you can then edit/add in for yourself. For me, it imports the LOWI->LIPZ flightplan in as 3 legs pages in FMS. (see screengrabs at foot of this post)

Also worth noting (just in case)
I was seeing quite frequent issues with FMS booting ins where Iā€™d spawn on the runway ready to takeoff and the FMS would just have a blank screen with a ā€˜/ā€™. Turns out one of the other FMS/Garmin mods (Most likely the WT CJ4 mod) was messing with it. I removed them all from community and itā€™s been fine ever since. It might be worthwhile you doing this too if you have it installed.

Itā€™s weird that you are seeing discrepancies as Iā€™m not seeing them when I load that routes flightplan from Simbrief ā†’ World Map-> FMS. Here is what I see on LEGS page after a world map launch in. Not done anything more to it here, so it includes a duplicate waypoint BRENO and one discontinuity. Both of which I would usually proceed to manually edit out.








.
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For reference, here is the route directly loaded in from Simbrief (unedited, so minus the sid, star and approach)


Exactly how I do it too Mervle
It all adds to the immersion
The last thing we want is to become button pushing ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– , itā€™s good practice you run thru your flight plan irrespective of which planner you use

You donā€™t have to use the FMS, but if you are flying the 146 as an airliner along with standard routes and procedures then itā€™s more of a necessity. Iā€™m finding Navigraph(sub) to be an indispensable tool for visually looking over SIDs, STARs and approaches in game, as well as reviewing flightplans. Iā€™ve only used it for a couple of months, but it really is worth the sub, and I constantly use itā€™s in game tool (not the 146 EFB integrated one). To be able to see where all the stars and approaches are at a destination airport ahead of time and then make sensible choices really make all the difference for me.

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Thanks for the through post, when I load it in directly from the FMS I got the same one you posted, the one without the sid/star/apprch. When I went Simbrief- World map - FMS it added a couple far away mystery waypoints which was the original situation I first mentioned.

I did make progress though, this community is quite good for problem solving. I believe one of the main issues, if not ā€œtheā€ main one was, outdated AIRAC cycle data. There must have been a difference between Simbrief and MSFS data. I went ahead and got navigraph and downloaded the up to date data. It seemed to have solved the issues as far as I can see now.

Edit: That being said the re-calculation still happens if you change anything after adding the flight plan to world map apparently a known bug with MSFS. It is a bug that if you designed it you couldnā€™tā€™ make it more annoying

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That makes sense. Yes AIRAC mismatches can commonly cause some issues. I think the ā€œfreewareā€ AIRAC on Simbrief is quite old, so when the sim is more up to date there are mismatches.
On the CRJ for example, the flightplan just wonā€™t load if there are these mismatches. Good to hear you are making progress. The Navigraph in game tool is fantastic for visualising it all including selection of stars and approaches. Not sure I could live without it now esp when flying the 146 and other airliners. The overlaying of charts on the flightplan is great too as they visualise the speed and altitude restrictions.
I usually just use world map for initiating in game atc and spawning at the gate. I donā€™t change anything, then I load in the simbrief flight plan directly to fmc, then manually add in sid, star, approach and make sure they all link together sensibly with no duplicate WPs or discontinuities. Works quite well using that approach. You can also leave adding star and approach until you are nearly at the destination eg wait for ATC to communicate it to you, which can be a challenge to quickly enter it during such a busy phase of flight.

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With all the possible solutions to readying a flight plan being said, there is one thing that looks like would make it a lot easier.

I cannot seem to load in a flight plan directly from Navigraph to FMS on 146. I can do it from Simbrief. If there is a way I could not find it. With that, I donā€™t see the point of linking my Navigraph to FMS on 146 which I did. So I donā€™t know what linking my Navigraph to the FMS did?

I dont use navigraph for flight planning, just reviewing an imported flight plan from simbrief or world map and testing out/reviewing sid, stars and approaches. I also use it to follow flight progress with aircrsft overlay, and i use it to superimpose the sid, star and approach charts over the flightplan.
Simbrief is the best option for real world flightplans I think. Itā€™s owned by Navigraph for a reason, and you can import your simbrief flightplan straight into Navigraph tool in game. I havenā€™t seen people refer to using navigraph itself to create and use a flight plan, but there may be some people out there that do, who knows.
In the EFB, navigraph login is really just used for chart display. The Simbrief login in the EFB is to fill out the data on the OFP page of the EFB, and it also can now as of v0.1.4 import the aircraft fuel and loads from simbrief into the EFB in the aircraft screen. Perhaps this is still an ongoing project by the devs in this regard. It doesnā€™t stop you using the tools you have on hand though. Simbrief is fantastic for flight planning, the WT FMC works quite well, is easy to edit, and navigraph (and its in game toolbar app) is great at giving you a moving map with visuals for sids, stars and approach charts to plan ahead with (as well as keeping your AIRAC up to date). You donā€™t need much more tbh.)

Hereā€™s how I see it - Navigraph and Simbrief are a singular platform these days, with Simbrief being the flight planning tool and Navigraph being the data that drives it. Since your Navigraph account is the same as your Simbrief account, if you have a Navigraph sub you should be using Simbrief to plan.

I personally donā€™t have a Navigraph sub and just use the free outdated AIRAC, which according to BragRaindrop probably contributes to some inconsistencies that Iā€™m experiencing in MSFS. But Simbrief itself is still an indispensable tool for flight planning IMO and seems to be the communityā€™s go-to outside of the world map.

@BragRaindrop933 question for you - I follow a pretty similar workflow as you, but since Iā€™m not doing any planning in the world map other than picking a starting location, this essentially skips the majority of interaction with the in-game ATC. Right now I only speak to ATC for departure and arrival clearances, and ground stuff. Historically I havenā€™t had a great experience with the in-game ATC even when I do plan in world map, but since ATC interaction is a pretty big part of modern flight, Iā€™m wondering if there are better ways to work with it somehow. Do you use the in-game ATC at all, or additional third-party programs like Pilot2ATC or VATSIM?

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Yes, as Iā€™ve only been using FS since July 2021, but now with circa 800hrs flying time Iā€™m comfortable doing my own thing so havenā€™t jumped into the world of external ATC yet. It sounds scary :scream:

I regularly use in game ATC though with all itā€™s foibles. It does a reasonable job as long as you understand the few issues it has.

Those being -

  1. Intermittent online drops (switches to offline mode instead)
  2. Late(ish) calls to start descent (just request them manually when you want to descend)
  3. Calls nearing approach to climb to some crazy FL rather than descend. (Just ignore them)
  4. Late(ish) calls to assign the approach (if you plan ahead, listen to other aircraft ATC, and check metar for arrival airport then you can usually find this out anyway.). You usually have a star assigned from the flightplan already, so navigraph will show what approaches that star hooks up to for a heads up of what the likely runway will be.
  5. The Copilot ATC audio drop bug, so you canā€™t do automated ATC without the audio disappearing. (I just do manual ATC interactions now to avoid this situation).

All in all in game ATC is fine and mostly works well, but with these bugs, and of course sadly with no regional accents. I use it in conjunction with having ā€˜Live Trafficā€™ (not AI traffic) enabled.

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Thanks. I assume that if youā€™re flying IFR via in-game ATC do you just download the PLN from Simbrief and import into world map. Do you ever experience discrepancies between your world map import and what gets loaded into the FMC?

Iā€™ve tried this a couple times and it sort of works (with some fixing via FMC) but ATC will often give me weird or late calls, or assign different approaches to what Iā€™ve planned, which is tricky to deal with in the 146 being a fairly hands-on aircraft. TBH I think I just need to be a better pilot about it and keep my head on straight while dealing with it. But at this point Iā€™m not sure I can tell what is in-game bugginess vs me not anticipating ATC procedures properly. I definitely need more practice here but also want to make sure Iā€™m setting things up the right way.

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Yes, much like I do with the CRJ, simbrief flightplan->world map for ATC. Simbrief flightplan->FMC for nav. I was quite used to that process with the CRJ900 (I have about 150hrs in it alone).
I have occasionally with the 146 when in a hurry done a quick world map flightplan / ready for takeoff on runway thing, and it often works fine. I have had early approach calls and late or even too late approach calls. I havenā€™t been able to identify the trigger/cause for timing of ATC for approach assignments though.
Sometimes you get assigned approach after passing the final waypoint in star, which can then get interesting! Suddenly having to not only enter the approach in, but then try to convince the AP to head to that approach, and all as you say during an already critical/busy phase of the flight. Fortunately it doesnā€™t happen often, but it does happen!

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