VFR Flight Plan Bug (SU5)

Same issue here. Would like to vote, but apparently another bug is that I have zero votes to cast.

I have raised this as a Zendesk ticket about a week ago. I have voted here too. VFR flight planning is a mess. I now just spawn to my airport and parking spot. Then I use LittleNavMap to plot my course. The I program the GPS in the plane while I sit on the tarmac. I look forward to this being fixed, or being able to import flight plans directly into the Garmin GPS suite. :slight_smile:

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I have seen the same problem.

If I plot a direct course from KNPA to KNEW, for some reason its not as direct as it first appears.

Here’s the departure:

At roughly the mid-point there is a dog leg:

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And at the arrival:

It looks like despite having a direct route, its actually putting in some additional routing for you. If you change the destination runway, the route changes. And it gets worse. If you instead choose a parking spot as your destination, then the routing gets weirder, but only if you choose the spot from the top menu, and not the parking spot on the map.

This is all kinds of broken, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this is being exposed to the GPS one little bit.

It actually loaded this as an IFR flight plane, even though on the map it was VFR direct. The plan includes the approach, which presumably got loaded by choosing the parking spot via the top menu. Very weird!

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I was hoping to create one of those TIMECLI(IMB) waypoints, but this is just as odd, and unrequested, like an enforced IFR flight, even though the map view clearly has VFR direct.

The way it changes the flight plan based on whether you choose a parking spot from the map, or via the drop-down menu, where the drop down menu seems to insert an IFR approach is doubly odd.

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What I’ve observed is that the GPS doesn’t actually show the extra waypoints on screen, but if autopilot is enabled during flight, it still tries to fly you to those extra waypoints, like it knows where they are but they’re in invisible.

One workaround that I’ve been using for this bug is to import my plans as IFR from LNM even though I’ll be flying it VFR. But when I do this, it automatically chooses an approach for you. So then I’ll select automatic from the dropdown and load the flight plan a second time, which for some reason finally displays the route as I’ve built it without any extra waypoints. This is the only way I’ve been able to fly with a planned route since SU5.

I was watching a Twitch stream on Sunday evening, and they clearly had a waypoint on screen that showed the full name of the waypoint “TIMECLI”, presented as “TIMECLIMB”. It appeared in the world like a POI. I tried to replicate a flight plan that would have that last night, and couldn’t do it, and instead came across what I found in my post above, with the “enforced” VFR as an IFR flight plane, complete with approach procedure I never wanted.

When I did see TIMECLI in the 530, I’m pretty sure it was a VFR direct flight, but I’m not sure what it was. I suspect EGLC to EGLL, as that’s a common test flight I do once a patch has dropped.

I had this happen on the Community Fly-In, the GNS530 (modded version) shows both artificial waypoints, what is weird is that it shows the last leg as active prior departure.

You can give it a try by downloading the flight plan from the fly-in, load it in the world map and without changing anything just press Fly.

I then loaded it up in LittleNavMap, changed type to IFR, exported as PLN again and loaded it in the world map, all was fine with the flight plan from then on.

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Thanks. I missed that so I’ll give it a go this evening.

I have experienced that as well with the last leg as active.

Loading it in as IFR shows the route as it should be, unless it chooses an approach for you. Then change approach to automatic and reload the plan again.

With this option enabled:

You find the “TIMECLI” is present in the world:

But does not appear in the plan, even though its the next waypoint:

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But something called “TIMEVERT” is near the end:

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I’ll find out what that is soon I guess.

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TIMEVERT is the counterpart of TIMECLIMB, but on the arrival side.
I think the TIMECLIMB is gone since the GNS thinks you’re already on your last leg.

But it’s all messed up as soon as these waypoints appear anywhere. I wouldn’t trust GPS in that situation at all.

I can only guess that these waypoints are some kind of markers for the AI copilot to fly along if you enable it. That’s the only case that would make sense for me (but it wouldn’t make their appearance any better).

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Another odd one on the way to 49AZ, “Pattern Entry”:

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Definitely sounds like something the AI pilot should see, but not me. They only appear once you have announced landing intentions.

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I can even imagine this being a help for pilots flying with aids enabled - with this “tunnel” of squares that you fly through, they probably follow these markers and actually guide you gracefully to the treshold.
I just can’t imagine a scenario where they thought it’s a good idea to make this mandatory for all VFR flights…

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Pattern Entry point is normal, well for me anyway, on every flight. It occurs after I’m given joining instructions (VFR) and is the point where ATC want you to join the pattern believe it or not!

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I’ve never had any of these markers turned on for me before, and if it wasn’t for this flight planning but I would never have known they existed anywhere except the Nav log on the map screen.

Granted, they are not an issue. But the TIMECLIMB and TIMEVERT are since they are added to the flightplan as real waypoints. :slight_smile:

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Agreed, it does seem to be a somewhat sloppily put together change, for some reason, and requires more…fettling? Yeah, that sounds right. :slight_smile:

Until this afternoon I’d never seen these TIME CLIMB/TIME VERT points - however this was the first occasion for a while where I prepared the flight plan from the world screen. I usually plan in Little Navmap and export to the sim, then follow my route in LNM.
This afternoon switched on the autopilot during the cruise (C172 with G1000) and noticed the aircraft followed the route but offset by about half a mile. going to investigate further on my next flight.

I believe this is another known issue with using the map screen for the plan. You can build it in the GPS itself, or I believe you can create it an external tool like Littlenavmap, then import it into the map screen.

I’ve not tested import of a plan directly into the GPS via the 530/750 mod yet.

It basically is the same as entering the waypoints manually into the FPN page. Doing that the sim did not create artificial waypoints for me, so that’s fine.

Seems to be an issue with the world map flight planner only.

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If you import the plan from Littlenavmap back into the world flight planner, these waypoints will get added automatically unfortunately. There is no way to avoid them :frowning:

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