Flight planning or routing issue

[VictorVector170]

As a relative newcomer to flight simulator and not being a real pilot I have got myself a little confused here.

Firstly, I have Simbrief for my flight planning and also a Navigraph subscription for the charts etc. I am also using Fly By Wire’s excellent A32NX mod.

Now, this may be a bug somewhere or it is entirely possible that I am missing some steps or just getting it wrong.

First off I used Simbrief (with the up to date Airac cycle) to plan a flight from Darwin YPDN to Auckland International NZAA.

As you can see, it produced the route and validated it. All good so far.

Next I opened up Navigraph and created a new flight choosing the “From Simbrief” option.

I added the approach successfully and then saved the flight (exported) to my MSFS Flight Plans folder as a .pln file.

Next, in the planning (world) window of flight simulator 2020 I chose the Load/Save option and loaded my flight plan from my flight plan folder.

The plan I exported from navigraph appeared as expected with Simbrief, Navigraph and MSFS’s flight planner all showing the correct routing.

At this point I thought it would be plain sailing (or flying for that matter), but no.

I chose a gate to depart from and hit the ‘Fly Now’ button.

I entered the cockpit of the Airbus A32NX (latest stable mod version) and activated the flight pad. I entered my Simbrief details and then loaded the flight plan by clicking the ‘from simbrief’ button. All good.

Now, here’s the issue.

On checking the flight route first on the MCDU and then on the PFD I find that it has somehow added the ELNOS transition which is not mentioned either in the simbrief routing or obviously on the navigraph routing.

My question is do I follow the route as shown in the MCDU and PFD, or is it a bug. If it’s a bug how do I correct it to match the Simbrief flight plan? Or do I just leave it all as is and hope it all works out at the other end? The last option doesn’t seem very professional to me, lol.

Thanks to those who have had the patience to wade through all that.

[hendis55]

I’m not sure if this is related, because I don’t know the A32NX, but just in case:

If you click on your departure gate on the map, it recalculates the whole thing using its own logic without warning, which is insanely annoying. However, if you pick the gate in the pull-down menu at the top, this usually doesn’t happen.

BTW: You can set Simbrief up to send you the .pln automatically. This saves you from having to export it from Navigraph.

[VictorVector170]

Thanks for your reply, but in this case I chose the departure gate from the pull down menu. I have had the issue you describe before though.
The routing stayed as shown in my original post i.e. the routing in FS2020, simbrief and Navigraph all match. It’s just that in the A32nx, the mcdu has added the extra Elnos transition waypoint. I’m not sure what route is now going to be followed. I would guess it would be the one that has the extra waypoint but not sure.

Thanks for the Simbrief tip. I only export from Navigraph because then it includes any missing stars or approches I add to the Simbrief route.

[ArcanePython931]

Shed some light on this question…

[BVTEagleEye]

In the FBW A320NX mod, you can also get everything from Simbrief directly. Route, altitude, weight and balance, fuel, …

It’s been a while since I’ve flown myself, so I can’t tell you exactly where or how from the top of my head, but I’m sure there’s a video tutorial about it somewhere on YouTube.

[VictorVector170]

Thank you. I’m still in the process of learning a lot of this stuff and there’s more every update

I’ve tried again to solve this extra ‘ELNOS’ waypoint thing from within the aircraft’s MCDU. It seems to me that it is the ‘BASI4E’ Star that adds it. I’m not sure why Navigraph charts doesn’t seem to add it when I include the same Star, hence my puzzlement.

[ememPilot]

I’m no expert either, but could it be the database used by the MCDU isn’t the same?

That would not totally explain why MSFS itself gets it right, but I think you can check on the MCDU.

Otherwise, it might be just a bug.

[VictorVector170]

Thanks ememPilot, it could very well be that but I think there was an app to link the Navigraph info to FS2020 so they’re reading from the same page so to speak. I can’t remember what it was exactly but I do remember applying it.
As you say it could just be a bug, but I have no idea where it would be between Simbrief, Navigraph, FS2020 or the A32NX mod.
Anyway I’m now flying the route and that will at least confirm which route it the aircraft follows.

[ememPilot]

I know it’s hard to determine in all this if it’s user error or a bug somewhere. But seems to me you did everything right. I don’t have access to the latest cycles (no Navigraph subscription), so I can’t repeat.

I don’t know which version of the FBW-mod you are using. But if it’s the ‘stable’ one, you might want to try the ‘development’ one. That one might have the necessary bug fixes if it is a bug. It’s easy to switch if you use their installer.

I’m pretty sure the autopilot is gonna follow the MCDU though.

And ATC isn’t gonna care

Happy flying.

[VictorVector170]

Thanks. It’s nice to know I did things right (at least so far ). I am using the latest Airac cycle according to Simbrief.
As regards the FBW mod, I do use the installer and the version I’m using is the latest stable one.

I will try your suggestion after this flight. I will plot it again using the same methods but using the development or experimental version of the mod and see if there’s any difference. That is one scenario I didn’t think of.

I agree in that I also think the aircraft will follow what the MCDU has programmed.

Also yes, the ATC has either been on the sauce for way too long or been on the wacky baccy

Update:
Well as expected, we are following the route as per the MCDU i.e. to the ELNOS transition.

Update 2:
@ememPilot
As you suggested, I tried the same flight plan with both the development and experimental versions of the FBW mod with the same result. The MCDU still inserts the ELNOS transition regardless of the Simbrief plan.

[willisxdc]

If you are using the Navigraph Beta to integrate the Navigraph data into MSFS, then you need to use the Navigraph app to update MSFS each time a new airac is released. It isn’t a one-and-done. Not yet anyway.

[VictorVector170]

Thanks @willisxdc
That might be it. I did integrate the Navigraph data into MSFS. I didn’t realise I had to do that at every airac release. I’ll try that.

Well, it didn’t seem to make any difference other than I no longer have enough fuel capacity to make that trip, lol. Looks like I’ll have to stop off at Brisbane before going on to Auckland. At least the data bases are ok now. Thanks for the tip on that.