I’ve read here several people talking about the problems they have getting a flight plan to load into the plane’s avionics and work properly, which is the problem I have. Even with the new planes like the Cessna 172 or the Corvallis, I can only rarely get a flight plan to actually load from the EFB into the plane’s avionics and work. For that matter, most of the time I can’t even enter a destination directly into the G1000 and have it work. So my question is: Are there some of you out there who can get this to work every time? If so, what is your procedure, and what are your computer specs? I wonder if the problem is in the sim or my computer needing an upgrade? Thank you for contributing!
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No, it’s just not working properly. In my case it’s worked maybe 2% of the times I’ve tried. What I do instead is create the flight plan in my EFB after starting engines, press load to ATC and send to avionics, the 98% of the times it doesn’t work I create a matching flight plan in the plane flight computer once I’m in cruise.
I find that if I load my flight plan from the world screen.The screen where you select your plane date and time weather etc. Then send to avionics … Works for me. I run into problems when I try to do it from within the cockpit of the simulator.
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I use to create the flight plan in Flight Planner, it’s easier. When it’s good for me I save it and load it in the EFB after spawning in the airport, and also I file it with ATC. When the aircraft is powered I pass it to avionics and normally it works.
I say “normally” because some of the aircraft do not load the flight plan even if they have an ordinary G1000. I have detected the Bonanza and the Baron. Also the IniBuilds’ Airbuses do not use it and I’m still using Simbrief for them. I have not tested the Boeings yet.
I don’t think its a problem of avionics but a problem of each aircraft. The flight plans load fine in PC-12’s Honeywell and don’t load in a Bonanza’s G1000. Looks like a bug of the plane for me.
Same, C172 G1000 in career mode - haven’t tested this in free flight.
Seems to me as it’ll load a flightplan into the G1000 from the mission page, but attempting to load a SimBrief flight plan OR making ANY changes to the flight plan in the G1000 itself (i.e. changing the departure/arrival/approach) will cause major GPS navigational issues - namely, the deletion of the magenta path and inability for the plane to follow GPS navigation from that point forward.
Once this happens, it appears as if nothing that you do - re-importing from the EFB or deleting and manually re-entering the flight plan into the G1000 straight up will not work. The G1000 will allow you to enter a flight plan manually, but will not draw a GPS nav path to any waypoints, and will not even execute a simple DIR TO.
The autopilot still functions as expected with a VOR nav source. Something is majorly broken with the importation or modification of flight plans in the G1000.
No.
Sometimes I get the FP, but the autopilot behaves as if it doesn’t know the FP exists.
Sometimes I don’t get the FP.
Sometimes I get part(s) of the FP.
Sometimes I get it all.
It’s completely inconsistent and even with aircraft that I had success with before they will sometimes not work.
I see this in various avionics suites and it’s not isolated to one type.
Personal Comments and Observations
During the holiday break, I’ve had a few hours to dig into the new EFB and Flight Planning module.
One thing I noted is that IFR routing is not working correctly. I tested both with LIDO and Navigraph (Beta) data now that it’s available.
A simple one-hour IFR flight at 12,000’ between KPVD and KHPN was the test case.
The Asobo EFB with WT Flight Planning logic generated exactly one waypoint, which makes no sense to me at all.
Using Little Nav Map (with Navigraph data) and Navigraph’s own Charts Application both generated a multi-point route, with a mix of DTO and airways - at least seven to eight waypoints.
What the EFB interface does poorly is not indicate that the Send to ATC and Send to Avionics was successful. I pressed it several times in each case wondering if some process had hung in the background.
The only good news is that the plan was consistently sent. My mix of both native FS’24 and unmodified FS’20 aircraft from my Marketplace Library reflected the plans as loaded. There was little variability in FMS as all of the test aircraft were G1000/3000/5000 equipped. I didn’t check Rockwell Collins or Smith systems.
About that…
If a future with improved ATC can’t ever happen without that, so maybe it’s in the pipe?
Welp, I dug some more last night and found comments from Matt that “suggested IFR routing” is a TBD feature from their flight planning. In short, it apparently is good enough for someone to build a plan from scratch but it won’t suggest a route like LNM or Navigraph Charts app. Ok, that just makes it even less compelling than I previously thought.
More importantly, the web based EFB will only pull from LIDO data period, whereas the in-sim EFB will rely on whether or not you have an optional AIRAC like Jepp/Navigraph installed. Makes sense when you think about it, but that nuance is not evident or disclaimed enough on the Web version, at least the last time I checked.
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Hit and miss on Series X. Procedure wise, here is how I go about it:
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Plan my flight myself on the web based flight planner, making sure VFR or IFR is selected and nothing gets added or changed that I did not select myself. Save this to my account.
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Open the EFB in Free Flight, Load my flight plan and inspect. If something changed, load it again to remove the spurious sim stuff and get exactly what I intended for the flight.
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FILE FLIGHT PLAN WITH ATC for the purpose of selecting departure & arrival airports only (I do not use ATC in MSFS)
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SEND ROUTE TO AVIONICS (note that this may have to be done again in the flight)
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Select departure and/or arrival points, if I want a particular ramp location, gate or RWY, etc.
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Set Flight Conditions & time, START FLIGHT, then READY TO FLY
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Once onboard, make sure I have the right Controller & Keyboard settings, etc.
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When the Avionics are powered up, inspect the flight plan. If absent or defective, repeat steps 2, 3 & 4 (optional) above but onboard, and inspect again.
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When flying complex IFR, add any SIDS, STARS, Approach procedures, Altitudes, etc. as needed to complete the flight plan in the FMC or FMS, as appropriate for the aircraft model.
Note that I have omitted procedure steps for weight + balance, fuel, pax, cargo, etc. that are not strictly route related. These are also handled a little differently depending on aircraft type, flight, etc. The sim is inconsistent so repeated checks are the only way to catch for misses and unwanted substitutions. I have not applied rigor to documenting why this procedure is necessary, rather structured a pilot procedure to catch when the sim changes my flight plan.
Nope, I’m always missing waypoints or approaches breaking my LNAV and VNAV from working once it reaches the breaks in the track.
Lately I’ve just been setting them up in game, delete flight plan, click direct to and add approach.
I was thinking about this thread and wanted to come back to it.
Yesterday, in a rage after just one-more-thing that got between me simply doing an IFR flight in a GA aircraft, I uninstalled 2024.
What I didn’t want to get lost in my anger is what happened.
I want to clarify some things about how I’m using the sim, because I strongly feel this aspect of user complaints is forgotten and it leaves too much to the imagination. People report how great 2024 is for them (often to the denigration of those that are totally and justifiably frustrated), but they fail to explain why it works so great for them. I’ve noted, when they do share details, their positive reports are often due to them not using the in-sim tools and included sim aircraft. I’m trying to use the sim in an out-of-the-box state.
- I have a Premium Deluxe vanilla install. I purchased the Aviator Edition, but have purposely left all AE aircraft uninstalled for reasons best left to another thread.
- None of my 2020 Marketplace purchases are active. I have experimented with up to 4 airports being enabled, but I will always go back and test an issue’s reproducibility with them uninstalled.
- I have nothing in my Community folder. I have experimented with Navigraph’s 2024 Beta offerings, but they introduced issues on my first two attempts to use them, so they remain uninstalled.
- I’m not flying airliners. The two 2024 aircraft I’m consistently using are the Seastar with its Honeywell Primus Epic 2 avionics suite and the steam gauge Albatross with the GNS 530. I have used a couple of G1000-equipped aircraft, but not for anything beyond testing functionality for bug reporting. I’ve flown the analog Beaver quite a bit in VFR.
- I use the in-sim ATC. I’ve done the same in 2020 for the entire time I’ve had 2020. I have a VATSIM account, but there is no coverage where I like to fly and how I like to fly, so it seems pointless to even use it.
- I’m using the web-based Flight Planner to plan my flights — I’m frustrated that the in-sim and web-based tools are not using the same code. Like @CasualClick has noted the in-sim tool will autogenerate a flight plan (of those that I’ve tested, which are generally pretty short — an hour to two hour long flights in a GA aircraft) with a single waypoint. That is worse functionality than that of 2020’s World Map.
Okay, I think that paints a pretty clear picture of how I use the sim and what expectations I have come to, uh, expect from it. My primary expectation is that I should be able to do the most basic of flights I did in 2020 successfully.
The issue I am seeing — that I find most concerning — is the inconsistency of experience to experience when I try to use the sim’s tools to populate the avionics prior to entering the cockpit.
I know, at one point, that I had programmed a flight for the Albatross and pushed it to the GNS 530 and it successfully populated it. I also know that another time I tried to do a long flight from KOAK-to-CYWH in the Albatross and found the flight plan did not get successfully pushed to the GNS. There was part of it, maybe just the origin and destination airports with no plan between. When I was in the aircraft I was able to use the in-cockpit EFB to push it again and it did populate the GNS that way. What was ultimately confounding, and another case where I quit the sim in disgust, was when I got off the ground and into my initial climb out, I engaged the AP only to find that LNAV was totally unable to engage and track the flight path. With NAV armed, I’d use HDG to place the aircraft on a trajectory with the magenta line and it would blow past it and never engage. I tried flying back and forth across the flight path and I’d watch the HSI move left-to-center-to-right and vice versa with no AP engagement. I gave up.
A similar issue occurred yesterday with the Seastar. To date, I’ve had one, yes one, successful IFR flight in MSFS 2024. It was with the Seastar, so I know the Epic 2 is capable of working and I’ve spent a fair amount of time “on the ground” studying it and, while not an expert, I am well versed in how to use it. Anyhow, I tried an IFR flight with it from KSBA-to-KOAK. As always with the Seastar, the FP isn’t pushed to the avionics via the World Map EFB’s Send function — it doesn’t work. I know when I get into the cockpit, I have to use the in-cockpit EFB’s Send function to populate the avionics. I did so, got clearance and took off. I’m climbing out in zero visibility fog and I get on course and engage the AP and I get the same thing as the Albatross flight — no LNAV. Incidentally, I also had VNAV engaged with the Seastar. As I’m fumbling with the system trying to understand why it isn’t tracking the flight plan I fail to note it’s also descending into the sea, so VNAV is also not working. The flight ends with me crashing and that dumb “Back on Track” arcade game feature sticks me back into the sky.
It was then that I alt-F4’d and uninstalled.
The point of all this long-winded verbiage is there is a serious inconsistency here that makes tracking and reporting misbehavior really difficult. It takes a fair amount of time to plan a flight, get it loaded into the aircraft (especially, given the quirks and “workflow” of the UI), get the aircraft configured for flight, get clearance, set up the aircraft post-clearance, get the engine(s) started, taxi, and take off only then to find out things aren’t working as they should even though they did the last time you flew the plane in a somewhat similar fashion.
There seems to be some issue where the AP gets into a state where it isn’t aware of the flight plan and can’t engage it via LNAV. At least, that is how this looks to me.
As it stands, with 2024. I simply cannot count on it. I can’t use it to do basic flights in semi-complex GA aircraft and really pretty simple GA aircraft. The sim wastes my time and spoils the enjoyment and anticipation of getting into the grove of a flight.
One successful IFR flight out of many tries is a terrible success-to-failure ratio. It is winter time, and I live on the coast of California. The marine layer is heavy this time of year. I want to use live weather, I want to use the basic sim’s features as I can do in 2020. I’m not here crying about the fact that I don’t have all my beloved and expensive add-ons working. I am trying to just use a simple vanilla 2024 install and I am having practically no success beyond VFR flight that doesn’t use any avionics.
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Yes, the WT Flight planner generates a plan with one waypoint, however, if you press the button “Suggested Routes” you receive more - just di not forget to press on the plan you receive and the on the green button “Select” below.
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I create the complete plan with weights, pax and so on with the WT Planner. Save this plan within the planner - it sends this to the cloud.
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In the EFB I press “LOAD” button, and after - send to avioncs and send to ATC.
It works. I hope I do not miss anything
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I did the same just now.
- Create Flight Plan on the web WT Planner.
Save it. - Open EFB in FS2024.
Load Flight Plan from the WT Planner.
Send to Avionics.
Close EFB.
And cannot get the Start Flight to activate.
But, load Flight Plan saved to PC and Start Flight does activate.
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