NAV Mode Not Working

I’m not a pilot, so I’m colbbling togther how to do this autopilot thing. I don’t particularly mind, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how to turn on NAV mode. I turn on autopilot and the flight director. I set my nav data to FMS. But, when I press the NAV button, nothing happens. It remains off. What am I missing?

As always, folks, help is always appreciated.

Edit: Autopilot doesn’t actually work right either. I end up way off course, and, when I manually move back to my assigned course, autopilot sends me back to the wrong place.

Aircraft type, flight plan, photo of Primary Flight Display at moment of defect all would be helpful to let others troubleshoot! :+1:

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Pilatus PC-12 NGX
Direct EGGW (Luton) to EHAM (Schipol)
Photo of “working” diplay below.

As a sidenote, it seems to be working now. Not sure what I did.

Is there a point where it “becomes avaialble” after takoff?

Edit: Is that what you mean, or did you need something closer?

I’m not a commercial liner user, so others will expertly chime in, but most Lateral Navigation systems require you to be close to the desired track before it kicks in. You may also have had a Manual Sequence (MANSEQ) leg if you selected a Standard Instrument Departure in the plan. That would require you to handfly to the first waypoint on a plotted leg that the FMS can take over.

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I appreciate the feedback. Thank you! I can say that it started “working” when I got close to the path, so that may be it.

I did have a SID, but the FPL didn’t seem to be missing any legs. Still, that does make some sense.

Thank you again. This is great!!

I tried it again. Same plane, different flight plan. I have pilot and co-pilot NAVDATA set to FMS, but there doesn’t seem to be any FMS data there. When it started “working” the other time, there appeared to be some data (a heading and a speed) next to the FMS on the main display.

Yeah, not sure. I’ve had hit-or-miss loading plans into the EFB. That may be part of the issue.

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Since a few days something is going wrong with MSFS2024.
I have same problem with TBM930. PLN from Simbrief not correctly or partially loaded in Garmin3000, so unable to select NAV mode.
FMS nav selected. When pushing on NAV button, nothing happens and NAV LED staying off.
Sometimes it’s working but rarely !

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I have that it works after I toggle it on and off sometimes. I get my aircraft close to the planned flight path and toggle NAV on off and on again. That does work most of the time.

For me, sometimes the Autopilot does not switch on, either. I can reliably fix the issue by pressing the Disconnect Autopilot button on the control stick once, and then pressing the AP button again to switch it on.

FYI for the occasions where you are not close enough to the NAV path to activate NAV mode, you can scroll the heading bug to intercept the NAV path, start the autopilot in HDG mode and when heading mode is active press the NAV button. The NAV mode (i.e. GPS) will then show in the autopilot bar next to the green HDG in white, small letters, indicating that it will automatically arm once close enough to the NAV path.