So from the screenshot you can see that I was flying from SADEN to CABIT on autopilot and the plane starts a right turn and takes me completely off course. How can I stop this happening? I set everything up in the world map. Departure airport, arrival airport, low IFR and the ILS I want at the arrival airport. Sometimes the AP takes me all the way to intercept the ILS and sometimes it randomly makes turns taking me completely off course. Help!
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Sorry, I don’t have a solution for you, but it is happening to me very occasionally. I usually fly the B787. I disengage AP, get back on course then re-engage the LNAV and it seems to be fine.
I get this sometimes too. I think its a bug in the AP tracking flight plan logic.
This happens to me occasionally too. Can’t put my finger on why. Sometimes I just let it do it’s thing to see where it will take me. Once it made a giant circle and came right back on course as if it was in a holding pattern. But not always. Disengaging AP, then re-engaging may help. It’s probably just a random bug though.
I tried 4 or 5 ILS autopilot flights last week and none of them followed the plan. I had them go off course, lose ATC entirely, fly over the airport with no “grab” on approach and even had ATC still barking frequency change orders but never give me descent altitudes so I would have been on final approach 11k feet the ground. I had been away from AP flights for a while so I figured I was doing something wrong.
Give us all the steps you perform to create the Flight Plan. Maybe you are missing something in your World Map setup before you go into the sim?
Just a thought: Sometimes, I have had to scroll with the mouse in closely into the arrival airport to make sure the ILS routing that was selected does not have something “weird” in it. From a global view I could “not” see this weirdness because of all the “tags” of text surrounding the arrival airport that the world Map creates.
I select departure airport, select arrival airport, select low IFR, then from the drop down for the arrival airport I select the ILS.
Same problem here. I mostly fly the 787 and have had this problem since the msfs was released. I also have problems with ATC disappearing. I suspect it’s something on the server side that’s playing tricks.
As other have stated, yes that problems does happen from time to time. Like some have said it just does a circle and get back on course and sometimes you have to do a heading to intercept you plan. I sometimes also do a direct to the waypoint that is supposed to be my next one, or even one or a few ahead of it. once it gets there, it normally continues with your plan.
(Off Topic But) I don’t have ATC completely disappear, but often I stop hearing them. I alway have AI handle the radios and can hear when my AI co-pilot replies. So that way I know when I’m supposed to descend or whatever.
Update to my earlier post:
I did a test this morning and the program failed. I’m convinced there is something wrong.
- Planned a short Chattanooga to Atlanta flight.
- VR in a TBM
- Chose low level IFR, landing ILS east to west into the wind at Hartsfield.
- All was well until ATC directed handoff to ATL tower.
- Climbed to 5,000, later 11000, 13000, 5,000
- Was told to change radio freq about 8-9 times.
- Went SSW out of Chattanooga, turned SE north of Atlanta, circled around Stone Mtn and lined up west to land.
- When close to point HAINZ all went bizarre. ATC said to contact tower when on approach. Plane immediately turned 180 degrees and started heading east away from the airport. The now-green route direction on the screen pointed straight east. See photo.
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I’m really surprised that this is not annoying a lot of people.
My fun run for this morning was to be a short Cheyenne, WY to Denver, CO along the front range to the Rockies.
- Again I used VR and the TBM.
- All settings the same as yesterday’s flight.
- Flight 1 set off and the AP with NAV set started out fine following the plan.
- Unfortunately there was no radio contact. No ATC instructions and no way for me to click on the ATC box options to contact them.
- I was too high on Den approach to hope for an ILS “grab”.
- I ended the flight and tried again.
- Flight 2 had one way ATC voice; ie. text from ATC in the box and my voice and text.
- Sadly, after the ATC texted a descend order XX miles out, the plane started a 180 again, heading away from Denver.
Is there any possibility you’re activating back-course mode by mistake?
Note that “ATC gives terrible directions” is a separate problem from anything with the autopilot, and has several threads dedicated to it.
No but that is about what it acts like. It seems to happens when the ATC announcement of distance from airport or descend arrives. I just immediately see the plane banking and the green line/arrow in the compass pointing 180 off before I touch anything.
Yes, I’ve seen and had that issue in the past. This time it’s like either the ATC voice or the entire ATC communication stops working.
Try taking screenshots of the PFD before and after the problem occurs. Specifically, look at the AP state annunciator to see what modes are active.
You got me wondering… I checked the control options and the backcourse bindings are not set on any of my peripherals; keyboard, mouse or controller so the only activation would have to be the button on the plane.
That does not say that something in the program may be inadvertently activating it at the moment they trigger approach/descend.
If the airport is a custom airport (i.e., third party):
ILS in custom airports is not sending the correct radio frequencies to auto-tune the NAV radio. The airport makers must update the field to match the new SDK settings.
The workaround is to manually tune the ILS frequency to NAV1 or NAV2 radio and manually switch to that source once you’re inside the ILS feather range. For that, you’ll need charts just as IRL.
I have no custom programs. I only have the standard MSFS program and it’s approved Marketplace options. Could an airport improved for by a third party and offered free in the Marketplace meet your “custom airport” definition? If so, I’ll remove the improvements if I can.
Yes, custom airports sold in Marketplace by makers other than Microsoft qualify as per my post.
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What is the AP state annunciator?