Approach vectors and FMC route
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It sounds like you're importing your planned MSFS route instead of punching it in yourself, that right? If so, I wonder if MSFS modifies the route after you get vectors because it's no longer valid.
You can't really have ATC giving you vectors and still fly your programmed route, they're mutually exclusive. It sounds like you want to ignore the vectors, so I would just turn off or ignore the ATC in that case and happily fly the programmed route.
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@majick I've now done a flight with no ATC and still the moment the approach phase kicks in the FMC reports 'FPLN DISCONTINUITY'.
The route on the pop-up map goes from solid white and magenta to dotted white and I have to resort to HDG mode from there on.
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@jmarkows I'll give that a go :)
I don't have the route specifics to hand but it has happened on every flight I have made, Glasgow-Manchester, Bristol-Madrid, Madrid to Bilbao, and today Bilbao-Pamplona. It's always at the point approach starts.
I'm sure it's just a case of me not knowing how to operate a realistic FMC/autopilot combination (it's the Flybywire A320 I am used to which is also more modern ofc).
Should I be manually advancing the stages on the FMC perhaps, from climb to cruise, descent and approach? I'm still waiting for a good tutorial to come up on Youtube for this aircraft flying on FMC navigation, hopefully if one appears all will become clear :)
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@jmarkows said in Approach vectors and FMC route:
@majick When you have route specifics it would be helpful for us to see them.
Do they have a waypoint like (VECT) in there somewhere near the approach?
I'll check on my next flight (might not be till tomorrow). Thanks very much for your help!
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@jmarkows For the Bilbao-Pamplona flight the flight plan was as follows:
LEBB
SANTU
D278J
D013J
BISKA
BAPOR
BAGAS
PODUX
PPN
CF15
FI15
LEPPThe point at which the 'FPLN DISCONTINUITY' occurs on this flight is BAGAS, which is the transition between the DESCENT and APPROACH phases. It happens on all flights at this point.
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@majick Ahh, now maybe we're getting to a cause.
Discontinuities are very common when entering plans into an FMS and must be manually cleared. If that's where your flight plan goes to hell, that's probably the issue.
To help you clear it I'd need to see a picture of the FMS screen, what's right before and after the discontinuity. I won't have access to my computer with MSFS until next week so I can't load it up myself and look.
Usually discontinuities that appear there have duplicate waypoints, in this case
BAGAS
DISCONTINUITY
BAGASWhere you would press the line select key next to the second BAGAS to "copy" it to the scratch pad on the FMS and then "paste" it over the first BAGAS by pressing that select key, then EXEC in order to "enter" it. This would remove the duplicate and fix the discontinuity. If that's the case here, that's the fix.
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@jmarkows I thought I had made a breakthrough this morning based on what you said yesterday.
I actually took the trouble to check the flightplan which was imported from MSFS and lo and behold there was a discontinuity at VIBOK (flying from Pamplona to Barcelona this time..). So I deleted it and made the flight.
I got past VIBOK, and everything was fine. But shortly afterwards a new discontinuity appeared, and this one couldn't be deleted ('INVALID DELETE'). As an interesting side note on this flight, after the discontinuity appeared the pop-up map would open up frozen and with no route at all shown.
It looks like there is a consistent bug when importing an MSFS flight plan, which always puts a discontinuity after the nav point where approach starts. Although it's possible to delete it, the flight still messes up soon after that point.
As it is 100% consistent for me I'm surprised no-one else is having this problem unless I'm the only one on the forum not using some third party flight planning tool.
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@majick It sounds kinda like you are trying to delete your discontinuities Airbus style. Did you "delete" the discon EXACTLY like how jmarkows has suggested? (i.e. copy the waypoint after the discon and pasted over the waypoint just before discon?)
