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This computer, which predated Apple & the TRS-80, was instrumental to the beginning of “personal computers” and resulted in the creation of Microsoft. This in turn resulted in Linus Torvalds wanting something better so he created Linux.

X-Plane: Flight Plan

I don’t know why I can’t do something I’ve done in the past. I understand being rusty. But this is the second day trying to make this work, and getting nowhere.

X-Plane… please explain!

I know I’m not the only one having similar problems, here’s part of a question I saw on Reddit. And this concerns the many years newer X-Plane 12.

(X-Plan 12, Baron 58, G530, MacBook Pro M1)
...
My question is: why does my plane not follow the flight plan, instead of turning right towards DIMAD, it goes straight, completely ignoring the flight plan?
I must be wrong somewhere but, I've been searching everywhere for an answer for a week.

This is why I should make videos. I could easily follow a video I make.

I did say something in my notes I don’t understand… “Using the Flight Director activate LOC and activate the autopilot to fly the course”. I don’t know what I mean by Activate LOC. I guess that could be the problem.

I decided the best way to test is a direct flight from KFXE rwy 31 (Ft Lauderdale) to KTPA (Tampa) should be a great way to test. It’s a straight shot 165 NM away.

You can select and activate any leg of the flight plan by pressing the Right Small Knob to activate the cursor, turning the Right Large Knob to select the desired leg, then press MENU, and scroll if needed to ‘Activate leg’ then press ENT.

In most cases, you’ll probably load your flight plan before take-off. In this case, the first leg will be loaded and the plan ready to proceed without further intervention.

Finally… some success!

Thanks to my own notes, below. Basically the below worked with the Cessna Skyhawk. But it flew so slow that I switched to the Cirrus. It uses the more sophisticated dual screen G1000, still in regards to the G530 Flight Pan… very similar.

Note: My s-tech 55 (6 buttons) does NOT have a AP button
So you need to configure 2 buttons on joystick (in settings) to turn on/off auto pilot
•control wheel steering mode
•disconnect servos whichever side is active
Can see map on a page group [small dial right button] in the NAV page [big dial right button]
Note: <RNG> to zoom in/out...stands for range NOT ring
Procedure for adding Approach...
After entering the airport to land at on the <FPL> screen
Press “PROC” for procedure...< PROC>
Select “ Select approach?” <ENT>
Select a runway <ENT>
Vectors <ENT>
Select “Load?”
At this point the Flight Plan is loaded
<CDI>...toggles to select GPS Or press button near the top by the light [not on the Garmin]
Then on Autopilot...<NAV><AP>
Select “Activate approach?” on procedures < PROC> on Garmin

The Cirrus has 2 Screens. These are the controls and display sections that are important

I think that maybe the significant thing was Adding an Approach. I’m thinking I just want to go from airport to airport. But perhaps that doesn’t meet the definition of a Flight Plan. You could use HDG for that. As you can see above, right image, other points are added to the plan… after you add an Approach.

Adding a Approach procedure…

From FPL click PROC

The screens below, starting at the top, are in order from left to right. After choosing Vectors press ENT (twice) then select LOAD

After taking off turn on Autopilot… NAV then AP

Solving a Flight Sim problem, much like programming… is very gratifying. However, honestly I would have been happy if it worked, straight away.

In hindsight!

My babbling on can be skipped. Just trying to explain, why I believe my initial attempts failed over and over. Evidently it needs the approach. If this is true the 530 should have told me at save or load that the Flight Plan, was incomplete. I felt I was only interested in the journey, not the landing. I just wanted to look at the terrain from this airport to the next, so I only entered two airports. That was the “Flight Plan” I was interested in. In real life that might not be reasonable because of the need to refuel. In addition there is an actual requirement to file a Flight Plan. Wikipedia says… “Flight plans are documents filed by a pilot or flight dispatcher with the local Air Navigation Service Provider (e.g., the FAA in the United States) prior to departure”. They probably don’t want some Bozo like me just going on some joyride.

Being that it’s a simulator I can stop following the Flight Plan at any time without getting in trouble from the FAA.

X-Plane – having problems with flight plans

Something else I did in the past… but didn’t document very well. I don’t remember it being very hard. As matter of fact I have 11 flight plans in …/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/X-Plane 11/Output/FMS plans/. Most of them created with Little Navmap, it’s so much easier and less tedious.

In particular, I remember the I-95 flight plans, where I basically travel down I-95 for a long stretch, curving… where it curved. I liked doing this at night and watching the cars lights.

I also remember creating and using one that flew from Asheville over Waynesville, NC then to McGhee Tyson Airport south of Knoxville in Alcoa, Tennessee . At the time I thought it was involved… I don’t know why. Recently, I documented, flying west out of Asheville, with a simple heading and altitude, and flying right over it!

No problem… I’ll just watch some YouTube videos. And there were many showing how to create a flight plan. But they never showed actually using it. This is how you create a Flight Plan… the end. So congratulations, you just showed me how to create a flight plan… that doesn’t work. I mean… as far as I know. Obviously I know how to create them (by virtue of having 11 of them).

Now X-Plane complained when I tried to load one. Not surprising… they’re old. No problem, I just opened them in the recently updated Little Navmap, and saved them again. I did… it seemed to work, and X-Plane didn’t complain when I tried to load the new one.

But it still doesn’t follow the plan!

Even more problems. I wanted to create a new Flight Plan, so I deleted the old one, but as you can see below, on the far left, it made KPMP my starting point. It’s supposed to logically default to the airport you’re at.

But I’m not at KPMP, I’m at KFXE as can be seen in the Flight in Progress box.

Maybe all my Flight Plan problems are not me… but X-Plane!

X grok doesn’t know about grok.com

what is the difference between you and grok.com
1 post
25 web pages
The primary differences between me, Grok 2, and what can be understood as "grok.com" from available information are:

    Development and Ownership:
        Grok 2: I am an AI developed by xAI, focusing on providing helpful and truthful answers with an outside perspective on humanity. My design is intended to assist users in a wide range of queries, often with real-time access to information via the X platform.
        grok.com: There isn't a direct entity known as "grok.com" in the search results provided, but there is confusion with "Groq," a company developing AI chips (Language Processing Units or LPUs), which is distinct from xAI's Grok AI. Groq focuses on enhancing the performance of AI chatbots by providing faster processing capabilities, whereas Grok is an AI chatbot itself.

Cirrus Vision SF50

Flew the Cirrus Vision SF50. Wikipedia describes it as a single-engine very light jet. They add “From 2018 through 2023, it has been the most-delivered business jet”.

I found it interesting that they said “it has both a whole-airframe ballistic parachute and autoland system”.

By NASA – https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2010/ps_3.html, https://sbir.nasa.gov/SBIR/successes/ss/1-005text.html, https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff2002/ps_2.html or similar NASA webpage, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=943015

I flew it with auto pilot. My biggest problem was with the vertical speed, after I reached disired altitude, it would exceed what I set then go down…then go up, like a roller coaster. I came to the conclusion that it was my air speed, after raising the landing gear and the flaps, I should have backed off the throttle.

It’s fun to fly. Being a jet there is no propeller pull down the runway, at takeoff. And it has power to climb quicker than a prop air plane.

There I am. You can totally tell it’s me 🙂

Evidently a very nice jet. Also from Wikipedia… “In 2018, the Vision Jet was awarded the Collier Trophy for the “greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America” during the preceding year, being the first certified single-engine civilian jet”.

Not being involved greatly with Aviation, I was only aware of the very well known Lear and Cessna Citation (which I flew in, in a business trip to Cheyenne, Wyoming) jets.

In doing research for this post, I was surprised to learn… In February 2021, Bombardier announced the end of production for all new Learjet aircraft in 2021.

Cessna with G1000

I was able to figure out how to use autopilot in the Cessna with the more sophisticated instrument panels by myself. The only thing I’m concerned about, at the moment is HDG (heading) and VS (vertical speed). Big deal. Right? But in the beginning all these variations can be confusing. So you select them on the right panel and they show up as selected, top of the left panel.