Hey all,In the process of replying to another user about a SID I discovered that the NG doesn't seem to take into account magnetic variation in the UK. I came to this through the following:I had noticed, almost since I first bought the NG's, that the localizer course at EGPF was out by two degrees (shown as 054 instead of 052 as it should be but never thought much of it, I knew the correct course anyway so wasn't looking for the specific info from the CDU.Today I was writing a SID for LGW a bit different from the way it is in the Navdata updates and found that the DVR VOR didn't seem to be lining up properly. The DVR 2P SID calls for:Straight ahead via GE maintain track 080

Two days, page three, no replies .... bump.David

David,I can't offer specifics as I am far from an expery, but from what I understand, this is usually caused by an add on scenery change to the Mag/Var. The only known solution I am familiar with is to R&R FS9 and check it without your add on scenery and then track it to a particular scenery one by one and eliminate the suspect scenery.RegardsPaul Gollnick :-cool Technical Operations/Customer Operational SupportPrecision Manuals Development Groupwww.precisionmanuals.comhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/devteam.jpg

Hello Paul,Thanks for replying.I too had heard this but assumed that this wouldn't be a cause as I don't have any scenery for the UK. Could other scenery further afield be causing this disruption?Also could you clarify R&R? I'm not familiar with that one :)Hopefully it has nothing to do with complete reinstalls since I only recently done this and enjoyed it not one bit.Could you possibly try out the examples I posted above; Glasgow ILS and the Gatwick departure route I wrote?All of the scenery I have is installed in folders other than the main FS scenery folder so all the default scenery remains untouched. This should make it a bit easier to systematically work through the scenery addons I have to try and narrow down the problem, if, indeed, it is a scenery error.All the best,DavidP.s. Would simply deactivating the scenery in FS be enough to halt any interference from a scenery pack?

David,R&R is an abreviation used quite frequently in Aircraft Maintenance for Remove and Replace. I always forget that not everyone has an abundanbt knowledge of Aviation Acronyms :-) I just had a similar problem reported to our support@ email and the problem was corrected by installing or reinstalling the latest version of FSUIPC. You may want to give that a try first to see if it helps.RegardsPaul Gollnick :-cool Technical Operations/Customer Operational SupportPrecision Manuals Development Groupwww.precisionmanuals.comhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/devteam.jpg

Hey Paul,Already have the latest version of FSUIPC. I think I have had this problem since originally installing. Makes me wonder how I went for so long without noticing it.I'm going to go through all the scenery I have and find if any are causing this. I have a sneaking suspicion about one in particular though.I that doesn't fix it I'll try putting a virgin copy of FS9 on a different drive and loading only the NG's onto it.Cheers,David

Hey,To add a bit more confusion. I disabled all my addon scenery tonight and made sure there was no non default scenery in the Scenery folders and still the problem remained. I also tried flying the departure route I listed above tonight by simply using the raw data to intercept and fly the VOR radial. Worked like a charm, the radial was exactly where it was supposed to be. The autopilot got a shot at flying tonight aswell and it flew the radail just fine using VOR mode. And still the ND/CDU's showed the radial to be tracking south of the airport as shown in my screenshot above.I doubt it but could this be an airac data problem? The reason I ask is because it only seems to show as a problem when taking information from the CDU's and they get the data from the airac database. At least the radios work fine ;)Seems a reasonable supposition to me.I'll fall back to an older airac and see what happens.CheersDavid

Update: Older airac does not fix it. Bummer.Could someone perhaps take a look to see if you also get this error? I doubt it is only erranous on my computer. This error also makes any of the radial intercept commands in the sid/star files useless (at least in the UK). Not to mention that displaying VOR radials on the ND from either tuning in Nav1 and seeing the vor and radial corresponding to that which is set in the course window of the MCP displayed in green or using the Fix page of the FMS to display the radial will be unreliable/useless.Has anyone observed this behaviour anywhere else?David

BumpDavid

Time to relax David, ;-)Your question has been bumped to the beta mail list by Terry. I do remember seeing this while beta testing.Cheers,

Hey Mats,Thanks for the reply, glad to know my problems aren't falling on deaf ears :)Can you tell me what would be the best way to keep informed about the progress of repairing this problem? I'd be willing to test out any repairs for you guys if no one else on the team is getting this problem.Seems like if I didn't bump this thread it would simply dissappear into forum oblivion and I'd never get it sorted.Here's hoping for a speedy resolution ;)All the best,David

Hi,Another update (as if it's worth it):I asked one of the guys I fly with online to try out the same set-up as I have shown in my first post and he too came up with the same problem. For reference he only has the 6/700. Do any of you users reading this have this problem? To test it could you try the following steps:- Load any NG to be sitting on 8R at EGKK.- Set EGKK as the reference airport, the departure airport and the arrival airport (for simlipcity)- In the DEP/ARR page select 8R as the departure runway, do NOT select a sid (for clarity)- On the ND you should now see a runway symbol, zoom out to 20nm range.- In the FMC FIX page enter the DVR VOR as the fix and enter radial 273 to be dispalyed- Does the green line now shown on the ND pass infront or behind you? It should be about 10 miles infront but the problem is it is a couple of miles behind me.- Try entering radial 276. That should interesct the 10nm range mark (or pretty close to it) on the ND. That is where the 273 radial should be.- Let me know your results in here :)Also try you home airports. The easiest way to see if your country is affected is by using an ILS. Tune the NAV1 radio to a local ILS frequency and then check to make sure the ILS course displayed in the PFD matches with the course you can read from the FS map view.If it does match - let me know.If it doesn't match - let me know.So far anywhere I've tried in the USA is OK. Australia seems to be fine aswell (I'm confirm tomorrow as I'm doing a series of flights there).UK doesn't work.Iceland doesn't seem to work in more than one way.As I mentioned above, this isn't a small problem. It practically renders useless any of the radial commands used in the SID/STAR files of the affected areas. Many of us fly on VATSIM, what would happen if you were asked to fly/intercept/turn at/hold at a radial which you enter into the FMC to fly it and you start flying in the wrong places? Not good. At 30 miles along a radial with a 3

David,I wouldn't call it a big problem. Most of us has been flying with this little anomaly since the NG was released. Both online and offline. There are some slack when it comes to radials and cross track errors so you should be fine even on VATSIM. ;-)I discovered some differences on VORs during a flight between Cape Canaveral,FL and Edwards AFB,CA yesterday so it's not isolated to UK. You can see it clearly if you fly straight towards a VOR and try to either get the VOR magenta diamond to center on the PFD or get the green course vector to align with the path on the ND. One of them is correct. But for some VORs it's impossible to get both to align.If, and I say if this is considered a bug, I wouldn't hold my breath for a fix until after the 744. I wouldn't expect any progress reports on this except maybe on the Maintenance Status Board on the OIC web site. Be advised that the devs are notified via the beta mail list though.So continue flying and disregard this discrepancy until later. :-outtaCheers,

David,I have tried your experiment and I get the same results. Whole of UK appears to be affected.USA, as you stated, seems fine no matter where I try. Hope the PMDG guys are looking into this. Well spotted!Glenn

Hey,Mats, I could accept a small error but 3 degrees is a big problem, especially if you are flying in and out of the UK.How much of a difference did you note on your flight? Also distance has a significant impact on the observation of this error, as I displayed in my previous post, how far were you from the VOR you noticed an error on?To further this, I only discovered this error after creating a SID that required a radial intercept where the VOR was some 40 miles away. I don't consider it strange that this has went unnoticed before as many SID/STAR use VORs that are close to the airport.I find it slightly off putting that something which negates a lot of the commands used to build SID/STAR files in certain instances and can causes navigation errors within a system that is built around is navigation system, may not be considered a problem by the powers that be.I sincerely hope that it is considered a problem large enough to warrant a fix. I am a realist though and can understand that one man b1tching about a problem that hasn't really shown it's face before, although by your own admission has been around for a long time, will not get much attention. I also don't doubt that if this had turned up a good while back and 50 people started to b1tch then something probably would have been done about it.It is also understandable that, if a fix is ever made, then it wont be for a long time.Could you have a word with one of the programmers to swing by here to see what they make of it? It's not that I don't trust your word, I'd just like an official dev team comment on it.The maintenance status board is offline, so I guess no progress reports at all :)Thanks again for your replies.Glenn,Thanks for your reply :)It is good to know that others are having this problem aswell. As you could probably gather from my comments above, I too hope the PMDG team have a look at this, especially since the vast majority of my flying is done form the UK.Again, thanks for testing out this problem for me and for posting your reply.All the best David