Hello I was under the impression I could fly the FMC flight plan by following the FD bars, example I was practicing a SID departure and wanted to fly it manually so at around 400 feet I enabled the autopilot expecting the FD to give me guidance to follow the Magenta path for the SID but it did not give me an lateral guidance, do I have this understanding wrong, thanks

Hello I was under the impression I could fly the FMC flight plan by following the FD bars, example I was practicing a SID departure and wanted to fly it manually so at around 400 feet I enabled the autopilot expecting the FD to give me guidance to follow the Magenta path for the SID but it did not give me an lateral guidance, do I have this understanding wrong, thanks

You should be able to. I have flown all of my SIDS manually since I got the Ngx, by following the flight director bars in lnav and vnav.Edit:I don't want to state the obvious, but do you have lnav as the active roll mode?

Think of the FD bars as what the auto pilot would be doing, if it was engaged. You have to be in a lateral mode to get the vertical bar, and you must be in a vertical mode to get the horizontal bar. If you have not engaged any of the lateral or vertical modes then the FD will not provide correct guidance.

understood sorry I was just interpreting this function incorrectly Wayne

Hello I was under the impression I could fly the FMC flight plan by following the FD bars, example I was practicing a SID departure and wanted to fly it manually so at around 400 feet I enabled the autopilot expecting the FD to give me guidance to follow the Magenta path for the SID but it did not give me an lateral guidance, do I have this understanding wrong, thanks

FD is the "brain", AP/AT is the "muscle." Assuming that you programmed your FMC correctly and according to your SID chart, you should be able to hand-fly the procedure as long as you like.