Finally the ILS approach for runway 26 at ESSA (which is a heavily used approach IRL at ESSA) made it's way back into the AIRAC data files from Navigraph used by the NGX but for some reason this approach doesn't show up inside the FMC. I've checked that the approach indeed exists in the AIRAC data files and the approach does exist in Aivlasoft's EFB for example using the same (1206) AIRAC cycle.

 

Any idea why this approach doesn't show up in the NGX FMC?

Assume you are using Rev 2 of 1206?

Nope...didn't even know there was a Rev 2 of 1206 for PMDG but just downloaded and installed it so hope this will cure the problem with the ILS 26 @ ESSA. Wonder what was wrong because I did check the ESSA.txt file and as far as I could tell everything looked OK.

 

Wish Navigraph could send out an email when they release these kind of updates in the same way they do for new AIRAC cycles and other news.

 

Thanks for the heads-up!

It's been discussed on several other boards. It's a bug in PMDG's NGX 737.

Ok, I completely missed that. Could you point me in the right direction where I could read more about it? I did a quick search for it but didn't really find this specific issue, is it confirmed as a bug by PMDG and is it only affecting this particular AIRAC cycle? Was a long period when this approach was missing in the AIRAC data but found a way to manually add what was missing and it worked just fine also in PMDG's FMC.

The problem is actually caused by one of the approaches that precedes it that has nothing but a runway in it. (it's an NDB one if I recall correctly).

 

An instrument approach that contains nothing but a runway doesn't even make sense, you always need a FAF before it. We really can't account for every stupid thing that ends up in the navdata... the posibilities are virtually unlimited. I have emailed Navigraph/Richard Stefan about this and as of yet there is no response from them. They need to fix their data/parser so that it's not allowing nonsensical things like this to get into the file.

 

The short-term fix though is to remove that approach from the ESSA.txt file that has only the runway in it, that'll let the subsequent ones load properly.

 

EDIT:

 

It's this one:

 

APPROACH NDB19R RNW 19R HDG 185 VECTORS

 

You could also fix it by putting in a waypoint prior to RNW 19R in. The actual plate for this has the LA NDB itself prior to the runway and that's completely missing here. Even calling it just NDB 19R is screwed up, the real approach is listed as "ILS Y or LOC Y or NDB 19R".

 

EDIT 2:

 

APPROACH NDB19R FIX LANB AT OR ABOVE 1400 RNW 19R HDG 185 VECTORS

 

will fix it and make it correct per the chart.

Thanks a bunch Ryan :Applause:

 

Will give it a shot and guess I should update the essa.txt file for Aivlasoft EFB in the same way to make it consistent?