Could anybody familiar with the Flight1 BN-2's autopilot give a little info on how the navigation functions on the autopilot are supposed to be operated? I thought setting the Nav switch on the captain's panel to GPS and selecting NAV hold would follow the current route in the GPS (I was using a DirectTo), but that didn't work, and LNAV keeps popping up with LNAV and HDG and following the heading bug, which seems to be fixed to some unknown course.

Could anybody familiar with the Flight1 BN-2's autopilot give a little info on how the navigation functions on the autopilot are supposed to be operated? I thought setting the Nav switch on the captain's panel to GPS and selecting NAV hold would follow the current route in the GPS (I was using a DirectTo), but that didn't work, and LNAV keeps popping up with LNAV and HDG and following the heading bug, which seems to be fixed to some unknown course.

 

Hey Bram, assuming you are using the Flight1/Virtavia BN-2, I've seen this issue as well. Basically what happens is that selecting the center Direct To button on the GPS, and then dialing in the ICAO code, it does not keep the first letter/number, it just defaults it to "0". So, take for instance I'm sitting at TNCM and want to go to TFFJ. I dial in TFFJ but it ends up saying "0TFJ", which then defaults to "00CA". No matter what I do the first value always defaults to 0. Sound familiar?

 

All that I've found around this is that you have to use the FSX Flight Planner to set up your flight, then once loaded, go to the "FPL 1" page, select the CRSR to select "USE?", which will highlight "1: MSFS", then click ENT twice.

 

After that I just navigate to the NAV pages to show both the map and lateral deviation pages. The catch that I have found is that using the GPS you can't do turnarounds either. Even if you set up a new flightplan in FSX while still loaded on the flight, the GPS will not reflect that. The way around this I've found is selecting VOR's as waypoints and doing some "old school" VOR to VOR navigation selecting radials and selecting NAV for the AP to follow.

 

In short, for a one off flight, make an FSX flightplan and import it to the GPS. For a non-reset turnaround select a VOR to VOR route and fly the VOR's. If anyone has a workaround or has figured this deal out, please chime in, this is a long standing issue I myself have not gotten to the bottom of.....

 

If this makes sense, and sounds familiar, I hope it helps.

I actually haven't had the problem with the first character being replaced by 0. For instance, I was trying to fly to TNCM, and so I found it in the Nearest Airports list, selected it, and pressed the DirectTo button, which automatically inserted TNCM, and I hit enter twice to set it as my destination. I then coupled the GPS to the autopilot and selected NAV, and while it did take me on a defined course, it was not the same course as the GPS indicated--my lateral deviation started continuously growing.

 

However, like you mentioned, flight plans appear to work fine (I just got the BN-2 yesterday, and have only tried importing a flightplan once).