I fly the PMDG 737-800 and my navdata is out of date. Its a pain trying to fly on VATSIM when they give me waypoints that dont exist for my FMC. Is there any way to update this without spending money?

Navigraph payware

Not without spending money. You will have to pay. They are very affordable though.

 

AIRAC 1404 from Navigraph is only EUR 4.90. They technically update every 28 days but there are not many changes month to month so online you may get away with using 1404 for several months depending on whether the navaids and SID/STARS on your typical routes change or not.

Navigraph payware

Navigraph have a 4 download deal for AIRAC, which can be done any time. Cost is 14.90 EUR, incl VAT, or 11.92 EUR excl VAT. You could download every three months.  

Navigraph have a 4 download deal for AIRAC, which can be done any time. Cost is 14.90 EUR, incl VAT, or 11.92 EUR excl VAT. You could download every three months.  

 

Did they change after NavDataPro came out? For instance, if you buy the 4 download deal, does that count as 1 download per cycle, per product? Or is it 1 download per cycle, but you can download that cycle for all products? I stopped using them a while ago because the 1 download per cycle, per product was getting too expensive. 

With NavDataPro and Navigraph you get to download as many different AIRAC types as you want, so update all your addons, and possibly those for addons you are thinking of getting soon, but once out of date you have to pay again for the new one. With the PMDG you point the software at the PMDG folder (in FSX program files) and the NAVDATA and SIDSTAR folders are backed up and repopulated.

Could someone explain what an updated AIRAC will actually do, and how that differs from updating the magdev file?

 

As a bonus question, will either or both of these updates fix the many runway headings that have changed since 2006?

 

I would hate having a shiny new updated nav database, get vectored in for a 27L approach only to discover that FSX still shows me going for 28L instead. How do you avoid that?

While a magdev update reflects changes in the earth's magnetic field that changes the difference between true north and magnetic north and writes these changes into a .bgl file to be displayed in the sim,

an airac update wil give you updated SIDs and STARs, airways and intersections - all those things you need for your FMC - but its just data for your planes computer, nothing will be changed in the simulator itself.

 

An airac update will give you the actual runway heading for your FMC, but it doesn't change the numbers in your airport's .bgl file. I think the magdev update will do this, but I'm not sure. If it doesn't, at least PMDGs B737NGX has the option to read the airport headings from the .bgl and use them instead of those written in the Navdata for approach...