Proline 21 not linking to autopilot

[scianoir 610]

When I load a flight plan to the FMC on the King Air 350, I cannot seem to be able to get the autopilot to link with it to fly the planned flight. I should mention that I am fairly familiar with the Carenado Proline system as I also have the Carenado Hawker 850XP which I have been flying successfully (within the limits of the various Carenado quirks!) using the FMC/AP combination. As I cannot find any video tutorials as yet related to the Carenado King Air 350 and, as the manuals leave a bit to be desired, I guess I must be omitting some key step but I cannot identify what this might be and I wondered if anyone else has had this issue with the King Air?

[Stratox 22]

I've learned with any Carenado product that reading the manual is usually no help. Make sure that the preset on the PFD is using the FMC source and that you are in NAV mode via the MCP.

[scianoir 610]

Thanks Clarke. The preset on the PFD is using the FMC but the NAV mode on the MCP just doesn't seem to be functioning, with the aircraft turning to a heading of 360 as soon as I activate it. With Carenado aircraft, I am never really sure whether I am doing something incorrectly or whether a problem might be due to a quirk in Carenado's system replication! But perhaps I have a corrupt installation here and I will try reinstalling it to see if that helps.

 

Bill

[mokeiko 39]

Bill,

 

There is nothing wrong with your installation, it happens to me as well. Cycle the preset "FMC" on the PFD a few times (I know) making sure "FMC" is annunciated on the PFD.

 

Fly safe.

[scianoir 610]

Thanks for your reply Francisco - it is good, at least, to know there is nothing wrong with my installation!

 

I've tried repeatedly cycling through the preset FMC and I confirm that it is annunciated at the top of the PFD, when I press the NAV button on the AP but the problem persists. I will keep playing around with the PFD and MCP but if I don't get anywhere all I can think of is a reinstall as the NAV button on the AP doesn't seem to want to follow a VOR radial either! The next problem is that there is no uninstall button and the Carenado 350 doesn't appear on my control panel to enable me to uninstall it from there - oh Carenado!

 

I should have heeded the advice on various other posts to wait for the Mil Viz version - this will teach me not to be so impatient!

 

Bill

[edpatino 1,960]

Thanks for your reply Francisco - it is good, at least, to know there is nothing wrong with my installation!

 

I've tried repeatedly cycling through the preset FMC and I confirm that it is annunciated at the top of the PFD, when I press the NAV button on the AP but the problem persists. I will keep playing around with the PFD and MCP but if I don't get anywhere all I can think of is a reinstall as the NAV button on the AP doesn't seem to want to follow a VOR radial either! The next problem is that there is no uninstall button and the Carenado 350 doesn't appear on my control panel to enable me to uninstall it from there - oh Carenado!

 

I should have heeded the advice on various other posts to wait for the Mil Viz version - this will teach me not to be so impatient!

 

Bill

 

For me, the FMC is followed up by the AP with the Preset in VOR1 on the PFD, and NAV + VNAV set in the FGP. With the preset in FMC on the PFD, the AP does not follow the lateral route. Have not tried yet the VOR navigation. Obviously, this is something wrong that Carenado will probably patch in v1.1, if we take into account what they've done previously with other products.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Ed

Thanks for your reply Francisco - it is good, at least, to know there is nothing wrong with my installation!

 

I've tried repeatedly cycling through the preset FMC and I confirm that it is annunciated at the top of the PFD, when I press the NAV button on the AP but the problem persists. I will keep playing around with the PFD and MCP but if I don't get anywhere all I can think of is a reinstall as the NAV button on the AP doesn't seem to want to follow a VOR radial either! The next problem is that there is no uninstall button and the Carenado 350 doesn't appear on my control panel to enable me to uninstall it from there - oh Carenado!

 

I should have heeded the advice on various other posts to wait for the Mil Viz version - this will teach me not to be so impatient!

 

Bill

 

And, btw, the uninstaller is located in the main P3D/FSX folder. Look further down, it's a file named "uninstall_carenado_B350i" or so.

Cheers, Ed

[ryanbatc 12,785]

If the preset in blue says FMS then the AP will NOT follow the FMS track.  It needs to be active in green.  If this isn't working try reloading the default flight in P3D (F35 flight), then load the king air.  Sometimes variables get screwed up in loading - sad that this little bug from FSX is still around after all these years but it is.

 

Heading 360 on NAV mode is the default AP logic confirming to you that it's not receiving a valid nav source.  If a reload doesn't work you could try resetting your Situation ....find the p3d.cfg should be something like this:

 

C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3

 

And just delete the path after the Situation=

 

Save the cfg then try loading the king air now.

[scianoir 610]

For me, the FMC is followed up by the AP with the Preset in VOR1 on the PFD, and NAV + VNAV set in the FGP. With the preset in FMC on the PFD, the AP does not follow the lateral route. Have not tried yet the VOR navigation. Obviously, this is something wrong that Carenado will probably patch in v1.1, if we take into account what they've done previously with other products.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Ed

 

And, btw, the uninstaller is located in the main P3D/FSX folder. Look further down, it's a file named "uninstall_carenado_B350i" or so.

Cheers, Ed

Thanks for that information Ed.

 

I will try that combination and see if it achieves anything for me before resorting to an uninstall/reinstall!

 

Flying some of these more complex Carenado aircraft is a bit like trial and error without the availability of decent manuals from Carenado! I have probably spent more time trying to get the FMC to function correctly on the 350i than I have with more complex aircraft like the PMDG 747 and 777 and much of that is down to the inadequacy of the supplied manuals.

 

Bill

If the preset in blue says FMS then the AP will NOT follow the FMS track.  It needs to be active in green.  If this isn't working try reloading the default flight in P3D (F35 flight), then load the king air.  Sometimes variables get screwed up in loading - sad that this little bug from FSX is still around after all these years but it is.

 

Heading 360 on NAV mode is the default AP logic confirming to you that it's not receiving a valid nav source.  If a reload doesn't work you could try resetting your Situation ....find the p3d.cfg should be something like this:

 

C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3

 

And just delete the path after the Situation=

 

Save the cfg then try loading the king air now.

Hi Ryan and thank you for that.

 

I should have mentioned that I am still flying FSX and I can't ever recall seeing a 'situation' parameter in its cfg, but I will look and see if there is one.

 

I also assumed the the preset in blue was the active one and that green one was inactive but perhaps this was another incorrect assumption on my behalf! This is all becoming a little confusing, but I don't like being defeated by a challenge so I will persist for a bit longer before regaining some sanity with a flight in something where the systems seem to work as they should!

 

Regards, Bill

[WarpD 824]

The preset is just that... a preset.  Saved setting for you to select quickly.  Like a programmed button on your car's stereo.  You press it and it instantly tunes your favorite station.  The preset key on the PFD quickly selects the nav source shown to the right of it.  It's quicker than pressing NAV/BRG and then scrolling to the source you want to use and pressing the data knob.

 

The active nav source is indicated above the preset.

[edpatino 1,960]

As mentioned in previous posts, FMS source should be green in the PFD to be active. Once you get FMS as the source for navigation, and this should be the main point of attention, the AP will follow the NAV track (lateral route). Even if I haven't tested enough, each time I get the B350i from Carenado loaded from the first P3D (in my case no FSX) screen, I don't have any issues in selecting FMS as the preset navigation source, and the rest is easy.

Cheers, Ed

[scianoir 610]

Many thanks to all of you for your help and suggestions in this matter, but unfortunately nothing appeared to resolve the problem. After many test flights therefore, I had no option but to uninstall and reinstall the 350i and I am pleased to report that I have just completed a successful test flight on the reinstalled version using the FMS/AP combination and the NAV button now works as expected, so the problem was probably a corrupt installation. Curiously though, I noticed that switching off the VNAV button in flight also appeared to deactivate the NAV function, as the aircraft started to veer off of the FMS course but that is another issue and I am just happy that at least the LNAV function is working at last!

 

Bill

[edpatino 1,960]

Many thanks to all of you for your help and suggestions in this matter, but unfortunately nothing appeared to resolve the problem. After many test flights therefore, I had no option but to uninstall and reinstall the 350i and I am pleased to report that I have just completed a successful test flight on the reinstalled version using the FMS/AP combination and the NAV button now works as expected, so the problem was probably a corrupt installation. Curiously though, I noticed that switching off the VNAV button in flight also appeared to deactivate the NAV function, as the aircraft started to veer off of the FMS course but that is another issue and I am just happy that at least the LNAV function is working at last!

 

Bill

 

That's correct, switching OFF the VNAV button deactivates NAV!.

Cheers, Ed

[scianoir 610]

That's correct, switching OFF the VNAV button deactivates NAV!.

Cheers, Ed

 

That's reassuring (if a little different), thanks Ed!

 

Cheers, Bill

[Ian McPhail 55]

Thx everybody, but the manual with the add-on isn't all that good, of course, but you can get the Proline/FMS manual directly on the web.

 

Having said this I am stuck with flightplans that have auto/inhibit in the first right hand column of the FPLN, and as I can't get rid of it, it shows 0 miles to the next waypoint regardless of whether it is 1000 miles away.  As a result I either use the heading bug and fly the courses, or just go round in circles for ever.

 

What error am I making.

 

I suspect that Milviz is taking the extra time to get the highly complex FMS to fire on all cylinders, but this add-on seems a compromise.  However, this is a nice aircraft as long as I can figure out the shortcuts.

[edpatino 1,960]

Thx everybody, but the manual with the add-on isn't all that good, of course, but you can get the Proline/FMS manual directly on the web.

 

Having said this I am stuck with flightplans that have auto/inhibit in the first right hand column of the FPLN, and as I can't get rid of it, it shows 0 miles to the next waypoint regardless of whether it is 1000 miles away.  As a result I either use the heading bug and fly the courses, or just go round in circles for ever.

 

What error am I making.

 

I suspect that Milviz is taking the extra time to get the highly complex FMS to fire on all cylinders, but this add-on seems a compromise.  However, this is a nice aircraft as long as I can figure out the shortcuts.

 

Hi, even if the Carenado manual is not as extensive, it gives the information needed to fly this FMC (which is somewhat simplified). Suggest to read this manual and follow exactly the instructions given and you'll be flying with no major issues, just be sure you select FMS as the preset navigation source and is shown in green on the PFD.

Cheers, Ed