2 hours ago, divinglyc said:

Thanks! Scott,

However, if I enter the same wpts manually, there is no problem. Does that mean there is nothing wrong with the wpt?

I have edited those wpt. and saved them and export them to the user.wpt. file.

BTW, how can I know which wpt is locked? It seemed only showed "Locked" and I could not tell which wpt is the problem.

THanks again!

The most common issue I have found with locked waypoints has been that in the Garmin database there are more than one waypoints with the same name, thus the Garmin does not choose for you.  A good example of this is intersection/waypoint BUNKA on low altitude V221, just west of OOM (Bloomington, Indiana, USA).  There is another fix in the database named BUNKA in the African country of Ivory Coast. I had BUNKA locked when I imported a flight plan from St Louis to Bloomington.

Another cause may be an named intersection that appears to be on an airway, but is not.  This can happen occasionally where two airways cross each other and that fix is in the database on one airway, but not the other.

Just two examples.....  And where these occur in a GTN, they for me at least also happen in a GNS.  It's Garmin database related.

Edited December 3, 20187 yr by fppilot

35 minutes ago, fppilot said:

The most common issue I have found with locked waypoints has been that in the Garmin database there are more than one waypoints with the same name, thus the Garmin does not choose for you.  A good example of this is intersection/waypoint BUNKA on low altitude V221, just west of OOM (Bloomington, Indiana, USA).  There is another fix in the database named BUNKA in the African country of Ivory Coast. I had BUNKA locked when I imported a flight plan from St Louis to Bloomington.

Another cause may be an named intersection that appears to be on an airway, but is not.  This can happen occasionally where two airways cross each other and that fix is in the database on one airway, but not the other.

Just two examples.....  And where these occur in a GTN, they for me at least also happen in a GNS.  It's Garmin database related.

Thanks! I have read through the manual( the Pilot's Guide) but still have one question. 

How do you know which wpt is causing the locked flight plan if there are many wps in a flight plan?

1 hour ago, divinglyc said:

How do you know which wpt is causing the locked flight plan if there are many wps in a flight plan?

If I recall you cannot Activate or Preview a plan with locked waypoints until you have edited that plan. In true Garmin logic, I believe you must Store the flight plan first, then Edit it.  When you scroll through it to Edit you should find the Locked waypoints.

Here is another caveat for Garmin's logic.  If you have connected an airway to a waypoint, and that waypoint gets locked by the Import process, I believe the Airway gets stripped from the import.  I believe that happens if the locked waypoint is either your entry point onto the airway or your exit point from that airway.  In any case, if you have your flight plan in front of you from your separate flight planning tool, it is rather easy to edit the plan back to what you need.  If the waypoint was a duplicate in the database the Garmin will show you the duplicates and ask you to choose.

17 hours ago, fppilot said:

If I recall you cannot Activate or Preview a plan with locked waypoints until you have edited that plan. In true Garmin logic, I believe you must Store the flight plan first, then Edit it.  When you scroll through it to Edit you should find the Locked waypoints.

Here is another caveat for Garmin's logic.  If you have connected an airway to a waypoint, and that waypoint gets locked by the Import process, I believe the Airway gets stripped from the import.  I believe that happens if the locked waypoint is either your entry point onto the airway or your exit point from that airway.  In any case, if you have your flight plan in front of you from your separate flight planning tool, it is rather easy to edit the plan back to what you need.  If the waypoint was a duplicate in the database the Garmin will show you the duplicates and ask you to choose.

Thanks a lot! I get what you mean.

I now know what the issue is. My arrival airport was set to be CBW2, which I don't know why is not accepted when importing the flight plan from LittleNavmap.

However, if I delete it and manually enter CBW2 into the flight plan by "Add waypoint", then it's OK.

Really have no idea why.

Anyway, I now know I have to "Store" the flight plan before I can Edit it. THanks a lot!! 

2 hours ago, divinglyc said:

Thanks a lot! I get what you mean.

I now know what the issue is. My arrival airport was set to be CBW2, which I don't know why is not accepted when importing the flight plan from LittleNavmap.

However, if I delete it and manually enter CBW2 into the flight plan by "Add waypoint", then it's OK.

Really have no idea why.

Anyway, I now know I have to "Store" the flight plan before I can Edit it. THanks a lot!! 

The Garmin file spec for a .gfp file at first seems pretty simple and straightforward. But on the other hand it is highly dependent on various punctuation, especially when adding transitions and approaches to the plan.  Get the punctuation syntax wrong and the gauge chokes on it during import.  I have learned to build some .gtn files with Excel using its concatenate() formula to join cells and punctuation delimiters.  But I have still had so many errors when importing that I now usually just build the route in the gauge. 

You can build more simple .gfp files for import with just the departure airport, key fixes, and an arrival airport., import that plan, then after import connect the fixes with their airways with Load Airway in the flight plan's edit feature.  When you think it through, the departure runway and arrival runway are usually determined by weather/winds and change from day to day anyway, so why put them in plans intended for import.  They can only cause problems there.  And departure and arrival transitions have names that sequence, so Chickn3 today may be Chickn4 in the next nav update, and then the import will reject Chckn3.  All of these are  Garmin and database characteristics, not characteristics of RXP. 

Here are a couple of topics with discussions on this subject.
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/532425-help-garmin-gfp-file-spec-for-rnav-gps-y-and-z-approach-types/

In this topic, at the bottom of the first post in the thread below you can find a downloadable pdf file with the full Garmin spec for .gfp files.
https://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/garmin-gtn650-user-flight-plan-import-question.231557/#post-2538904

 

39 minutes ago, fppilot said:

The Garmin file spec for a .gfp file at first seems pretty simple and straightforward. But on the other hand it is highly dependent on various punctuation, especially when adding transitions and approaches to the plan.  Get the punctuation syntax wrong and the gauge chokes on it during import.  I have learned to build some .gtn files with Excel using its concatenate() formula to join cells and punctuation delimiters.  But I have still had so many errors when importing that I now usually just build the route in the gauge. 

You can build more simple .gfp files for import with just the departure airport, key fixes, and an arrival airport., import that plan, then after import connect the fixes with their airways with Load Airway in the flight plan's edit feature.  When you think it through, the departure runway and arrival runway are usually determined by weather/winds and change from day to day anyway, so why put them in plans intended for import.  They can only cause problems there.  And departure and arrival transitions have names that sequence, so Chickn3 today may be Chickn4 in the next nav update, and then the import will reject Chckn3.  All of these are  Garmin and database characteristics, not characteristics of RXP. 

Here are a couple of topics with discussions on this subject.
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/532425-help-garmin-gfp-file-spec-for-rnav-gps-y-and-z-approach-types/

In this topic, at the bottom of the first post in the thread below you can find a downloadable pdf file with the full Garmin spec for .gfp files.
https://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/garmin-gtn650-user-flight-plan-import-question.231557/#post-2538904

 

Thank you so much! You have been of so much help!

I will rea those discussion posts!!

This is great,  but I find the MAJOR issue is the discrepancies between the FSX Nav Database and Garmins.

 

if Garmin had a reasonably priced subscription to update the GTN750 Nav database, The add-on would be great!

 

1 hour ago, Skyseek said:

This is great,  but I find the MAJOR issue is the discrepancies between the FSX Nav Database and Garmins.

 

if Garmin had a reasonably priced subscription to update the GTN750 Nav database, The add-on would be great!

 

Unless you are using FSAeroData or the free updates by Hérve Sors, it is the FSX database which is woefully out of date (by 14 years). The sim core nav data in P3DV5 is much more recent, but is still almost one year old as near as I can determine. NO FMS or GPS add-on using current (or reasonably current) nav data is going to match the very old FSX nav data.

The GTN nav database in the most recent Garmin trainer is not current to July of 2020, but neither is it “ancient”. It is from last September (2019). I use the GTN-750 on all my flights in the A2A Bonanza, and have not (as yet), found any SIDS, STARS, airways, stand-alone waypoints or approaches from current r/w charts that are not in the current GTN database. 

Edited July 8, 20205 yr by JRBarrett