Tutorial 1 - Route Entry - BUBIN no longer valid

[Richard Myers 1]

Just gone back to try Tutorial 1 only to find that the last waypoint on the route, namely BUBIN is an "Invalid entry".

Everything is up to date including 777 file (re-downloaded and installed today)  Navigraph 1801 rev 1 also downloaded and installed today.

Cannot proceed...

Richard Myers

[Budbud 227]

Hi,

45 minutes ago, Richard Myers said:

Everything is up to date including 777 file (re-downloaded and installed today)  Navigraph 1801 rev 1 also downloaded and installed today.

Yep, it is the "problem". The Tutorial is based on the AIRAC 1309 (September 2013) and your FMC nav database is up-to-date.
Since September 2013 a lot of procedures have changed in the world. If Bubin was the starting waypoint of the STAR BUBIN6A, that STAR no longer exists and BUBIN is no longer a waypoint of the airway M762 either.

The closest waypoint is now is IMPED for the IMPED 1C (rwy 30L) and IMPED 1B/E (rwy 12L).

Your route will be (at least one of them):

L4D LELEM L894 KITAL P570 ITURA M762 MIVEK P574 IMPED IMPE1B (rwy 12L)

 

 

[xkoote 57]

Hello,

as Romain said, you will have to find out and make the necessary changes. On DEC 7, 2017, UAE airspace became RNAV 1 only airspace and as such they redid most of their routse, SID's and STAR's. IMPED has now replaced BUBIN amongst more changes.

 

Cheers,

 

[Richard Myers 1]

Thanks guys I'll do some research. BTW Is there any chance that Kyle could issue an addendum or update, there must several newbies who are being frustrated by this situation.

 

Richard Myers

[Fabo 213]

I think Ryan did the tutorials...

Best bet to see if this can be fixed is to go through the routes, note any discrepancies, find suitable alternatives which don't change the actual route flown too much, and submit all of this in a ticket so PMDG can review whether it would be an easy fix for the tutorial.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

3 hours ago, Richard Myers said:

Thanks guys I'll do some research. BTW Is there any chance that Kyle could issue an addendum or update, there must several newbies who are being frustrated by this situation.

 

Richard Myers

People ask this occasionally, but with the nature of navdata, it's not really something that's practical. It updates every 28 days. Having to double check that all of our products are in alignment and keep up with that really doesn't add much benefit. If you're using updated nav data, I think it's a reasonable expectation that you also know how to adjust on the fly for some minor fix changes here and there. If you've gotten as far as understanding how to update your nav data, you're past the point of understanding the basics of entering fixes, and that the data changes.

I understand the frustration, but it's not as simple as is being suggested here.

2 hours ago, Fabo said:

I think Ryan did the tutorials...

Correct.

2 hours ago, Fabo said:

Best bet to see if this can be fixed is to go through the routes, note any discrepancies, find suitable alternatives which don't change the actual route flown too much, and submit all of this in a ticket so PMDG can review whether it would be an easy fix for the tutorial.

I'd honestly leave the ticket out. There's never any hurt to submitting one, but if you take a moment to think through all of the effort involved in reviewing every one of our tutorials every 28 days to check to ensure that there aren't any issues, update the ones that require them. Re-pack the installers (and/or set up the updaters), and release a new build number specifically for a single fix change, potentially several times per year? Definitely not something scalable.

As I mentioned above, those who really need the route handed to them without issue are the people who are first getting into FMC-driven aircraft. These people aren't going to be the ones with updated nav data. They're going to have what's in the installer, which will match the tutorial. If you have updated nav data, you clearly have enough of a handle on FMC-driven planes to understand that it needs to be updated (and why), and how that will affect your sim experience. If you have an old route, you adjust accordingly.

[skyymann 6]

Bubin was a very stable fix in UAE airspace for years. However, in December we did a massive airspace restructure and a LOT of the old fixes went away. Desde and Bubin were just two well known examples. This stuff happens. I was in Denver when DIA opened and we did a massive airspace restructure then as well.

 

Scott

[harrry 322]

5 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

People ask this occasionally, but with the nature of navdata, it's not really something that's practical. It updates every 28 days. Having to double check that all of our products are in alignment and keep up with that really doesn't add much benefit. If you're using updated nav data, I think it's a reasonable expectation that you also know how to adjust on the fly for some minor fix changes here and there. If you've gotten as far as understanding how to update your nav data, you're past the point of understanding the basics of entering fixes, and that the data changes.

I understand the frustration, but it's not as simple as is being suggested here.

Correct.

I'd honestly leave the ticket out. There's never any hurt to submitting one, but if you take a moment to think through all of the effort involved in reviewing every one of our tutorials every 28 days to check to ensure that there aren't any issues, update the ones that require them. Re-pack the installers (and/or set up the updaters), and release a new build number specifically for a single fix change, potentially several times per year? Definitely not something scalable.

As I mentioned above, those who really need the route handed to them without issue are the people who are first getting into FMC-driven aircraft. These people aren't going to be the ones with updated nav data. They're going to have what's in the installer, which will match the tutorial. If you have updated nav data, you clearly have enough of a handle on FMC-driven planes to understand that it needs to be updated (and why), and how that will affect your sim experience. If you have an old route, you adjust accordingly.

I would say the people who want to use this tutorial may well have up to date nav data and it would not be unreasonable to hope that an a note could be added to the tutorial when you are aware that a change makes the information wrong.  You are still selling the software so not really good to say new customers do not need it.  You do not need to completely rewrite it just add a note to it.

[Holdit 551]

5 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

Re-pack the installers (and/or set up the updaters), and release a new build number specifically for a single fix change, potentially several times per year? Definitely not something scalable.

That sounds like a sledgehammer vs nut solution. Surely these steps wouldn't really be necessary if the adjustments for the tutorial were simply put up on the PMDG website and/or on PDF for download. 

[scandinavian13 5,192]

12 hours ago, harrry said:

I would say the people who want to use this tutorial may well have up to date nav data and it would not be unreasonable to hope that an a note could be added to the tutorial when you are aware that a change makes the information wrong.  You are still selling the software so not really good to say new customers do not need it.  You do not need to completely rewrite it just add a note to it.

You really do, though. Adding a note is as much of an effort as is changing the route in the tutorial (if I recall correctly, there's already a note in the tutorials that basically says "this tutorial was written for the data that comes with the package, and if you have updated it, it may not match up 100%"). I'm not sure how, or why people think that this is a simple swap. See below.

Moreover, I didn't say people don't need the tutorial. See the "main issue" note, below, and please take the time to read and fully grasp what I'm getting at, as I may not have stated it clearly enough earlier, as it appears my words have been mistaken.

11 hours ago, Holdit said:

That sounds like a sledgehammer vs nut solution. Surely these steps wouldn't really be necessary if the adjustments for the tutorial were simply put up on the PMDG website and/or on PDF for download. 

It really isn't that simple though. You guys are making this out to be a quick "just change the waypoint name and reissue" type of deal, when it's a lot more involved.

Nav data changes 13 times per year. Each time it's updated, there's a chance it will affect the route in the tutorials (every, single, one of them), but this is not certain. This isn't a one for one swap. It's not like you change a single fix name to a new name. This may require changing a fix and a couple airways, but again, we don't get a notification that says what changed any more than you do. There isn't a service out there that checks route conformance of existing routes for new nav data changes (that is publicly/freely available, anyway).

So, EVERY data cycle:

1. Take the route
2. Run it through some sort of program to see if it breaks, if not, jump to step 8
3. Check to see where it breaks
4. Update the route such that it doesn't break
5. Update the route in the tutorial
6. Re-package the entire installer and re-upload
7. Set the updater and update the version number
8. Move to the next tutorial and re-start at step 1; if no more tutorials, then
9. Move to next aircraft and re-start at step 1; if no more aircraft, end.

For those of you who are saying "just put it online," you're only addressing steps 6 and 7, when the main issue is steps 1-5. That's a significant effort for most of the nav data updates where nothing of consequence gets updated.

...and the main issue - again - is that most people fly the tutorial once. It's not like an update is going to serve our entire customer base, multiple times. The people who need the tutorial are the ones who will fly it on the data that comes with it, and then they'll update it, and by then it's a non-issue. The people who are using updated nav data are familiar enough with the FMC, and the process that flying the tutorial is more about getting used to the flows, and not so much of the route being perfect.

The argument here is that we should essentially be re-writing the tutorial for a constantly changing environment. That isn't scalable. It's a more extreme example because the changes are a lot more frequent, but it's a bit like making the argument that "hey, the tutorial didn't match up exactly" because you were using real world weather. We've given you a controlled environment: the aircraft comes with nav data, and the tutorial was written for it, while it also asks for clear weather. All variables are controlled for until the user adds in their own modifications. At that point, you've moved past the base issue of needing to understand the FMC and the aircraft. If you're modifying stuff, you're comfortable enough with the concepts to be able to adapt to your own modifications. If you're not comfortable, then you essentially signed yourself up for the deep end of the pool without being fully confident with swimming, so...learn quickly

[VHOJT 150]

Look I honestly think this is a mountain out of a molehill.

Do the tutorial before you update the navdata.

Or - I guess if the situation was desperate - you could uninstall, delete your updated navdata, and reinstall - although I think PMDG are not a fan of unnecessary uninstalling/reinstalling as it can cause issues.

If you have updated the Navdata, use the IMPED 1E (IMPE1E) arrival and ILS12L.  It is pretty similar:

Cheers,

[30K 72]

The installers make a backup of the original data so even after updating you can still roll back and fly the tutorial.

And Kyle is absolutely right - the update effort would be immense even if you would adapt the tutorials after customer feedback.

The only thing that could be done in 5 minutes is to but in big fat bold text something like "use the default AIRAC" or so at the top of the tutorial post.

[Fabo 213]

On 1/9/2018 at 3:22 AM, scandinavian13 said:

I'd honestly leave the ticket out. There's never any hurt to submitting one, but if you take a moment to think through all of the effort involved in reviewing every one of our tutorials every 28 days to check to ensure that there aren't any issues, update the ones that require them. Re-pack the installers (and/or set up the updaters), and release a new build number specifically for a single fix change, potentially several times per year? Definitely not something scalable.

Well that's exactly why I would only do it if a ticket comes in, right? Let the users do the heavy lifting.

And wasn't the point of OC updaters that this exact kind of thing would be very easy?

[scandinavian13 5,192]

2 hours ago, Fabo said:

Well that's exactly why I would only do it if a ticket comes in, right? Let the users do the heavy lifting.

Right, but again, people usually fly the tutorial once. Those people are the ones usually using the default nav data and are wholly unaffected. Those who are affected aren't using the default nav data, again - yet again (are you guys listening?) - these people have moved beyond needing a route spoon fed to them.

2 hours ago, Fabo said:

And wasn't the point of OC updaters that this exact kind of thing would be very easy?

The point of the updaters was to update the aircraft easily. Yes, the accessory files can also be updated, but hammering an update out just to update a document that doesn't really even need an update isn't the point.

This also renders the tutorial out of compliance with the default nav data that it ships with. In the case where the user is on the default nav data - yet again - the user is usually more inclined to need the route spoon fed to them. This is still unfamiliar territory for them. This is not the case with those updating their nav data.

It seems people aren't really thinking about the issue, and instead, are simply asserting ease, without fully comprehending the difficulties of the logistics. To be incredibly blunt here, it sounds a lot like a bunch of people are trying to overlook the amount of lift required to accomplish this task, in order to justify their own laziness. Those who need everything to match up will likely have the default nav data anyway, and will not have any issue. Those who are updating the nav data have the knowledge (or they should have the knowledge) to adjust to the route discrepancy, because as a user who updates their nav data, they understand the concept that the data changes, and that will necessarily potentially affect past routing.

We have provided a standard, default, everything-works-properly-if-you-don't-mess-with-it situation. Everything matches up unless you start messing with it. If you mess with it - which you do not have to, particularly while you're still learning - you're on your own.

[Boeing or not going 578]

DXB decommissioned the DXB VOR a year or so ago, I used to use it for an easy display of miles to go before the airport. - David Lee