Hi guys. I usually fly bizjets and am used to programming stuff in g1000's, etc. The FMS in the 747 is a whole 'nother beast that I want to master, but there are a couple of things that are escaping me despite having read the manual. I figure some of you will know which way to point me:

First, the SID/STARs in the FMS disagree with flight plans. I generate a flight plan (usually via Simbrief) and, for instance, it'll route me through ORCKA out of KLAX Rwy 25R. But when I go into the FMS, it shows me all sorts of position fixes, and none of them match any of the fixes on the plan generated by Simbrief. I'm guessing this is because the 747's navdata is out of date, although when I program a SID into the G1000 of the (I know, vastly inferior) Carenado Phenom 300, 9 times out of 10 it matches up with the generated plan - which is weird because the Phenom was released 2 years before the 747v3. Before I go spend money at Navigraph, I'd like to make sure my suspicion is correct and that it's not just me doing something wrong.

 

The second is the more confusing one. If I do go with a SID that the 747's FMS knows about, it tends to have a discontinuity between the last fix of the SID and the first fix of the rest of the flight plan. Even if the next fix is only 20nm away, and I can see the magenta line resume, that discontinuity throws everything off - as soon as I pass the last fix of the SID, LNAV turns off and I can't get it to turn back on even if I manually fly the plane directly over the next fix.  Poking around in the progress screen, it appears that the FMS stops noting which fix I'm near once it gets to the last fix before a discontinuity. Even if I input a new flight plan into the FMS and activate it, the nav autopilot won't take over and I have to navigate with heading fixes for the rest of the flight.

I know this is me not having a good understanding of how to program a full flight plan into an FMS, but I can't seem to pinpoint where I'm going wrong. I load the auto-gen plan from Simbrief, and then select my own SID fixes since it doesn't match up with the Simbrief ones. Everything seems happy, I get my V speeds which tells me I must have done something right, but then once I'm in the air I start seeing the discontinuity message.

The related question is, once I'm in the air, how do I re-activate the flight plan, or tell the FMS which fix I want it to go to next, so that the autopilot will work again?

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

46 minutes ago, eslader said:

First, the SID/STARs in the FMS disagree with flight plans. I generate a flight plan (usually via Simbrief) and, for instance, it'll route me through ORCKA out of KLAX Rwy 25R. But when I go into the FMS, it shows me all sorts of position fixes, and none of them match any of the fixes on the plan generated by Simbrief. I'm guessing this is because the 747's navdata is out of date, although when I program a SID into the G1000 of the (I know, vastly inferior) Carenado Phenom 300, 9 times out of 10 it matches up with the generated plan - which is weird because the Phenom was released 2 years before the 747v3. Before I go spend money at Navigraph, I'd like to make sure my suspicion is correct and that it's not just me doing something wrong.

Whatever you're doing, you'll want to be sure that the nav data matches. Look at the nav data date on SimBrief. It's likely a very old nav data cycle that just happens to match whatever is in the Phenom. For what it's worth, a Navigraph subscription allows you to update both SimBrief and the 744.

This one is definitely up to nav data not being synced up between everything you're using.

48 minutes ago, eslader said:

The second is the more confusing one. If I do go with a SID that the 747's FMS knows about, it tends to have a discontinuity between the last fix of the SID and the first fix of the rest of the flight plan. Even if the next fix is only 20nm away, and I can see the magenta line resume, that discontinuity throws everything off - as soon as I pass the last fix of the SID, LNAV turns off and I can't get it to turn back on even if I manually fly the plane directly over the next fix.  Poking around in the progress screen, it appears that the FMS stops noting which fix I'm near once it gets to the last fix before a discontinuity. Even if I input a new flight plan into the FMS and activate it, the nav autopilot won't take over and I have to navigate with heading fixes for the rest of the flight.

You need to line-select the fix to the top of the LEGS page. This is shown/described in the tutorial, which is where you should really start when you pick up any new plane.

54 minutes ago, eslader said:

I know this is me not having a good understanding of how to program a full flight plan into an FMS, but I can't seem to pinpoint where I'm going wrong. I load the auto-gen plan from Simbrief, and then select my own SID fixes since it doesn't match up with the Simbrief ones. Everything seems happy, I get my V speeds which tells me I must have done something right, but then once I'm in the air I start seeing the discontinuity message.

The related question is, once I'm in the air, how do I re-activate the flight plan, or tell the FMS which fix I want it to go to next, so that the autopilot will work again?

Definitely have a look at the tutorial.

Some Discos are there intentionally, such as before Radar Vectors.

I'm with Kyle, I'd go through the Tutorial Flight.

 

 

Thanks for the replies. I'll go through the tutorial again, maybe I missed it the first time around because I was overwhelmed with the impressive detail in this plane.

So if I'm reading this right, if I subscribe to Navigraph FMS-only, then the 747's FMS and Simbrief's flight plans will sync up? Or do I need to get the charts too (which I'm reluctant to do because Airnav exists and is free).

You were right, btw, Scandanavian13 - current AIRAC is 1809, and Simbrief is on 1703.

 

26 minutes ago, eslader said:

So if I'm reading this right, if I subscribe to Navigraph FMS-only, then the 747's FMS and Simbrief's flight plans will sync up? Or do I need to get the charts too (which I'm reluctant to do because Airnav exists and is free).

Airnav is a great site, but they only cover the US and it's unlikely a 747 is not going to be flown internationally.  Yes, FMS Data will help and maybe after the -8 comes out with the EFB you'll relook at the charts subscription.

2 hours ago, eslader said:

So if I'm reading this right, if I subscribe to Navigraph FMS-only, then the 747's FMS and Simbrief's flight plans will sync up?

Sort of. In the case of the 747, you need to actually install the navigation data whenever a new one comes out. It's not going to just update itself on its own. As for Simbrief, you can link it to your Navigraph account, so when a new cycle comes out, all you have to do is log in and update the AIRAC cycle.

14 hours ago, Captain Kevin said:

you need to actually install the navigation data whenever a new one comes out.

Isn't that what their data manager is for?

26 minutes ago, eslader said:

Isn't that what their data manager is for?

It does it for you, but you still need to open it and tell it to update.