I find that when I load a saved FP in to the Garmin, when I go to add a departure SID it clears the flightplan and just has the sid programmed. Is this normal? I just want to add the sid to my flightplan. 

Whoops. Responded based on GTN.  So removed response as it did not apply to GNS.

Edited May 9, 20197 yr by fppilot

OK.  I found success adding a departure with the GNS.  The first time I tried I failed.  It appears that happened because I was not at the Departure airport for the flight plan.  I was sitting on the ramp at KBMG, (Bloomington, Indiana).  I imported a flight plan (.fpl file) from KSTL (St Louis) to KBJC (near Denver).  When I attempted to load the departure the rest of the flight plan disappeared.  The GNS, it seemed, attempted to show me Departures from Bloomington.  There are no published departures from there.

I then repositioned my airplane to KSTL and tried again.  From there the import and addition of the departure worked.

So two things here.  First, if you are sitting at one airport and working to import and edit flight plans from another or other airports, you must import them, then you must go into the flight plan catalog and load and activate the flight plan.  Then use the cursor to select the departure airport, then use procedures to load the departure.

When you are at the  departure airport when importing the flight plan, it appears you may not need to activate the flight plan first.  In any case, if you do Import, then Load the flight plan, then do Activate it before loading the departure, you should be successful.

This to me clearly is a protection built into the Garmin Trainer. 

Edited May 9, 20197 yr by fppilot