So here goes. I just installed the FSW C414 which is a great plane. First flight with stock 530, went fine, notably because there was no flight plan in the GPS and I had to follow the MSFS stock ATC which went OK, warts and all.

Then, I added the mod which allows to load flight plans into the 530, and all went fine until, you guessed it, the approach, and I had happen to me something which I thought was a thing of the past: the AP basically crashed the plane. At some point, the AP sets the plane into a curve, and since I was set up for landing, full flaps, gear down, low speed, I had an unrecoverable stall (a couple of other things happened to as in new keyboard and trying to manage all this with a VR headset on). This happened before in I think the Twin Otter, with the same GPS, and its similarly losing the plot at the end with the approach. I know better now and will not use this GPS anymore and fly flight plans with just the VR map and the ATC guidance.

The thing that amazes me though is that I used the same flight plans (LNM) with the stock Beech King Air and its built in GPS/FMD, and it all went perfectly, every single flight. Maybe a couple of interesting moments also with the approach, but none where the GPS essentially tells the AP to fly in circles around the ILS or runway endpoint to the point of making the plane uncontrollable. So since it worked in one of the stock MSFS planes it cannot be a limitation of the sim, it has to be a problem with the implementation of the 530. Amazing that this still happens after 2 years that I did not use this type of set-up.

I'm happy to be told that I'm doing something wrong somewhere btw, so if there's any advice, I'll gladly take it...

Edited December 28, 20232 yr by Gumbodadfs

Hi Gumbo. A few things;

Not quite sure what you mean by 'added the mod which allows to load flight plans into the 530'? The standard Garmin unit in the sim allows you to do that anyway.

Also, did you enter the runway ILS frequency into the Garmin unit? You'll need to do that. When you enter the range (both vertically and horizontally) of the ILS You'll need to switch from GPS to LOC and hit the APPR ( approach ) button on the Garmin unit to bring you down the glide slope to the runway threshold.

As I'm sure you'll know, you will have to regulate your speed on approach with the throttle.

The 530 seems to work pretty well as far as I can tell....

Edit; to avoid confusion I should also add I'm using the unit to make an rnav approach here to bring me down to 2000' to hit the ILS.

Edited December 28, 20232 yr by DD_Arthur

Unfortunately, I never got this far... Indeed I had set the loc/ILS frequency. What happened was that before hitting the waypoint directly at the airport, which was the "starting point" to bring me to final (sharp right turn, heading away from airport, planned "u-turn" then straight on to final/ILS glideslope), the 530 suddenly tells me "the approach is not active", and shortly after that proceeds to send me on a course directly away from my planned track, and away from the airport. I remember the exact same thing happening to me two years ago. And then, you get all sorts of other things happening, resulting in the AP doing one thing, me trying to correct/turn AP off, and the plane which is already slow and sluggish, ending up in a stall. I wish I had kept the recording I made, but it is incredibly frustrating.

Edit: maybe the 530 allows to load flight plans, but then I'd like to know how to do it; until now, the only method I'm aware of is to export the plan with a name which cannot be different from fplx.pln (where x is a number) in a folder in the GPS community folder.

Edited December 28, 20232 yr by Gumbodadfs

It sounds like the turn you wanted to make might have been a bit too sharp and a bit too close to the runway to pick up the ILS approach but it's difficult to tell without a recording.

I must admit I haven't tried to load a flight plan into the Garmin unit with the method you use. I either do it manually through the unit itself ( you can now do it using your key board ) or I make my flight plan using the world map make on the flight loading screen by creating my own waypoints or using the Nav aids it provides.

If you search YouTube you will find a great many up to date tutorials on using these Garmin units. I recommend having a good look there. 

30 minutes ago, Gumbodadfs said:

Edit: maybe the 530 allows to load flight plans, but then I'd like to know how to do it; until now, the only method I'm aware of is to export the plan with a name which cannot be different from fplx.pln (where x is a number) in a folder in the GPS community folder.

Just a thought; you're using a mod for the Garmin unit that's within your community folder?

You don't need to do that anymore. The stock unit within the sim has been considerably updated in the last couple of years and does not need an external mod. I would remove thus mod from your community folder as it's quite likely to adversely effect the unit itself now.

I'm using stock 530 all the time and have not experience any problem. I suspect either some kind mod conflict or most likely user error. Are you familiar with GNS530?

I would first get rid of the mod. The gns 530 has been substantually updated and is likely not compatible with any mods except for the latest (i doubt there are any recent mods).

More importantly, it doesn't need any mods. You can enter a flightplan manually quite easily by keyboard. I often use Little Navmap to create flightplans which can be imported in tge worldmap in MSFS and are thus automatically loaded in MSFS. I don't know about an import function in the gns530 (iirc the real one doesn't have any).

 

Thanks for the reactions. I'm always happy to remove mods - the reason for installing it in the first place was that the 530 does not natively have access to the flight plan in the main msfs folder. I'll pass on commenting on that issue... but now it turns out that the mod does not have access either...

Anyway after reflecting some more, I think the problem is with the way the flight plans are set up I'll try a flight today with a modified flight plan that includes a different approach routing. The flight plans where this happened in the past as well always included an ILS, and a routing where the plan would lead me to the airport first, then make a turn to follow the final in the opposite direction, a loop to get onto final and then glideslope in the right direction. And it would always mess up, completely, as we approach the waypoint where that turn above the airport needs to be made.  I also looked up some recent tutorials about the 530. Will revert.

OK, so here's an update. Went back into the same flight (plan), but with an added STAR before the ILS. Also, reinstalled the WT 530 update to the stock 530. All went well until the last waypoint just before final, when "msg" in the 530, and sure enough: "approach not active". So I decide to proceed without the GPS, set nav to vloc, check that loc and GS are lit up, and - plane flies right over the glideslope - and yes, I did turn nav on and off several times before. And what makes it worse (of course this all has to happen in fog too, so zero ground reference 🙂) is that during the go-around my trim goes haywire too with the plane, until the end, is trimmed up massively, no matter what I did.

To cut a long story short, I managed to land, but only by flying everything manually, and because in the fog, I did have the MSFS guides for the glideslope turned on, so I could keep the plane on the glideslope. With the trim being totally off as well, I had to push the nose down all the way to touchdown to stay on the glideslope. Crazy, and again totally reminiscent of flights two years ago when I flew a Twin Otter under similar conditions, also with a stock 530, and ended up in exactly the same kind of situation. After that, I changed plane and flew (until yesterday) the stock Beech King Air with the glass cockpit which also has its quirks, but never messes up in this way... there must be something I don't get, but I really don't know what it is.

 

I assume you added an ILS approach procedure to your flightplan. Did you activate the approach on the gns530?

I think it doesnt do that automatically. Also you might have to manually switch fro gps to nav mode, at least check if that happened  AND activate APR on the autopilot manually.

Also, make sure the ILS frequency on the radio is correct and active and you are not too high when intercepting the glidescope. 

Ideally you should be between 2000 - 2500 feet above ground when you intercept the GS, and should intercept it from below. 

If you have  ever done this without gps it might be good practice to fly the aircraft on AP to the runway using vor or heading mode and intercept ILS that way to see how it should work.

 

14 hours ago, Gumbodadfs said:

With the trim being totally off as well, I had to push the nose down all the way to touchdown to stay on the glideslope.

As suggested above, fly a couple of simpler approaches with the GNS530 until you become familiar with it.  You really should adjust your trim manually before landing, instead of "pushing the nose down"..

Here is a nice approach to practice:

KTPA  R01L via PIE.   It has a procedure turn at FITPA which does what you are aiming to do.

Fly at 2000 ft altitude in NAV and ALT hold modes before capturing the glideslope after FITPA.

Try the ILS and RNAV versions.. 🙂

You can enter this approach while sitting at KTPA for departure.. DTO KTPA, PROC, select this approach, or you can load a saved flightplan from the world menu.. in which case the GNS should have the flightplan loaded for you when you get in the cockpit.

Edited December 29, 20232 yr by Bert Pieke

On 12/28/2023 at 1:11 PM, Gumbodadfs said:

so if there's any advice, I'll gladly take it...

I recommend the Garmin series by Kip on the ground, the King school for all things Garmin in MSFS, check out the complete playlist for newer versions: