Why am I getting a message"The directional gyro is not aligned with magnetic north. Adjust the directional gyro to the magnetic compass to get an accurate indication of your direction of flight."

[John W]

I know there is a key "d" to "vacuum DG sync to magnetic north". Is there any way to get XP11 to automatically sync the indicators? I don't have any failures enabled, so I don't understand why this comes up? Thanks.

[🐉 Ðŗąçø 🐉]

Double check your heading is what is being displayed on the map.

[John W]

I understand the implication of the message. How do I stop it from coming up?

[John W]

Ah, I think I found the answer to one of my questions. I unchecked the box for "give in-cockpit text warnings".

[John W]

I tried the flight in Vermont again. In flight I checked my HSI heading, GNS heading and magnetic compass. HSI and GNS are showing 303 degrees and the magnetic compass is showing 333. So that's quite a bit off it seems. I hit the "d" key to vacuum DG sync to magnetic north but nothing changes.

[🐉 Ðŗąçø 🐉]

Originally posted by John W:

I tried the flight in Vermont again. In flight I checked my HSI heading, GNS heading and magnetic compass. HSI and GNS are showing 303 degrees and the magnetic compass is showing 333. So that's quite a bit off it seems. I hit the "d" key to vacuum DG sync to magnetic north but nothing changes.

I assigned d to that command and the heading reset instantly.

[John W]

That's what I thought. So I finished a flight and after landing compared the mag compass to the heading. Off by 20 degrees. The RMI agreed with the runway heading. It was the Mag compass that was off. So I started a new flight starting at the same runway I just landed at. Mag compass agreed with the HSI. Changed airfields and both agreed again. Tried a different aircraft and both agreed. So it's like XP11.11 put in a failure when I don't have failures checked for any of my aircraft. Just strange.

[rkwipe]

Originally posted by John W:

I know there is a key "d" to "vacuum DG sync to magnetic north". Is there any way to get XP11 to automatically sync the indicators? I don't have any failures enabled, so I don't understand why this comes up? Thanks.

This video explain why magnetic and vacuum are out of sync in X plane. It is a feature, not a failure. It works as in the real plane. Also, X-plane simulate magnetic and gyro drift, it is also a feature, not a failure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju2vAKl0HVg

[John W]

Thank you for the information, I understand gyro drift. I flew for 20 years. But in this case the issue was not drift with the HSI. The drift was with the magnetic compass which doesn't happen. As I stated the magnetic compass was 20 degrees off from runway heading. Also you should be able to turn it off. Something I don't like about X-Plane. It was a short flight, 45 minutes, so drift shouldn't have been significant. Anyway I have tried several flights and have not seen this issue again. But I have one question. When pressing the "d" key to vacuum DG sync to magnetic north, do you have to pressit just once or hold it down?

[schallenberg.jeff]

I think this is a bug in X-Plane 11.11. The error happens to me with any aircraft at any airport. The DG is off by up to 180 degrees.

[John W]

Thanks for the reply. I hope they get it fixed.

[🐉 Ðŗąçø 🐉]

Originally posted by schallenberg.jeff:

I think this is a bug in X-Plane 11.11. The error happens to me with any aircraft at any airport. The DG is off by up to 180 degrees.

The gyro does offset in real life. I had to re-adjust mine today for three real flights in the Cessna 172.

[John W]

The older instruments used to precess over time. The newer ones are electronic and should be electronically aligned. That aside, when I was getting this error I checked the readings of all of the magnetic cards against the magnetic compass and while aligned on the runway's magnetic heading. Everything agreed! So I could not figure out what was causing the message to pop up if everything was aligned. I have the "d" key programmed to sync the magnetic compass cards but even that did not make the warning go away.

But I do have a question. When pressing the "d" key to align/sync the magnetic compass cards, do you have to hold down the key for a while or does it happen instantly?

[Rastuasi]

Just press the D and this is as it should be, it's standard procedure in the old magnetic compass planes to realign it every 20 minutes as you do in sim.

[Vnub]

Not a less it just happen in 11.11!

[John W]

I haven't had it happen in a while, but then again I have been flying different aircraft. I will have to play around with some of the aircraft to see if it happens to one in particular. But for the time being the issue has gone away.