FLC above VNAV profile

[AdamArkley]

Hello all,

I was flying online on VATSIM this evening. The controller was rather busy and so I ended up above the VNAV profile. I then rolled off of the end of my flight plan, passed the last waypoint and was being vectored for an approach. I had VNAV/ALT/HDG selected on the autopilot panel.

I was issued a descent from 6,000 feet to 3,000 feet. I selected 3,000 feet, pushed the ALT button and then hit FLC. Nothing happened. My presumption (!) is that I was so far off of the VNAV profile that the aircraft didn't know how to (safely?) perform the level change. Am I misunderstanding? Should I have VNAV disabled whilst I'm off of the flight plan?

[Graeme_77]

Vnav simply modifies the selected altitudes. If Vnav is on the aircraft will stop at the magenta altitude, if not it will stop at the blue altitude on the PFD.  Select a lower altitude, make sure both blue and magenta altitude values are where you need them to be, then FLC. If you are not using ATS, you'll need to make a power reduction, as FLC is a pitch mode, not a power mode.

I'm guessing in this case though, you had 6000 in magenta, so you needed to disable Vnav to allow FLC to target the blue selected altitude. If you get it again, screenshots are much easier to diagnose ;-)