Simviation Forums

Can someone advise me to a step-by-step instruction of flying and landing on autopilot, please?

I've been going through loads of videos on youtube, but its all overloaded with extra info and mostly for way more advanced planes then that are relevant when learning to fly. The ones that I can follow dont get the plane on the ground, it either flies over his target, or it turnes around and flies... I dont know where, it just keep flying straight out untill I quite the program.
Also, one time when I switch to approach, ALT stays on and goes off once the plane hits the glideslope, but another time it goes off when I switch to approach and the plane dives into the ground and when I switch it back on manually, the plane flies over the target again. And it seems that every time I perform the same procedure, something different happens...

I get it done to fly from one airport, to the one right next to it, by setting the ILS radiofreq to NAV1, go to APR when the plane starts beeping. But flying the same route back, it goes in holding over the airport I fly to and just keeps circling and I cant get it down again. Also, soon as I have to fly a longer route by GPS, I cant get the plane to land either way.

just a simple step-by-step procedure of the actions I have to perform on the standard Cessna 172, from setting up my gps route, untill the plane landed on the desired runway: push this button, that will happen. Push that button, this will happen...

Thanks

Have you tried going through the various "Lessons" in the Flight Sim?

Lessons are a good way to start.

Remember under ATC you are only permitted to take-off and land on the "Active" runway. ..and cancel Auto-Pilot when on final approach....Land manually.

Paul... ...!

If in it looks like its about to miss,ignore ILS.

The tutorials from fsx only describe what things are, but hardly ever how to use them. Even microsoft admits that the tutorials arent a propper user manual.

With the information I have, I've been trying all kinds of combinations multiple times, but the results for the same procedure are different every time. If I make a decent ILS landing from airport A, to airport B, it can work perfectly and when I fly on to airport C and follow the same procedure, things go wrong...
Or from A to B works fine, but from B back to A, I get problems.
Also flying a route on GPS works mostly fine and all for sudden my plane keeps going straight out where there's a turn.
When I fly my route on GPS and have it line up, then switch to NAV, the NAV doesnt do the same as when I fly manual with autopilot and go into ILS landing from there.

It's not as simple as step 1, 2, 3, unfortunately.

Thanks Rocket_Bird, I know most of what you tell me, but I think you gave me a direction to start looking already. I've been experimenting with the controls and I know where to find everything you describe, but I think that at least the troubles with landing on autopilot have to do with the angle of approach. That would explain why I have a lot less trouble when flying with ATC then flying on my own directions.
And you at least confirmed me I'm indeed using the right instruments, nice to know I got that right for starts.

I dont know about all aircrafts in FSX, but I can land the basic Cessna 172 by autopilot. The only things I have to control myself are the engine and flasp, once the autopilot is switched to approach, when in NAV-mode.

I'm gonna have a look at what happens when I approach within the 30 degree angel to the runway, I think that might be a big help, thanks!

This is what I've done now:
I started a flight in Skavsta, Stockholm (ESKN) to Arlanda (ESSA). I programmed a FPL in the flightplanner, programmed an approach at runway 01R, set the freq of that runway to my NAV1 radio and the heading of 007 on my NAV1 OBS.

I took off manually and once in the air I had the autopilot take over in GPS-mode and the aircraft lined up with the route shown on my GPS.
When my runway came in sight on the GPS screen I activated approach to have the aircraft line up roughly, which also worked out fine.
When I got in range of the radio freq and the NAV1 started beeping, I turned off NAV on the autopilot and took over the lining up manually, lined up well within the 30 degree angel over the runway direction, switched to NAV-mode and turned on APP on the autopilot to pick up on the ILS.
The aircraft seemed to line up but turned a little too far and ran of course again, so far that it drifted over the 01L runway to the side.
When I switched the NAV/GPS mode switch to GPS and immediatly back to NAV and it corrected its course and made a smooth landing.

So again the aircraft as well as the program show it can perform all actions I need, but it again shows a weird bug at some point...

Hmm, strange.

The reason I tried to perform autolandings with those small aircrafts is that I wanted to master the procedures on basic aircrafts, just for practice, before getting into the bigger aircrafts where I need to control a lot more instruments, but I think I"m gonna have a go with that now.

The guy from FSX support at Microsoft made it seem I should be able to perform the same procedures with every aircraft and had me do so many variations of the same procedures that I couldnt see the forest throught he trees anymore, it seems.
I tried again and simply turned the autopilot off before switching from GPS to NAV and turned it back on and now it seems to work fine. Tried both Cessna 172 and Mooney Bravo on a couple of flights and as long as I stay inside that 30 degree angle, that aircrafts touches down perfectly.

Thanks a lot for your help, I understand a lot more of whats happening and where I got stuck. I'm glad I got over this issue and can move on now.

Well, I tried to perform a flight with the Bombardier Learjet on ATC and things go totaly wrong again. For starts when the ATC starts talking the sound of other programs goes down and I have to restart them to get my sound back, but when I unpause FSX again, the sound goes down again. Also when I switch programs, FSX goes on pause, but in the settings going on pause is turned off.

The second problem is that progressive taxing is only visible from one direction a lot of the times and mostly only when I look at the front of the aircraft, so to move the plane forward, I'm looking from nose to tail and have to drive backwards guided by a few arrows between the nose of the plane and my viewpoint

The next problem is that, once flying, I get handed off to the second controller, who immediatly hands me back to the first, but I can only switch to the second for the first couple of times before ATC gives me the option to go to the first again. Then the first immediatly hands me off to the second again, which also takes several times before ATC gives me that option, only to be handed back to the first again and this keeps going on for over 20 minutes.

The rest the flight seems to go fine, untill I have to set in for landing. Once in range of ILS and lined up, I switch from GPS to NAV and turn to APP as described before and ALT is turned off soon as APP turns on and the aircraft starts to decent and crashes well before the runway...

Second attempt the aircraft didnt want to start its engines, it took me 15 minutes to start the engines with the same procedure I got them started right away and flew the whole route, the first time.
Once in the air the engines turned off again and I didnt get them to start anymore and the aircraft crashed.

So basicly, I'm back where I started. One time a lot of things work fine and the next I get into trouble with the same procedures and so many things dont work right.