ILS Landing

[ciuwilliam]

I have tried to do an ILS landing on several occasions. I turn the nav 1 frequency on and activate it, but when I select the approach heading mode the plane begains to fly around in circles. Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong and what I need to do. Do I use the heading indicator?

[Nexus]

what's your NAV course?
Every localizer has front course, and you MUST tell the autopilot which course to track  :)

[Bruce]

I might be wrong please correct if i am. is'nt the course heading for the runway you intend to land is set just in case you have to do a miss approch you follow that heading untill atc gives you instruction. Probable i should but i rarely set the course heading whenever i am doing a ILS approch and i allways make it. i dont think ILS cares what the course heading you set so long you has the right ILS frequence into nav1. please correct me if i am wrong.

[Nexus]

I believe your right Bruce regarding the course...I'm snowed in in the 737 and it's nice warnings whenever the is a course disagreement between the localizer course and selected autopilot NAV course.
A localizer is obviously not omni-directional, it has only two courses (front and back)

Don't know what I was thinking really, shame on me  :-[
It's 4am here now, maybe time for me to go to bed, don't ya think  ;D

But before I go; what ciuwilliam should be doing is to intercept the localiser with the course hold, and THEN engage the approach mode...just a  tiny piece of advice.

[Bruce]

what i think ciuwilliam should be doing is to hold the heading direction, not the course, atc told him to untill he intercept the localizer then switch on the approch button. this is how i do it, it may or may not be right but it works for me all the time.

[Nexus]

Course hold will track the localizer, heading select won't, so why use the heading, since course hold will automaticly align you with the localizer  ???

[Silver1SWA]

Is the plane you are trying to use default or an add-on?

[Robert_Bance]

Somewhere, you'll find plenty of tutorials for ILS landing.
Go to Google and make a search on "ILS landing".
In FS2004, only when you fly IFR, will you get ATC instructions as when to intercept the ILS. Let's say you heading for SFO ( San Francisco).  Look at the airport map, and click on green ILS indication, and note > ILS  frequency. ( 110.70 [I think]  and Course heading  282 for runway 28.. In you aircraft ( medium size for practice) set your NAV1 to ILS freq. and your course Heading to 282. Let say, as you are approaching 4000-ft out, you'll hear to morse ILS morse code. At this point,
the only items activated should be  Nav1,  APPR, and Autopilot. This will line you up with the runway, Your job is to control your speed  and rate of descent....Don't forget your wheels down, and flaps when appropriate. Aim to land +/- on the numbers
Good luck
Bob.*

[Sameer]

[quote]
the only items activated should be

[Graycat8524]

Heya Sam,

What Bob said about only having Nav 1, APPR, and the Autopilot activated for an ILS landing is correct.

[Sameer]

Thanks for the information, Graycat8524.

btw I was just wondering how can you know that what RWY will the ATC assign you to land on? I don't seem to get anything like that on FS2004 Map.

[Silver1SWA]

Having the ILS frequency dialed into both NAV1 and NAV2 would be necessary when performing an auto-land.

[Graycat8524]

Heya all,

An excellent point, Silver1SWA.  I forgot to mention that in my response.  Even if the nearest VOR to your destination airport is 2 or 3 miles from the airport you can still get a good idea of how far away you are from your destination.

As to your question Sam:

How can you know that what RWY will the ATC assign you to land on?

A good question but unfortunately, you can't know beforehand.  As in real life the FS 2004 ATC will vector you into a runway according to prevailing wind conditions at your destination airport at the time of your landing approach.  If you don't have weather turned on in FS 2004 it seems like (to me) that FS 2004 will select a runway according to some pre-programmed formula.

In my previous reply I said that I use AirNav.com.  I use it a lot!  I've even gone as far as to create an "Airport Data" folder in my FS 2004 Main Folder.  Inside this folder I have many sub-folders according to US State (Arkansas, California, Texas, Wyoming, etc.).  Inside these folders I have created different html shortcuts for destination airports for AirNav.  During preflight I will select one of these airport webpages and leave the webpage running in the background during my flight.

That way when ATC vectors me to a runway during approach I can look up the runway information (along with its appropriate ILS frequency, etc.) on the webpage.

Now I know what some of you are saying.  "Yo, Dave!  That's cool, however, you can look up the same information on the FS 2004 Map View, or some hard-working people have come up with programs which will allow you to display webpages in FS 2004 using the Kneeboard!".  Well this is true, however, AirNav.com gives you a lot more information than the FS 2004 Map View.  As for the html Kneeboard programs I really think that they are great, but I really have no problem in pressing the "P" key to pause FS 2004 then Alt + Tab to pull up the background webpage.

[elkinallen]

This is all very interisting to read. All of you are having a lot of fun. It is great!!!!

[Graycat8524]

That is completely hilarious, elkinallen!  I think that I'll try that later with a F-14 Tomcat.  That should be fun!