I'm sure you've all seen this kinda thing many, many times...

[Will Dunn 0]

BUT. Please help me out here with landing ILS. I just can't get my head round it. I thought I knew what to do but clearly not. The ATC clears me for ILS approach and tells me to maintain altitude and gives me a final heading, and so I do this, but there's just so much going wrong after...I've got the NAV1 setting set and activated, nav/gps set to Nav. Then I click on the APP button and... instead of turning toward the runway heading, it deactivates the ALT HOLD button and proceeds to fly around in circles. Also the glide slope and localizer indicators on the hud aren't there. What am I doing wrong...?Sorry, I know it's vague, but I'm ridiculously frustrated over this; I've been trying unsuccessfully for about 2 hours. Thanks.

[Will Dunn 0]

Anybody...?

[Wendall 50]

Hi,This is a dumb question too, but do you have your CRS set as well?

[ESzczesniak 74]

FSX ATC has a bad habit of clearing you for the ILS when you're out of range (>30ish NM for LOC and >20ish NM for GS). Are you in range? If not, you're autopilot will be very confused trying to capture either of these.

[Will Dunn 0]

Hi,This is a dumb question too, but do you have your CRS set as well?

Lol. Yeah, set to 081 which is the runway heading for 8R at Gatwick, the place I'm trying to land at...

FSX ATC has a bad habit of clearing you for the ILS when you're out of range (>30ish NM for LOC and >20ish NM for GS). Are you in range? If not, you're autopilot will be very confused trying to capture either of these.

Ahh, this may be it. It cleared me 36NMs away from Gatwick but the "flying around in circles" result comes a minute or two after that... so I'd guess that I'm anywhere from 25 to 32ish NMs... I'd have thought it's either what you suggested or just me doing something wrong, I just can't figure out what.

[Guest jahman]

Try clicking the APP button when you're one dot below the glideslope (GS neeedle is one dot above center). Cheers, - jahman.

[Will Dunn 0]

But I can't see the GS needle or the Localizer needle... or do they show up when you get in range of the ILS?

[Guest jahman]

do they show up when you get in range of the ILS?

Yes! (Provided of course NAV1 is tuned properly). Cheers, - jahman.

[Will Dunn 0]

Yes! (Provided of course NAV1 is tuned properly). Cheers, - jahman.

And then when the localizer shows up, this is the time to turn on the APP button?

[Guest jahman]

-

[brucek 38]

Have you tried manually flying the ILS? When I did my instrument rating, the autopilot was never able to be used until I could manually do the procedure within PTS standards first. If you wanted to emulate rw flying, and this would also isolate the AP from the problem. Bruce.

[Guest jahman]

No, you should approach the GS from below, wait for the GS needle to move down from the top until you are only one one dot below the GS, and only then activate APP. Also you should have your LOC needle centered before intercepting the GS (and before activating APP). Cheers, - jahman.

[Will Dunn 0]

Have you tried manually flying the ILS? When I did my instrument rating, the autopilot was never able to be used until I could manually do the procedure within PTS standards first. If you wanted to emulate rw flying, and this would also isolate the AP from the problem.Bruce.

Is that just doing a Visual approach? Honestly, I'm so bad at recognizing what is what!! I can do a visual approach pretty well... I just wanted to master ILS landings.

No, you should approach the GS from below, wait for the GS needle to move down from the top until you are only one one dot below the GS, and only then activate APP. Also you should have your LOC needle centered before intercepting the GS (and before activating APP). Cheers, - jahman.

So basically I need to wait for the localizer needle to show up on the HUD then fly the plane manually (but keeping ALT HOLD and Autothrottle on) to line up the needle in the centre, then wait until the Glide slope needle is one dot above centre, and then finally turn on the APP?I was under the impression that you could intercept the localizer through autopilot, maybe that's where I was going wrong.

[brucek 38]

jahman is right. You should always intercept the glideslope from below ( glideslope is above you as you close to intercept). This is because of false glideslopes that can occur from the correct one being reflected off the surrounding ground, and are usually at a greater angle than the correct glideslope, therefore are usually above it, which is why you should be below it.But I think you're turning in circles is more related to the localizer. When you tune the localizer, do you have the correct frequency? From what you said above you do have the course set to runway heading. I don't know what ATC tells you, but you should be intercepting the LOC at about 30 degrees to runway heading. As you approach the LOC, you should see the needle move from full scale towards the center. As this is occurring, turn the course knob and see of the loc needle changes in response, if it does then you are tuned to a VOR and have tuned the wrong frequency. At intercept, make sure that the course is set back to runway heading, then turn the aircraft to that heading. If, at that point, you still want to use the AP, then try enabling the app mod. It shouldn't be that hard, but it might help solve you problem.The wild card might be ATC too. One thing that can cause your problem is a course reversal, in that you are either flying a heading that is a reciprocal of the required course/heading, or you are using a back course approach and aren't using that ap mode.Good luck, Bruce.

[Will Dunn 0]

I'm certain I had the right frequency, yeah. Well the ATC's final heading that they set me was 045 I believe so that's what, 36 degrees away from the runway heading? I have to say, when I looked at the map, I was way out from the airport and from the ILS feather. Anyway, I'm gonna try it again, thanks for the help so far guys.

[ryanbatcund 2,221]

To go over these replies again...1) Tune the correct frequency2) The GPS/NAV switch needs to be on NAV3) (optionally) select the correct course and put that in with the OBS knob4) Be below glideslop intercept when you turn onto the localizer5) Hopefully ATC assigns you a heading of 30 degrees or less as a turn to intercept final

[Guest jahman]

...I was under the impression that you could intercept the localizer through autopilot, maybe that's where I was going wrong.

Yes, the autopilot would be ON with NAV1 mode activ and the GPS/NAV switch in the NAV position.Cheers,- jahman.

[Will Dunn 0]

It worked!! So happy I finally did it, haha. Best landing I've ever done ;) Thanks so much for your help peeps, couldn't have done it without you, I appreciate it...! :)

[Guest jahman]

Good to hear you got the hang of it! It is a lot of fun :( Cheers, - jahman.

[OldMaintChief 7]

Will, here is a good practice procedure to get a hang on the ILS limits in FSX, without ATC. This should help understand what ATC wants you to do. You have had some very good advice, except the OBS knob is inop on ILS frequencies. It is only used to select radials in VOR mode.ILS Procedure for FSX (practice) at KSEA:(Default 737)Set COm1 to Tower 119.9.Set NAV1 to ILS RWY 34 RT 110.3.Set NAV2 to ILS RWY 34 LT 117.1. (Both DMEs the same)1. Taxi B737 to position and hold Rwy 34 RT.2. Set ILS freq. for rwy 34 in NAV1 110.3.3. Set AP HDG to 343, ALT to 5000, and AT AS to 250.4. Takeoff. Set AP/HDG/ALT/AT to ON.5. Turn HDG to 168. Aircraft will turn to 168 and level off at 5000.6. At 23 miles DME, turn HDG to 003 and AT AS to 190. (The LOC needle will stay active to about 25 Miles). When the DME reads about 20 miles the Glideslope (GS) needle will go active and peg to the top of the guage and the BELOW G/S light will coe ON.7. Set APP to ON. The aircraft will turn to center the LOC needle and HDG will dis-engage. The GS needle will slowly come down and center. The ALT will dis-engage.8. Drop 3 clicks of flaps, Set AT AS to 160. Drop gear. The aircraft will fly 2.5 degree slope.9. Set AT AS to 150. Add flaps slowly to Full DN.10. At 100 feet, dis-engage AT and close power levers.11. Flare/land.Do a touch and go to try it again. You can make the radio calls, or not.Have funDave

[TurboTomato 90]

Glad you have it sorted. I thought you may have had the same problem as I had trying to ILS at EGKK 26L - I'd set all the frequencies correctly etc but as the frequencies between 8R and 26L were shared it would pick up the 8R localiser and then turn towards 081 instead of 261. Turns out that was TrafficX adding incorrect airport facilities, once unticked in the scenery library it was fine.

[Will Dunn 0]

Thanks for all the replies guys, Jahman and Bruce especially, really helpful and much appreciated! While you're all still looking at it, there is one more small thing that's just been bugging me a bit, something completely different.The jetways won't come out for AI! Don't have a clue why, they were fine when I first installed FSX, then I started adding loads of the WoAI packages and now the AI just sits there with no jetways active, apart from mine. Any suggestions?And also... I was thinking, is it perhaps a good idea to have a stickied thread for general questions? I know I'm only a newbie but it'd mean that the forum wouldn't get clogged up with seperate threads for each question... just a suggestion.

[n4gix 1,223]

WOAI don't have their pax door coordinates defined, which is why the jetways won't move...The jetways don't know where the doors are!

[brucek 38]

You're welcome, Keep the blue side up.... :)Bruce.

[GHarrall 469]

For the OP I suggest the FSX lessons. Learn to manually fly the ILS approach before worrying about autopilots. The lessons are smowehat crude but they get the job done.They also teach you the basics in a nice slow C172 which helps.