Hello, Guys!

 

I've done a lot of work so far on FSX ILS Landing and I'm so so successful ILS landing through GPS. I've known many many term now. Some people said to me to work from start in this forum, so I was so sad at that time but now I'm confident. I've learnt many basic things except Heading and Course.

 

I've learnt a lot of topics but unable to make a difference between Heading and Course.

 

In FSX CRJ 700 cockpit, both have been given. what we should give to CRJ? Course or Heading? Suppose Heathrow has 237. I don't know whether it's heading or course.

 

Some air planes, probably like Boeing 737 has given only Heading in cockpit.

 

Now actual thing is that when is to give these headings or courses? From start during take off? Near Departure Runway? In the mid of both? or at specific nm away from departure runway? or where ever? Because I don't want to use more GPS. I now wanna go advance and drive the plane at Heading and Courses. Please tell me the actual procedure.

 

I first captured a straight GPS line (just 15nm away) towards landing runway and plane went straight and captured the Glide Scope and Localizer and landed safely but I want to finish this method now. I don't want to make a straight line but instead I want that a Heading or course should align me towards runway.

 

Another thing is that can anyone provide me Real World G/S Incept Altitude Chart or in other words real words ILS approaches like Heathrow has 2500ft AGL. Heathrow captures glide Scope at 2500ft AGL.

 

Regards and I hope you'll have understand my flimsy English and will not be angry at my this post too.

 

Autopilot,

There are two concepts to understand when talking about courses with aeroplanes, and it is important to know the difference between them. So here's both of them explained...

 

Your heading is the way you are pointing, your course is the actual track you are travelling along as you pass over the ground, so if there is a slight crosswind, your heading and your course may differ, because the aircraft will be blown to the side somewhat. This means that sometimes you have to fly an offset heading to maintain a particular course over the ground. You may have seen this phenomenon occuring on the GPS, where the aircraft tracks along the pink line, but manages to do that by pointing slightly to one side of it instead of straight forward along the line, in order to compensate for a wind blowing from one side. You might also want to note here that winds are reported by saying which direction they are coming from, not which direction they are going to, thus an easterly wind actually blows in a westerly direction, since it comes from 090 degrees in the east, but blows toward 270 degrees in the west.

 

This subject also brings up the concept of bearing, which is the direction straight to an object from your aircraft's current position.

 

To clarify your understanding of things, here we go with the second thing to know about courses...

 

You can adjust the heading setting on your main gauge and then put the autopilot in heading mode, and the aeroplane will turn to that compass heading and fly that way, but if you put the autopilot in a mode where it is to follow a specific course to a navaid (such as engaing NAV or LOC mode and entering a specific compass heading in the CRS window on your autopilot control panel), then your aeroplane will fly along on its present heading until it gets to a point where your selected compass course setting is the same as the bearing to the navaid, and then it will turn to onto that course. This is what happens when you tune an ILS beacon and select the runway heading in the CRS window and select LOC on the autopilot. You will carry on flying on your current heading until you cross over that specific course line where the ILS signal is (i.e. in the green ILS feathers), and then the autopilot will turn you onto that course.

 

You can find charts for Heathrow here: http://www.nats-uk.e...&Itemid=13.html

 

This next bit doesn't matter, but just in case you are interested in experimenting...

 

Deliberately flying offset headings is a sophisticated navigational trick when in an aeroplane with limited navigational capabilities, and it was common to do that during WW1 and WW2, although it is still taught to combat pilots even today, since they cannot be certain that their navigation equipment will not be jammed by an enemy. It works like this: if you are unsure of where you are, ie. in thick clouds, over unfamiliar terrain, or flying at night, by deliberately aiming off to one side of where you want to go a sufficient amount, you can be sure which direction you will have to then turn to get to the location you want after having flown enough distance, so you don't have to rely on passing right over it, since if you tried that and missed, you would then have no idea which way to turn. By aiming off a bit, you know which side your objective is on.

 

It can be done by means of using a stopwatch to make a good guess at how far you have flown, so long as the wind is not a very strong head or tailwind, in which case you would have to add that factor to your timings as well. Wartime aircraft navigators used to drop smoke bombs in order to figure out the wind drift, since they would leave a trail which would tell them which way the wind was blowing, you may have seen pictures of WW2 bombers dropping smoke as they near a target, in order to assist the bomb aimers with their drift calculations.

 

Aiming off is one of several tricks which come under the heading of 'dead reckoning', which should actually be spelled 'ded reckoning' since it is an abbreviation of 'deduced reckoning'. Fortunately, we have GPS these days, so you don't have to worry about all that stuff, but it is something you can have some fun with in FSX.

 

Al

Hello, Chock

 

You have learnt me a lot in this forum. Thank you for this whole effort.

 

You can adjust the heading setting on your main gauge and then put the autopilot in heading mode, and the aeroplane will turn to that compass heading and fly that way, but if you put the autopilot in a mode where it is to follow a specific course to a navaid (such as engaing NAV or LOC mode and entering a specific compass heading in the CRS window on your autopilot control panel), then your aeroplane will fly along on its present heading until it gets to a point where your selected compass course setting is the same as the bearing to the navaid, and then it will turn to onto that course. This is what happens when you tune an ILS beacon and select the runway heading in the CRS window and select LOC on the autopilot. You will carry on flying on your current heading until you cross over that specific course line where the ILS signal is (i.e. in the green ILS feathers), and then the autopilot will turn you onto that course.

 

OK I put my auto pilot at Heading mode. But on what point? for Example right from Departure? or Some time after Departure? or Near Landing or where?

 

Just look at this image (my hand made flimsy on paint) and tell me when I have to select the heading if this is my flight plan? If I select early Heading then plane will go right at the threshold and I think B737 best ILS lands before 10nm away straight align with runway. So what I do here?

 

 

 

 

and What these lines and circle call and for which purpose it's used in GPS?

 

 

Regards,

For your given scenario above, I would set your HEADING to the same as the departure runway's ....... then take off, fly straight ahead, and engage the AP into HEADING mode (following the runway heading).

 

You can then turn your Heading knob left to steer the aircraft towards the magenta GPS course. When you intercept that, you can engage NAV mode (coupled to GPS). All this assumes you're not using FSX ATC, as otherwise they will give you the headings to intercept your NAV course.

 

The pink "Borders" in your 2nd screenshot above, are ATC regions. The dotted circle one related to an airport, and the larger lines relate to "Centre" ATC functions. ...broadly speaking.....

Oops I'm tired out. Where, when, how much nm away, at which specific point, or where something else should I activate Heading. When I active heading at any point, plane goes in wrong direction. What's wrong with me? I first go on GPS route and but after sometime I activate Heading but plane lose its way. what I do????????????????????

Once more,Al, I take my hat off to you. You have indeed, like I said once before, taken on the mantle of the late Opa Marshall. Only you would have the time and dedication to give such an outstanding mini-tuition.

 

What a credit you are, to Avsim. Keep it up. You have set very high standards.

Whilst it is very kind of you to say that, I fear you flatter me too much. Opa's shoes are big ones to fill, and it'd take a lot more effort on my part to come close to that. Like many here I am sure, I still feel his loss keenly. The flight sim world became a lesser place when he left it, although I like to think he's up there, higher than where the highest jets could ever go.

 

Al

Typical of you, Al, you are far too modest. I've been following several of your threads spread across this site's various Forums, and nothing that you have opined does not make sense. Opa, bless his soul, would be proud of you. Like you say, he is probably looking down on you from a place no jet could reach and inspiring you.

 

(Off-track, maybe too late for you, but RTE are doing a lovely tribute to RMS Titanic tonight)

Oh, I'll look out for that, the Titanic was one of those subjects I was somewhat obsessed with when I was a young lad, having read about it in some dusty old book that was knocking around our house. Yup, I was one of those weird kids that actually liked reading LOL Kind of regretted that later on at school, one day they made me do a reading test and then the next day they said 'grab your stuff, you're moving up a year' - was the youngest kid in class ever after that day!

 

Al

That just about sums you up. Thankfully, like you, my late father deterred me from reading what I wanted to read, Beanos and Dandys, onto stuff like the Reader's Digest, and reading 4-week old English Press and listening to the BBC, but heck, it transformed a Portuguese-speaking kid into a kid who could read and write in English.

 

To me, everyday is a learning curve, even today.

Thank you all Dudes! Specially Chock who has really helped me a lot. Thanks again Mr. Chock.

Hi guys, ive bin flying on fsx for a few years now but only ifr using the gps, but im now learning about the FMC and am flying Ifly738, when doing a flight using lnav, what do I have to do to engage glide slope? is it the same as using gps, i.e tune to runway set nav 1 and switch from l nav to vor loc.,(autoland) any help would be great, thanks.

 

 

is it the same as using gps, i.e tune to runway set nav 1 and switch from l nav to vor loc.,(autoland) any help would be great, thanks.

It's indeed just tuning the NAV1 radio to the ILS freq, and hitting APPR (I think that's what it's labelled in the 737, but I have to say I haven't used a Boeing in quite some time, so I could be wrong). The plane should then line up with the ILS signal and descend down to the runway, if you're on a heading and altitude that allows you to intercept LOC and G/S.

However, I would really recommend you to read the whole manual before flying an addon as complex as the iFly, everything you'll need is explained there (I'm not sure, but maybe there even is a tutorial flight to help you getting used to the dealing with this plane).

 

In fact it would also be good if you know how to manually land a plane, so that you don't have to rely on the AP and you can get into airports without ILS. Besides, you're missing a huge part of it -  IMO the most challenging and interesting one!

It's indeed just tuning the NAV1 radio to the ILS freq, and hitting APPR (I think that's what it's labelled in the 737, but I have to say I haven't used a Boeing in quite some time, so I could be wrong). The plane should then line up with the ILS signal and descend down to the runway, if you're on a heading and altitude that allows you to intercept LOC and G/S.

However, I would really recommend you to read the whole manual before flying an addon as complex as the iFly, everything you'll need is explained there (I'm not sure, but maybe there even is a tutorial flight to help you getting used to the dealing with this plane).

 

In fact it would also be good if you know how to manually land a plane, so that you don't have to rely on the AP and you can get into airports without ILS. Besides, you're missing a huge part of it -  IMO the most challenging and interesting one!

Thank you for your quick reply.