To "get vectored" basically means that at some point ATC will give you instructions regarding your heading, which you have to follow (what a surprise!). This advice is usually called a "vector".Thus being vectored means that you receive your directions from ATC and dial them in the heading window on the MCP rather then letting the FMC control the flight using a STAR.

 

My 1000th post! Yeah!

 

Flo

I'm a bit fuzzy on many things as I'm still learning much, I have an idea but want to make sure, what exactly does 'get vectored in' mean in regards to landing a tube liner?

 

a "vector" just means ATC tells the pilot "Fly magnetic heading so-and-so until I tell you something different." En route flight plans don't include that sort of instruction-- rather, a flight plan consists of a series of named points or lat-lons, and the aircraft is intended to fly whatever headings are necessary to connect the dots.

So the flight plan says fly direct from (say) 50N 30W to 50N 40W, but maybe while they're in that interval some serious cloud appears in their path. They can request a vector-- "Flight so-and-so requests 15 degrees left for weather".

 

Taken from Airliners.net

Too bad FSX ATC can't do a no-gyro approach.......

If you can, go to LiveATC.net and pick an approach frequency somewhere and listen. In half an hour you'll have a bit more of an idea about how it's done for real. YSSY is a good one, if the time zones suit, because it mixes tower in there as well.

I was mainly thinking about airliners when I made the OP but not necessarily modern ones with FMC.

 

So are you using the default GPS? It will show the the approach procedures that are available as part of the airport data. If you're on an IFR flight and ATC says "expect vectors ILS runway 10" they are telling you runway 10 is the active and by default ATC is going to vector you to the final approach fix (FAF) for the ILS approach runway 10 (btw, FSX allows for more than 1 of the same approach type at a given runway, so there could be an ILS-X and ILS-Y for example). You can always tell ATC you want to fly some other approach and choose one from the ATC menu or you can use the given approach but instead of using vectors tell ATC that you'll start at Transition Blah. In that case ATC will give vectors to Transition Blah at the correct altitude but otherwise they will leave you alone to fly the approach. If there's a control tower they'll just say "cleared to land" when you get to the FAF.

 

Any procedure you see in the ATC menu will also be in your GPS so you can hit the Proc button and choose the approach and transition. If it's a VOR or NDB approach then you might want to fly them using the radio navaids but you can still see the approach in the GPS for your reference. Also, some VOR approaches have GPS overlays so you can fly them either with VOR or GPS. Once you activate the approach in the GPS it will either draw a magenta line to the IAF, or if you chose vectors to final it will just show the approach starting from the FAF want wait until you reach it before it starts sequencing the the runway and then if needed it will guide you on the missed approach. The GPS does not do vertical navigation so it's up to you to look up the approach plate on airnav, skyvector, etc so you know the altitudes and minimums.

 

If there are no procedures available for an airport then the best you get is algorithm-based approach vectors which ATC will use to line you up with the runway. This is available as a fallback but I imagine that in many cases this might not work very well, depending on terrain, etc. If this turns out to be a problem, approaches can be added to stock airports using ADE.

 

I haven't had many problems with default ATC but I usually have either no AI traffic or very little. If you have a lot of AI traffic then ATC seems to get overwhelmed and you get told to go around again and again or run into other problems. There's an addon in the file library called AISmooth that might help with that.

5.) No hold patterns either.