I think I may have misunderstood your comment. Yes, i agree now, I probably should have made a DH auto land to keep it simple. I was "practicing" making a full blown fail operational AH autoland, but in hind sight, I probably should not have done that.

It's good this way, nothing wrong

I think I may have misunderstood your comment. Yes, i agree now, I probably should have made a DH auto land to keep it simple. I was "practicing" making a full blown fail operational AH autoland, but in hind sight, I probably should not have done that.

Sorry for the double post everyone. I thought my connection to the forum was frozen on my browser, but obviously not. It was just a slow connection to avsim.net.

(1) I have SFX configured via the CDU to automatically enter the courses on both sides when I set an ILS frequency:

 

PMDG SETUP->OPTIONS->SIMULATION PAGE 2/3->SET SFX LOC CRS

 

 

I have that option on. I guess I never saw it work since I enter the ILS frequency and course as soon as I figure out what runway will be used. I could enter it as early as still being at cruise or late as 15-20 nm from the airport. At cruise, the information is just entered. The ILS frequencies have not been switched from standby to active until I believe I can receive the ILS signal and make sure the identifier agrees with what I see on the Approach Plates.

I have always dialed the course for the ILS in the course windows at the time I dial in the ILS frequency. I noticed that you did not dial in a course but the course in the windows changed to 257 from 012. How was the course entered?

 

I have read on the forums that some people only set the course and frequency on the Captains' side. Have you even tried this?

You are correct, you must manually dial in the inbound course. The LOC guidance will not work correctly if you don't. The aircraft will try and follow the selected LOC course. It will also try and null out the course deviation. If the course does not match the runway heading this results in a crabbed approach and touchdown may be offset to left or right depending which way the error is. If the course error is very large it might even turn in the wrong direction to intercept. The NGX has a feature (default ON) which automatically sets the inbound course to the one that FSX needs, which may well be different to the present course shown on the approach plate. I assume that was what happened in the video. The real aircraft can't do that. I have the auto feature disabled as I like to set it manually. I check the FSX map beforehand the approach begins to get the required course. On aircraft like the 747, 777 and all FBW Airbus the ILS course and frequency are set up automatically from the FMC nav database.

 

If you are only doing a coupled approach with a visual landing then you would only need to tune one side's ILS (and therefore only need to set one course), in FSX at least. I've no idea what "gotchas" lurk if you do that in the real world.

In Ralph's video of the standard ILS (Part 2) he says setting the heading bug to the inbound course takes care of localiser capture. In fact as soon as the aircraft starts to intercept the localiser it is no longer looking at the heading bug. It's now following the selected course and the LOC deviation. So while it's good practice to align the heading bug in case of a go around (and some aircraft do this automatically for you) it is not a necessary part of the localiser capture procedure as implied.

 

Very good training video. It might be worth considering showing another ILS approach from other than LNAV/VNAV as well. That would help lead beginners on to the typical situation where it's a more manual procedure and all the heading, altitude and speed changes are input manually. If you've been vectored by ATC it's unlikely you will still be in LNAV, and therefore VNAV is no longer appropriate.

>In Ralph's video of the standard ILS (Part 2) he says setting the heading bug to the inbound course takes care of localiser capture.

 

Gosh, I hope I didn't actually say that because it's not a valid statement. What I said (I believe) was after localizer capture, your action item is to set the HDG to the inbound localizer course just to have it match up and in case of a go around. That's all you do it for.

 

Edit Update: I just reviewed the Part 2 ILS video in question and I believe Kevin is referring to the fist half of that video where I am saying i will keep an eye on watching for LOC capture so I can set the HDG to the inbound course. I agree Kevin, my words were not as clear as in the second half flying demo where I clearly say now that we have captured the localizer, we can set the HDG to the inbound approach course.

 

Sorry if my wording in the first half was not completely clear and was mis-understood.

 

>It might be worth considering showing another ILS approach from other than LNAV/VNAV as well.

 

Good idea...thanks for the suggestion.

You are correct, you must manually dial in the inbound course.

Thanks for the information.

Really good series, again, Ralph - thanks for these.

Good videos Ralph, very helpful.

Al

Thanks Paul and Al.

 

I will be adding a few more to this ILS series but as separate videos. I have Part 4 currently in review by a team of volunteers now numbering 6.

 

When Part 4 is released as 'Public' (available to everyone) I will start in on the next ILS approaches which I have been asked to do: Non-LNAV/VNAV ILS, an ATC vectored ILS and flying an ILS using the HUD.

 

I was planning to work on my next video series which is the MCP but I guess that will have to wait now until I get all of these other ILS videos done 

I just upload Part 4.

 

737NGX Boot Camp Series Part 4 Blythe4 STAR Phoenix ILS.

Simulator Flying Demo.

Part 4 is an add-on to the ILS series. It was requested by one of the flight simulator enthusiasts.

 

I hope you enjoy!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji0OAAPRC68

Thanks Ralph, really well done.

Ralph,

Thanks very much for video 4.

One thing that was not clear to me is where the approach transition from ARLIN to BALTE came from. Is this a published transition (if so, where are approach transitions typically found), or was it your own "replacement" for what would normally be vectors from ATC?

Thx,

Al

Great question. The transition leg came from the FMC. It created it automatically to connect the Star to the ILS localizer.