P3D ILS Tower approache procs missing

[yellowjack 28]

Hi all,

       Since acquiring P3D I have been smooching around USA in my Real-air Duke and thoroughly enjoying the P3D experience.

      All my flights use an IFR flight plan.

      However, I have noticed that in many (but not all) of the of the P3D smaller airports that I have visited an IFR approach is neither given or listed in the “Approach Options” page of the Tower dialogue. This can be a real PITA for example I was flying in the northern states at night, my destination was KHLN. Weather visibility was down to 900' AGL. The tower commanded my descent at 4,000 feet AGL. Subsequently the  tower asked me if I had the runway in sight, duh! Now that airport has the necessary ILS ground facilities which were all operational and I landed successfully using the ILS beam guidance indicators on the instrument panel. I can only think that the ATC procs for the ILS approaches were omitted from the Airport file. 

       From this and similar occurrences I formed the opinion that the ILS procedures for tower coms, at many of the smaller airports were non existent. Yesterday I had the same problem when approaching Toledo when no ILS approach options were available from the tower. I decided to experiment and repeated the same flight with the same aircraft, same time and same weather using FSX. I had no problem using FSX , the tower specified an ILS approach which I accepted and completed normally.

                My appreciation of P3D is on the wane  for what appears to be an oversight by LM in not transferring the ILS tower procs for many of the smaller airfields/airports from FSX to P3D.

               Has anyone else flying to the smaller airport in P3D noticed the same thing or is my installation somehow screwed up.

Spoiler

 

 

[flyinpilot212121 724]

I haven’t noticed mainly because I never use ATC within the simulator, but a suggestion maybe get the approach plate from the airport your flying to and manually Fly the approach instead of being given radar vectors.

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

Since I use default airports EXTREMELY rarely and then not at very small airports, I have not noticed the ILS missing at some of the smaller airports that you reporting.

Have you checked the AFCAD to see if they are there?

If you'd like, send me a few of the airport ICAOs that are missing ILS approaches and I'd be happy to take a look.

Best wishes.

 

[Mace 1,902]

39 minutes ago, yellowjack said:

                My appreciation of P3D is on the wane  for what appears to be an oversight by LM in not transferring the ILS tower procs for many of the smaller airfields/airports from FSX to P3D.

I have never experienced that in P3D.  
P3D comes with the same (old) 2006 nav database as FSX.

Yes if you could post up any airports that you find...I'd be interested to see what's going on there.

[tjrush 54]

He already mentioned KHLN and KTOL.

 

 

Edited November 6, 2018 by tjrush

[yellowjack 28]

I didn't keep track of all the airports I visited simply because I didn't realise it was an issue until the examples given cropped up. Of course there are some airports (or should that be airstrips) I have visited which have no ILS equipment and then I would expect to receive a visual approach clearance. I have also visited airports where a full ILs approach is given and they work fine both for ATC procs. and ILS equipment. That in fact is half the problem you don't what you getting until you realise that you've been scuttled by the fickle finger of fate. Luckily I have yet to have a VFR only airfield which need a diversion due to IFR weather. A good job I always take off with full tanks (that's pretty cheap insurance in a flight sim .

Spoiler

 

 

Edited November 6, 2018 by yellowjack

[medx421 50]

I could be wrong, as I haven't used in sim ATC in years, but did you file an IFR flight plan.  Something in me remembers that to get instrument procedures, you had to have an IFR flight plan set up in the sim.

[downscc 1,327]

The default ATC is nothing more than a simplified game, and bears little resemblance to actual air traffic control.  For one, the approach clearance is not given by the control tower.  You are outside their airspace when initiating the approach.  The approach clearance is by either an approach controller or for most small airports by the ATC enroute center.  Once established on approach, usually before the FAF, the approach controller will hand you over to the tower.  The tower owns the runway, so you contact tower for landing clearance.

Most small GA airports will not have either a tower or an ILS approach.  Check the charts.

Edited November 6, 2018 by downscc

[WarpD 824]

KHLN in the sim has an ILS for RW27 at a frequency of 110.10.  VFR flights will not be offered an IFR approach.... which the sim's ATC treats an ILS approach as an IFR approach.

Edited November 6, 2018 by WarpD

[Benjamin J 751]

30 minutes ago, downscc said:

The default ATC is nothing more than a simplified game, and bears little resemblance to actual air traffic control.  For one, the approach clearance is not given by the control tower.  You are outside their airspace when initiating the approach.  The approach clearance is by either an approach controller or for most small airports by the ATC enroute center.  Once established on approach, usually before the FAF, the approach controller will hand you over to the tower.  The tower owns the runway, so you contact tower for landing clearance.

Most small GA airports will not have either a tower or an ILS approach.  Check the charts.

But that's exactly how it works for me with the default ATC, it does not for you? Default ATC starts giving me descent instructions before being handed over to approach, then approach assigns me an approach and vectors me on course for ILS capture, then I get handed over to tower for landing clearance. I'm not saying that default ATC does not have  shortcomings, but at least these sort of thing it seems to do fine. For anybody using default ATC, I would recommend getting EditVoicePack, though. I feel it made default ATC that much better, with (slightly) more updated phrasing and probably hundreds of new callsigns.

[yellowjack 28]

You seem to be missing the point, focussing on my (IFR)  flight to Toledo we have the situation where in P3D ILS approaches are not an option whilst they are in FSX the ILS approaches are available. Even if one is given a VFR approach one can always use the "Select a different approach" option to select an ILS approach if available. In FSX ILS approaches to Toledo (in this example) are available whilst in P3D they are not. The ILS bars will show up in either case so the ground equipment is OK. The only thing missing in P3D, is apparently,  the ATC ILS approach procs. Regarding using another ATC system I would be willing to give it a try but any alternate ATC system must include all the approaches for all the airports in P3D as as the default . I have suspicion that any other ATC system would still use the default built in procs. I am only to willing to be corrected on this assumption. So what is the best alternate ATC system?  

[Chocorua 112]

I'm not 100% clear about your issue here, but...have you changed any of the default P3D Nav-aid data files, as in updating VORs, ILSs, WPTs, etc? I did this once and it messed with IFR options in the ATC menu. Essentially I had no IFR approaches available anywhere in the USA. I returned the default files and all worked as it should.  

Just a thought... 

[dave2013 1,123]

If any ILS or other types of approaches exist for an airport in FSX/P3D then they must be encoded in the airport AFCAD, otherwise you'll only be given standard vector approaches even if the airport has an ILS. 

A lot of smaller towered airports in FSX/P3D don't have these approaches included, and many of those that do have outdated approaches and/or don't include the newer ones.  Even some payware airports are woefully lacking when it comes having correctly configured approaches, transitions, navaids, etc.

It sounds like ATC gave you a visual approach even though the weather conditions were IFR.  I don't know what to make of that.

Dave

 

Edited November 6, 2018 by dave2013
Misspelling

[Vineguy 26]

L&M didn't add new runways etc. to the default airports in the sim from what FSX had. I:E runway 10/28 for KATL don't exist in P3D and nor does there ILS frequency or heading.

Edited November 6, 2018 by Vineguy

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

5 hours ago, downscc said:

The default ATC is nothing more than a simplified game, and bears little resemblance to actual air traffic control.  For one, the approach clearance is not given by the control tower.  You are outside their airspace when initiating the approach.  The approach clearance is by either an approach controller or for most small airports by the ATC enroute center.  Once established on approach, usually before the FAF, the approach controller will hand you over to the tower.  The tower owns the runway, so you contact tower for landing clearance.

Most small GA airports will not have either a tower or an ILS approach.  Check the charts.

I couldn't agree more. From that (and only that) perspective, i really wish simmers would learn VATSIM, IVAO or Pilot Edge and not use any AI based ATC. Not that ATC procedures are perfect online, but its far better and far more immersive.