I am not a real pilot, and back when I "played" FSX, that's basically what I did - play it like a game where I focused on the flying and sight-seeing aspect. Now I'm trying to be a little more "by the book" and fly like an actual pilot (lite), and part of that is using flight plans and RNAV approaches. In other words, I'm a noob, so please be easy on me!

So here is my question - how do I know what runway is the landing and departing runway for an airport out of radio range? For example, take an airport with four approaches (N,S,E,W), each with its own RNAV approach pattern. Now normally I would assume that looking up the local weather conditions would give me the most likely approach, but that didn't work last night, as the real weather didn't match the in-game weather, and I ended up being assigned the opposite runway that was programmed into my Garmin. This resulted in last-minute reprogramming of a new plan, which just felt rushed and "wrong".

So how do pilots do this in real life, and how does that translate to flight simulator? Is there something I can click on in the world map that shows the current active runway? ATIS has this information (I always preprogram my 2nd COM radio with my destination ATIS), so there must be a way to get this info from afar. I'm guessing real pilots call the phone number that goes with ATIS in order to get this information before flying out. Does flight sim offer an equivalent to this?

 

 

* Secondary question - I'm entering GPS waypoints in the cockpit using the Garmin, but is there a way to do this via the world map? I'm assuming the world map flight plan is the submitted flight plan, if such a thing is simulated.

 

In real life you would call up the ATIS phone number for the airport before your flight, and generally it will tell you "GPS runway 33 approach in use, landing and departing runway 33". Absent that, you can generally tell which runway is in use by checking the winds, either preflight or en route. If the winds are generally out of the west, you will generally get the west runway (ie runway 27'ish). The winds should pretty much match the runway number. If the winds are 210, expect runway 19 or 23 rather than runway 03 (which is the reciprocal), etc. Does that make sense?

Edited September 24, 20205 yr by mtr75

9 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

In real life you would call up the ATIS phone number for the airport before your flight, and generally it will tell you "GPS runway 33 approach in use, landing and departing runway 33". Absent that, you can generally tell which runway is in use by checking the winds, either preflight or en route. If the winds are generally out of the west, you will generally get the west runway (ie runway 27'ish). The winds should pretty much match the runway number. If the winds are 210, expect runway 19 or 23 rather than runway 03 (which is the reciprocal), etc. Does that make sense?

Yep, that's what I was thinking. Now how do I do something like this in MFS? Right now the best I know to do is to plot a route directly to the airport, tune in ATIS on my second radio, and as soon as I'm in ATIS range I can then insert the approach waypoints, but my preference would be to do all this on the ground before taking off.

Sometimes the weather doesn't match up with forecasts -- or reports -- in real life either and that's when pilots have to improvise. This is by no means limited to RNAV operations, or instrument flight, rather, a certain level of planning is always required so that you can deal with any surprises.

Real world, there are a couple of main things that determine the runway/approach in use. Wind direction is certainly high on the list. There are other factors that come into play, however.

Take my home airport, KJQF, for example. It has one ILS approach to runway 20 and RNAV approaches to both runways, 2 and 20. If the weather conditions at the field are below VFR minimums (ceilings <1000' and/or visibility < 3 statue miles), the ILS is still the preferred approach from an equipment availability standpoint (yes there are still a significant number of non-GPS equipped planes out there) even with if that means landing with a little bit of a tailwind component. I don't know this for a fact, but I think the runway 20 approaches are also preferred by ATC because of the proximity of the Runway 2 initial approach fix to Charlotte-Douglas International. That being said, if weather conditions are low IFR and winds are stiff out of the north, the RNAV 2 approach can be assigned (again if the plane is adequately equipped). Otherwise you are going to shoot the ILS 20, circle to land runway 2 (higher ceiling/vis minimus permitting)...or head to your alternate airport.

In general in the real world, a pre-flight weather briefing will give you an idea of which runway is likely at your destination, but the truth is you really only know for certain once you get there..."there" being close enough to pick up the ATIS or close enough for ATC to inform you of the runway/approach in use. At a non-towered field, you theoretically can request any runway you'd like. ATC will generally try to accommodate the request, unless it conflicts with with something like other active approaches in use at a towered field in the area. So, I'll load an approach into the GPS that I think I'll get before taking off, but will always be prepared to alter that plan once I get there.

No the loaded question is how do you do this in MSFS? ...I guess it depends on how much confidence you have in "Live Weather" being anywhere close to the actual real world forecast. In my part of world, it's not been particularly close. The other issue is that ATIS in the sim doesn't seem to report accurately even the conditions that are represented in the sim, so I don't know if you can trust that to determine which approach would actually be in use at your destination. Finally...well ATC seems to be a work in progress, with A LOT of progress still to be made. As far as I can remember, even if ATC assigns an approach at your destination that you had not planned, you can still request a new approach from menu. I'd just do that until ATC is fixed.