I’m really bad at the final turn from base leg to final, always either under or overshoot. Any advice on the timing?

not so much of  an advice, but you can take comfort in that it is much harder in the sim to nail those turns to final approach leg than IRL 🙂. Also be aware of current winds + ground speed and apply corrective measures. If you have base leg with tailwind, start turn earlier, opposite if you have headwinds obviously.

If you fly a fancy glass cockpit (like a 737) you can visualise your turn by using the ND and the turn trend-vector and align it with the extended runway centreline.

2 hours ago, scotchegg said:

I’m really bad at the final turn from base leg to final, always either under or overshoot. Any advice on the timing?

It doesn't have to be perfect since you can correct minor offsets, although obviously you don't wanna be miles out.

Not sure if what I do when judging the turn will be of any use to you, I suppose that might depend on how good you are at perception of 3D space. What I do is draw an imaginary line back from the runway out to where I want to be when coming out of the turn, then I draw a descent angle line out to that point from where I wanted to land. Doing this literally gives me a point in the sky to aim for. When I say 'draw', I mean I do actually visually imagine seeing those lines over what I am looking at, so in my mind's eye, I will see this kind of thing:

6 hours ago, scotchegg said:

I’m really bad at the final turn from base leg to final, always either under or overshoot. Any advice on the timing?

Can you pan the view around whilst you're in the turn so that you can see the runway before it appears in the straight ahead view?  EDIT - I mean , look round, look back at the instrument panel and a visual check on your attitude with regard to the horizon, look back around for the runway, rinse & repeat. 

Edited January 8, 20215 yr by HighBypass

19 hours ago, Chock said:

What I do is draw an imaginary line back from the runway out to where I want to be when coming out of the turn,

That’s the kind of advice I was imagining, kind of like the old turn onto base when the runway entrance is at 45° to the near side wingtip.

Will give the visualization a try.

@scotchegg, are you running an ATC program that will vector you or are you flying with no ATC? Radar Contact v4 is free and once a flight plan is loaded will look after you all the way including the final heading to intercept the localiser or runway heading.

That final bit is all important of course and where you are seeking help. At 190kts I would expect the localiser to start moving after around 20-30 seconds. If there is a VOR on the airfield use that to assist with the final turn. The turn is 30°.

Finally, a moving map such as LittleNavmap is a great aid.

19 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Radar Contact v4 is free and ...... will look after you all the way including the final heading to intercept the localiser or runway heading.

Sorry for the slight hijack Ray. I have not yet steeled myself to read the comprehensive manual and haven't yet installed RC4.. so yes I'm being lazy for asking this  If one has loaded up a plan including a STAR, is RC4 aware of this and will allow you fly that? Thanks in advance if you deign to reply sir! 

Mark, I have a sneaky way of including a STAR in the plan I feed to RC4. For flights under 2 hours I make an educated guess that the weather won’t be too different from that when I create the plan.

I use Aivlasoft’s EFB to add the STAR then export the plan including the STAR waypoints which is then loaded into RC4.

At 40nm from the arrival airport RC will hand you over to Approach. You can either fly their vectors or alternatively request to fly the STAR.

Thanks, Ray!