Flying the Caravan around Fiji area, there are airports that have no published procedures. In LittleNavmap you can create a custom approach from a certain distance out & altitude. It creates a waypoint & this can be inserted into the flight plan. 

This will show on the flight plan & the A/C will fly the LNAV legs. There is no VNAV info avail.

Can a VNAV be programmed into the G1000Nxi to give a TOD & descend to the created waypoint so it will fly the VNAV as well as the LNAV approach?

6 hours ago, trainnut said:

Flying the Caravan around Fiji area, there are airports that have no published procedures. In LittleNavmap you can create a custom approach from a certain distance out & altitude. It creates a waypoint & this can be inserted into the flight plan. 

This will show on the flight plan & the A/C will fly the LNAV legs. There is no VNAV info avail.

Can a VNAV be programmed into the G1000Nxi to give a TOD & descend to the created waypoint so it will fly the VNAV as well as the LNAV approach?

This custom approach not for IFR. It is just a VFR guidance and the fixes are converted to user defined flight plan waypoints since no simulator supports this concept. Therefore, no VNAV. Sorry.

The name approach is a bit misleading.

Alex

7 hours ago, trainnut said:

Can a VNAV be programmed into the G1000Nxi to give a TOD & descend to the created waypoint so it will fly the VNAV as well as the LNAV approach?

It sure can. It's extremely easy to do. You will get a TOD and can fly the descent using VNAV and even use APPR to get you (almost) all the way down! To put it a bit wrong and odd: you can create an 'ILS' for every runway you want, even an extremely tiny little grass airstrip if you want to! 😉

There is one caveat though: the created approach doesn't take the terrain and obstacles into account... so you will have to evade any obstacles yourself, either by using HDG mode while VNAV is still active or either by flying manually without AP and keeping the created approach on the G1000 as guidance.

I could create a little tutorial if you want to? EDIT I just did. 😉

Edited January 4, 20224 yr by tup61

Here I programmed a very basic A to B flightplan into the G1000 NXi.

Click on PROC and select Select Approach (acknowledge with ENT).

Choose Visual and the runway of your choice. Visual is also available when there actually are other approaches. On small airports without any published approaches Visual will be the only option.

After that you get the option to select either VECTORS or STRAIGHT.  Since you probably won't get vectors from anyone AND because you probably want to keep on flying using LNAV always select STRAIGHT here.

Next scroll down to LOAD or ACTIVATE. If you select ACTIVATE you will instantly be directed to the STRGHT waypoint which you might now want yet so LOAD probably is the best option for now, specially if you still have to fly a load of other waypoints before the approach part.

You will get a message about the approach not giving you obstacle clearance. Choose OK.

That's it! Now you have an approach with full VNAV support! Note how the VNAV profile information is added. You can see how long it takes until you reached the TOD and that TOD will also appear on the ND.

In order to fly this approach on AP:

1. Activate the approach if you opted to only load it before. Take note that you will be directed to the STRGHT waypoint immediately (just as if you created a Directo to towards it)!

2. Set the altitude of the FAF in the AP. In the above screenshot that would be 2676ft.

2. Press VNAV on the AP before you reach the TOD. You will see VPTH appear on the PFD to show you VNAV is being armed. (Arming VNAV won't work if you didn't set a lower altitude than the current one in step 2!)

4. At the TOD VPTH will become the active mode.

5. Before you reach the FAF you can arm APPR on the AP if you want to. (If you don't, make sure to descent further on your own!) You will see GP appear of the PFD to show you it's being armed.

6. Watch how your plane flies itself to the threshold! Disable the AP whenever you want or need to. 😉

Again, mind the obstacles! You can change the lateral mode from NAV to HDG and still have VNAV active: that way you can avoid mountains and things like that. If you (have to) stray of the path too much you may have to disable the AP and take over: you can always enable the AP again (including VNAV and/or APPR) whenever you avoided the obstacle and are on the right path again.

To prove that it's working: here I am approaching a very little grass strip in PNG with the Kodiak 100 still on AP: note the active GP and the indications on the altitude tape! 🙂

Oh, and btw, this isn't cheating or anything, even though it may feel a bit like that! 😉 This is a real world option of the G1000 NXi!

All credits to the Working Title team who gave us (and are still ginving us 😉 ) this awesome simulation of this device!

Edited January 4, 20224 yr by tup61

For future reference and because might people miss this tutorial because of this topic's title 😉 :

 

Edited January 4, 20224 yr by tup61

Thanks, tup61.  Excellent info and the reason I keep coming to this forum.

@tup61 Thanks for the info & tutorial Great stuff. as @solwell1 says, there is a wealth of info on this forum

Kev M

A good tutorial.

The GNXi is indeed a wonderful tool in this regard. It doesn’t preclude a little planning before, to be aware of the relief, but tremendously helps approaching non-Rnav, non-radio beacon runways. 

Using it quite a lot with the MV Porter, I wonder to which extent it is used in real world.

47 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

I wonder to which extent it is used in real world.

I wonder too. There are quite a few real world video's about it online but that doesn't tell us how often it's actually being used. I can't remember for instance the missionairy bush pilot using it but I haven't watched all of his video's. 😉 Besides, where he flies there are obstacles everywhere so it may not be of too much use to him. But anyway, after watching some video's and reading the comments one thing is for sure: this option IS being used in real life! 😉 and lots of people like it. This guy (and there are more) is even using the APPR mode with it for instance. He only turns off the AP less than a minute before touchdown.