In MSFS 2020, I'm having a problem getting the autopilot to keep the plane on the glideslope. I set as the destination Logan Airport, Boston, runway 4R using the "world" page. After hitting "fly now", I setup the FMS to select runway 4R ILS.

When I fly the plane manually, I do see the diamond shaped markers that indicate the plane's horizontal and vertical position relative to where it should be on the glideslope. It's just that I can't get the autopilot to do any control of keeping the plane on the glideslope.

I did activate the autopilot by hitting the "ap" button and I did hit the "appr" button.

And further, if I manually control the plane's altitude to keep it on the glideslope, this turns off the autopilot and now it does not even control the horizontal position of the plane anymore.

I wonder if I missed doing something that was required?

Hi:

Welcome to the Forum.

I quickly (first) checked the (CJ4) ILS Capture at my (local) KORD/10L (that I know well), and then at your KBOS/4R. Both tests seemed to work just fine (see pictures below of the respective PFDs, with the (LOC/GS) diamonds centered for final approach).

For KBOS/4R, do you see the green LOC1 Freq. 110.3 (IBOS) on the LHS (as in shot #2 below), and also the green LOC/GS annunciations at top of the PFD (result of NAV and APR activations on the CJ4 MCP)?

Hope you figure out, what might be missing in your case...

Good luck.

Edited December 20, 2025Dec 20 by P_7878

Thanks very much for that nice example.

I just want to get back to you quickly here to thank you. I'll better document just what I did and I'll review the correct lingo and acronyms to use(much of this is new to me), and I'll experiment with this some more and I'll post my detailed step by step setup I hope tomorrow along with I hope a screenshot or two of what I see that seems relevant.

But for now I can say that there is a small control panel that if I remember right is above the PFD and it had a button that picked between LOC and FMS (or something like that) and by experimenting I did find that I had to push that button to choose "LOC" and when I did that, the autopilot did properly control the horizontal positioning of the plane onto the glide path. I don't remember if "loc" was annunciated at the top, but I do remember that it did display LOC1 110.30, CRS 034... etc as did your example.

 

You’re getting there.

This MSFS/Asobo Citation CJ4 has (nice) on-line videos, that will also help you.

But yes, the EFIS/Autopilot on the front Glareshield panel of this aircraft has a button (at LHS) that will switch the (FMS/LOC) display, and then another NAV button to activate the LOC. Next, you activate the APR button to see the GS indication on top of the PFD.

Have fun…and Try not to crash…🙂…

Cheers…!