I had an odd experience trying to set up ILS approaches over the weekend and I wanted to get some insight, I'm likely doing something wrong.

IFR flight plan, set up the departure and destination, from the destination airport in the fight planner, I click in, select Approaches, and choose ILS X in this case, and Load it up, I can see the waypoints and the fix I'm supposed to fly towards to start the approach. Cool. Validate, File, ready to go.

In the sim, MSFS2020, I'm using the 208 with the Garmin to set up the flight plan; I do that as normal. Select Approach, I choose the same ILS X, I choose Vectors, and hit Load. It all seems to be fine. Radio for clearance, and up I go.

Then it breaks down. P2ATC starts giving me vectors but they don't match the GPS plan. I have to choose to either fly manually as directed by P2ATC, or keep the Autopilot on the GPS route as planned. P2ATC got very cranky when I choose the latter 😄 but to me the directions on the GPS made more sense than where the ATC was taking me. Even the magenta line on the P2ATC map was closer to the GPS directions than the ATC headings. 

To make matters worse, I was using Co-Pilot Auto responds, so I ended up in an audio loop, ATC giving the same command and my co-pilot reading it back, over and over and over, even when I tried to tell it to cancel IFR, or give it a different command. I wouldn't stop looping until I hit the connect button to disconnect it from MSFS (and I just continued the rest of the flight using the in-game route).

I tried a few more times but I could not get P2ATC to sync the ILS approach with the ones installed in the Garmin in the sim. I ended up just filing VFR plans in P2ATC and using the ILS approaches from the Garmin with "Visual Straight In" options on P2ATC. 

Thoughts?

P2A is acting as ATC and like in the real world, has no idea what is in your aircraft's GPS.

When you get vectors from ATC, you do have to manually control your heading and altitude.  You can do this by switching to Heading mode on the autopilot while getting vectors.  Depending on your avionics, you can usually set up the GPS for Vectors to the expected approach.  But when you do that, you manually control heading until you near the final approach, at which time you can engage NAV or APPR on the autopilot to let it fly the final approach.  For your ILS, you would engage APPR and let it intercept the glideslope and fly you down to the runway.

Dave

Thanks for clarifying - I assumed P2ATC was reading flight plan from the GPS since it's able to capture and read the radio data/position data/set the nav and radio freqs etc. 

Presumably, if I use the Auto-Pilot function from P2ATC, it'll follow the route in the P2ATC flight plan? I might give that a try next.

VFR works great! Still learning IFR and the flight planning portion of things. I have been practicing the ILS approach at LIRL coming from LIRA, since its a very easy flight, the runways are both fairly aligned with each other and the flight is short. Since the distance is less than 20nm, the 'Climb to 5000' on a heading that took me away from the airport made no sense to me, when the GPS route was dialed in and already had me going toward the intercept for the Localizer. I think P2ATC was trying to put me into an approach starting from further away and higher up. Is there a way to skip to a closer waypoint in the p2atc flight plan (you can do this with the GPS) and have the Radio Calls see that? Or do you need to fly the full approach from all the way back every time?

If it matters, I'm flying the 208 and mainly focusing on GA, not airliners.

Edited April 14Apr 14 by Kristofski

P2A does not fly the aircraft.  The Auto Pilot feature merely lets you control the aircraft autopilot from outside the cockpit.  It follows the plan that is in your aircraft GPS.

If the airports are so close, you will most likely get vectored away from the destination to line up for an approach.  Setting the Vector leg lengths shorter would reduce how far, but you need them to be long enough so you can keep up with the vectoring.

I would recommend picking an airport further away or choose a runway/approach that is on the other side of LIRL so the vectoring would take you out past the FAF and turn you around to intercept final.

Dave

I looked at the LIRA-LIRL with the ILS-Z to runway 12.

You should have no problem flying that, as long as you get to cruise altitude quickly and are on an IFR flight plan to begin with.  Try setting a cruise altitude of 3000 instead of 5000 and file an IFR flight plan and climb aggressively after takeoff to 3000.  P2A should give you clearance for the approach a little before half-way there.  You won't get vectors because the alignment doesn't require it.  You should get cleared direc to CI12 and cleared for the approach.  It is then up to you to fly that.  Most likely your GPS will fly it if you have it set up for the approach with Vectors.  You will likely have to do a Direct-To CI12 on the GPS, but it may do it for you when you Activate the approach.

Dave

Thank you Dave, I'll try this again tonight.

Because of the very short distances involved, if you have issues with not getting instructions, etc., try setting all your ATC radii in the Aircraft Profile to very small numbers.  Maybe Tower=2, Departure=6, Approach=6.  If that fails, pick an airport 50 or so NM away and try again.

Dave

Reporting back that I was able to make it work for LIRL/LIRA. I had no issues with the next few flights either as I was making my way north to LOWI. LOWI->EDNY was especially accurate with SID on the way out and STAR on the way in. Very complete experience.

I did however come across a few ILS frequency mismatches however. I wasn't sure if that is related to the recent AIRAC update to 2604? I was able to update P2ATC to the current 2604 data and noticed that the ILS at CYTZ and CYKZ are no longer correct in P2ATC, despite being in the GPS in the game. I wish I copied the frequencies to be more accurate, but I think it was runway 8 at CYTZ and either 33 or 15 at CYKZ (which IRL is now closed, so maybe the Frequencies have been repurposed - tuning the ILS in P2ATC captures one of the ILS runways at CYYZ instead)

A couple other instances where the ILS worked but was mis-labelled in the P2ATC UI. Fortunately, entering the approach in the Garmin auto-tunes the ILS frequency as well, so I don't have to worry about manually tuning, which is a big reason I use P2ATC in the first place. I'll see if I can note them as I come across them.

Thanks for the update.

That's wild about the ILS Frequencies.  IF the SIM and P2A are at the same AIRAC level there shouldn't be any mismatches.  P2A takes the Nav Frequencies direct from Navigraph only.  Please send me the details next time you run into this and I'll check it out on my end.

Dave