SteveAull

In FSX you can autoland on any ILS. Flight sim's ILS signals are perfect in that the localizer is perfectly straight and the glideslope signal is at a perfect angle without any irregularities. In the real world that is not the case. The ILS signal can have a certain amount of scalloping on the centerline and/or the glidepath. To get smooth centerlines and glidepaths to touchdown and along the centerline of the runway for rollout requires upgraded ILS equipment so to speak. Siting of the glideslope can be especially critical since most use what is called an image array. The terrain in front of the antenna must meet tight grading tolerances to ensure no distortion in the signal. I've seen stuff that has been buried a mile away cause problems with the glideslope structure. The standby transmitters must be in hot standby ready to fire up if the primary has a fault. Monitoring of the signals is at higher tolerances. The list goes on and on............ Basically a lot more money is involved to install and maintain the level of accuracy required. Lets say your hand flying the ILS, any small irregularities in the signal usually will be dampened by the instrument itself and also by the fact that you wouldn't be chasing every little excurion in the glideslope signal.. Now imagine doing final at 140 kts and the autopilot is flying the raw ILS signals which are not dampened out. The closer you get to the touchdown the more critical the structure of the ILS signal needs to be. Any big excursions could cause the autopilot to plow you into the ground or at least unstabilize the approach at a critical time. Most of the tolerances the ILS is flight checked at won't even be noticed by the average pilot however the autopilot is a different beast! Just some food for thought. Steve Aull Former USAF Navaids Technician

Dancing with the Devil ! ! ! I had bought AS16 along with the cloud package a couple days ago. My home station is Owensboro Kenetucky (KOWB) and we were expecting some storms so I thought this would be a good test of AS16 along with my trusty PMDG 737. It had been raining pretty heavy all morning and local wx stations calling for possible flash flooding. Took a quick look at local radar and it confirmed steady rain heading NE into the area generally painting yellow on the radar. To the northwest you could see an outflow boundary of wind heading into the area. Looks like a good time to test things out. Setup the 737 on rwy 18 at KOWB for quick departure to have a look see. Got things fired up in the sim and ready to go. Out the window was overcast and rain. Turn on the radar and I see patches of red all along the departure heading with some gaps that I could weave thru right after departure. The plan was to climb to 15000 look around and head back for an RNAV 18 landing. Looks like I'll have room to get to clean configuration before having to weave my way thru the bad stuff. Ok let get this partty started.Stand the throttles up and hit TOGA and get the climb going at V2+20. Alls looking good in the climb-out and we entered the overcast at about 1800 MSL. Suddenly the plane was hit with downdrafts then updrafts...speed was varing plus or minus 30 to 40 kts...Wait what is that....damn the stick shaker is going on and off...reduce the nose reduce the nose...full power...full power...ok..ok...looks like we are fine now. Lets start deviating to the right...ok we are breaking out of the overcast only to see numerous CB's towering all around me along with blue skies in-between and the overcast below. All the CB's matched what was showing on the radar so I decided I could visually remain clear of the building storms. Some storms I could hug right next to while other would rock the plane so bad that systems where going off-line. Lets head west as the local radar said it would be clear. Also better get on up to 25000 and once clear could do a turn around and have a look at what I had just gone thru. About 15 mins to the west and at FL250 I was in the clear. Decided it was time to turn around and have a look see at the system. Put the heading bug back on KOWB and start the turn back. Wow...what a system...heading back in I could see broken layers of clouds and numerous thunderheads all around the area. Decided to climb on up to FL 350 to see how high these babies were at. Once level it looked like most where at 27000 to 30000, however some were still towering above my altitude. Ok lets set up for the RNAV 18 and start the letdown. The map was showing red to the south of the airport with some nice gaps to the north so looks like I can make the approach. Lets get down to approach altitude and see. Descending I could visually dodge the storms and back that up with what the radar was showing. Passing thru 10,000 ft and bottom portions of the storms were dark while the towering tops bright white. Passing over some smaller storms would produce some serious turbulence so I would have to watch that. Now on a long right downwind for RNAV 18 I see building storms to north and west of the FAF...do I have time to get in before they hit? Started dropping to 3000 ft and reducing speed to 210 noticed overcast deck to the north and east so I knew I had an out. As I turned for the long base I could see the storms had drifted onto the final approach course. Ok let head back up to 10,000 so I could breakout of the overcast and visually see the storms and weave my way back out and think of plan B. Looked to the west and thought of and alternate landing at KEVV 30 miles away. Put it in the fix pages and saw that it was not going to work...more damn storms building up around the area. I was hoping I could wait it out but it was not meant to be. Diverted to Louisville (KSDF) out to the east and setup for ILS 17R. Heading that way I could see only overcast skies and the storms that I had been dancing with earlier where headed that way. Lets get the speed up and get into Louisville before the storms beat me to it. Finally set up on final I could visually see the storms closing into the terminal area. Broke out of the overcast for a nice landing on a wet runway to 17R. By the time I got to the gate the storms were about 5 miles to the west. What an immersive experience. All told I ended up flying around for over an hour and a half without ever noticing the time. Also better give the storms a wide birth. Sometimes I could skirt real close and nothing...other times I was well clear visually as well as on radar and still got hammered. Steve Aull

Make sure GTN is not suspended. Can you show a picture of the GTN on the approach? Steve Aull

Thanks Mathew that cleared it up for me. Had recently reinstalled FSX and forgot about that. Again thanks! Steve Aull :Whistle:

I'm having the same problem. Everything looks like it installed correctly in the aircraft folder. I can use the PMDG livery but the added liveries don't show up as a selection, only the PMDG livery shows. Steve Aull

Goof balls during a multiplayer session! Good music............... Steve Aull

Gotta say I just bought it to use along with my PMDG NGX and what a difference in the weather immersion factor I am still utilizing FSX WX textures. Can't wait to see what it looks like with new textures! Great product! Steve Aull

Great video Kyle! You must have great night vision. About halfway through the video you turned down the brightness of your displays to a level I can't image seeing. Do you drive at night without your lights on Steve Aull

I said I would do it in the other tread. :)

:)

Are you for sure thats not his name that he signed to his post.......Nothing wrong with pointing out the rules, but ya might wanna make sure you know what your talking about.....

Single cue and double cue give the same info (pitch,roll), just in a different format. Some like single, some like double. Only thing nice about single cue is you can get a better sense of bank angle required. However I find double cue to fly more accurately as far as me matching pitch and roll commands.. Again a matter of perspective.

Found a nice inspection guide for the -800 at the following link.....http://www.captainpilot.com/files/B373%20NG/EXTERIOR%20INSPECTION2006.pdf

I think Zach knows that, as he stated in his reply that the SID (Departure) didn't call for it.

Sweet !!! Can't wait for this one. Nice work.