[Skybird]

You have an ILS approach, and you have four pieces of informations: elevation, heading of runway (three digit accuracy, not just two!!!), glid slope angle, and frequency.

The elevation just decides at what barometric altitude the radar altimeter will come to live. Radar altimeters usually spring to life 2500 ft above ground. When they do, you fly by them, not by barometric altimeter.

The info on glide slope is almost always -3.0°. That emans that at landing speed the plane wil descend at a rate of around 700-750 ft/min. Only rarely airports have published other glide slope angles due to geographical necessites, -2.5° for example. Mostly you can ignore this.

ILS-frequencies are indicated from other navigation frequencies by being set to frequencies from 109 to 111 MHz, often the number right of the decimal typically is .30 or .70. These signals have a short range only, so even when many airports use the same frequency for their ILS, usually thy do not interfere. ILS range in the sim is below 30 nm, whereas high altitude VORs can reach as far as in excess of 100 nm.

If not using an FMC (Flight Management Computer), the landing cours emust be made known to thre autopilot. That is being done by the CRS knob for the HSI for example. It could also be a m ore simple traditional VOR radio indicator.

Note: the HSI has to knobs. One moves a yellow needle, the other moves a single mark on the compass circle. The left button moves the single mark, it is for using the HDG mode of the autopilot. You set5 a course, and the plane then flies that course. Simple. For ILS and VOR approaches, you need the needle, and thus the right button. You tune the needle to the course of the runway, not the plane! The runway, meaning you tune the needle to the final heading the plane must have in order to be in line with the runway.

The HSI needs to know which VOR or ILS transmitter it should intercept. Thus you tune in the ILS frequenciy into your NAV radio, into the right "ready" window, then you hiot the switch button to switch it to the left "active" window. To be safe (some airliners need the frequency dialed in in both NAV radios), you do the same with the second Nav radio.

Now this is where the FSX Boeing are unrealistic, because they follow the procedures for smaller, sporting planes: You activate the AP. Then you use the left button on the HSI to dial in a heading that will lead you to intercept the localiser signal of the ILS, and best is to intercept it early, quite a distance away from the runway. Say 25 miles. IOnce you dialed in that course, you activate the HDG mode on the AP panel. When coming in reach of the ILS signal, usually below 30 miles, you activate NAV on the AP. The plane will continue to follow HDG, ntil it crosses the vector set by the HSI yellow needle - it then will switch from HDG to NAV mode and intercept. At this phase of flight you should be at a relatively low altitude already, say 3-5 thousand above ground when at a range to airport of around 20 miles or so. This is so that you approach the verztical glid slope from below. Never from above! That would mean that the plane has to dive to intercept the glideslope, gaining speed when doing so and pointing the nose to the ground. Risky! Always intercept from below, never from above!

I do not recall how exactly it works in default FSX, I think you can then activate the APP mode (approach), do it at the latest when the vertical markers on the HSI for the glideslope spring to life. The plane will fly at its current altitude (no matter whether manually flown or via HLD ALT) until it crosses the glideslope - then approach mode, armed until here, becomes active, the plane starts to descend , follows the glideslope, does a 3° descend at around 700 ft, and all you have to care for is speed, flaps, gear, spoilers.

For the GPS use, you have to fly a flightplan I think, and then make it known to Control by declaring it IFR. You then will not be rejected at airports even if they are closed for visual approaches due to low visibility. Instead of feeding the HSI with NAV radio signals, you instead tell it to use the GPS. There must be a switch on your panels somewhere, GPS/NAV or something like that.

Whether the GPS can be used to manually select any airport outside a flightplan, and then make it control the landing, I canot say for sure, since I do not use these things, but different and more sophisticated kits. But the learnign centre'S lesson on Navigation:GPS explains that you can indeed set direct courses to any Navigation point including airports, using the "-D->" button and then getting the ICAO code or name entered via the two knobs.

If you use the autopilot in FSX for autolanding, keep min mind that it is totally unrealistic and has othign to do with how these big planes like Boeings and Airbusses are handled in real life. The default autopilot even has false functions for sports planes already, I think. If you use this for airliners, you simply learn it the wrong way, or better: you learn the wrong stuff.

The three ILS videos should make that difference clear. Handling the real FMC in a Boeing (or Airbus) and the FSX autopilot have nothing, really nothing in common.

If you are serious about getting into airliner navigation, there is no way you can avoid investing into a separate module and leave the FSX planes behind. I have not flown them in many many years, not one of them. You will notice that the handling of even small addon planes, sport planes, is easier, since they are not equipped with such hysteric flight models as the ones you are nerved by in FSX.

Get your installation or rig fixed. And then get an addon. The 747 by PMDG is simplier than their 737NGX and also is more friendly for users not using TrackIR (judging by my experience with it in FS9). The iFly 737 also is simplier than the PMDG 737, but very well done nevertheless. For small planes, I like my recent buys, the Turbine Duke (twin engine), since you have to watch out for the engines, while having a solid flight characteristic. The Jetstream 41 by PMDG I would not recommend to a novice, it is quite difficult and comes with a third, completely different flight management computer design - I have not fully understood it until today. Also, TrackIR for it is imperative, else handling becomes extremely difficult. Of course, if you want a realistic study sim, there is no alternative to the 737NGX. It's the best there is.

Oh, and one thing is important. You need to know what the transition altitude is. That is the barometric altitude above which the altimeter is set to a standardised air pressure and altitudes are not given in ft, but in flight levels. When climbing above it, you need to switch your altimeter from barometric to standard. When descending below it, you need to switch from standard to barometric. If you forget that, you can end up wondering why Control asks you to speed up your climb or descend for altitude XYZ, while your altimeter shows you you are right on that altitude - for Control you may be several hundred feet above or below! Worse,l this then blocks any further messages by the AI, until you have met their altitude requirement. You also have to tune the barometric pressure frequently according to the weather around you when you are below transition altitude (only then!!!) - or hit the B button occaisonally. Before landing, you get the local QNH by Control or tower, or you can listen to the weather report via ATIS. - Different countries have different transition altitudes. In the US, it is 18 thousand. But in Germany it is much lower, 5 thousand. That makes it easier for Control to coordinate the altitudes of all flights around, and it eases the need for the pilots to constantly re-tune their altimeters during flight.