Good FSX Teachings?

Originally Posted by Skybird

From reading what you wrote, you forgot to activate APP mode (approach).



The glideslope is indicated by one or two dots right and sometimes additionally left in your display with the HSI representation. If there is no point visible, you either have tuned in the wrong frequency , or you are still not in range.

On your GPS, as I know it from my stuff Boeing stuff, solid purple is the flightplan'S course with the waypoints. Dash purple indeed moves according to your turning of the HDG course knob - it marks the course the plane would go to and follow if now you would ac tvate HDG in AP. Use this according to an anticipated flight situastion ij the near future, or have it always lined up ith the current course you are flying (=in congruence with the flightplan's line). In an airliner, the non-flying pilot would constantly dial that instrument accordingly whenever a course change has occured after a waypoint. And the white line, if it gets projected by the airport'S location, then it is the extension of the runway - you may want to intercept this line some miles away from the airport - I personally plan for having a minimum distance to airport of 10 nm.

The odd flight behaviour you reported, the swinging left and right of the to-be-intercepted vector. Two liekly explanations. First, you intercepted the localiser at too steep an angle, maybe even rectangular: the vector says 130°, and you slam into into with a heading of 40° - not good. Try to ease that angle, try to hit the localiser'S vector with an own heading of for exmaple 90° or 150°. If your angle is too steep, you overshoot, the plane excessively reacts by sharp turning, overshooting again, returning, overtshooting again. Second explanation: you suffer from some nasty characteristics of the inferior flight dynamics of the default planes. They are bitches.

Okay but how should I change the heading I hit the localizer at when the ATC is giving me a heading to stay on that will slam me right into the localizer? Im going to chaulk this one up for now to the fact that I just am somehow doing something wrong and thats why I kept overshooting.

Another question, when I open up the GPS and select to choose my approach (In this case ILS on Runway 09) and I activate it. Do I have to enter where the white line/arrow shows and fly that pattern for a bit before I land? Or do I just go with what the ATC is telling me? which is to pretty much fly straight in and land?

Another thing I must ask is on the GPS the 'area' of the ILS feathers, is that where I should start seeing a glideslope show up??

This is a bunch to absorb and process at once But Ill get there

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith

Okay but how should I change the heading I hit the localizer at when the ATC is giving me a heading to stay on that will slam me right into the localizer? Im going to chaulk this one up for now to the fact that I just am somehow doing something wrong and thats why I kept overshooting.

The AI control will sometimes call you for vectors that indeed have you intercepting localisers and glideslope quite close to the runway. That is not a problem when you are fam iliar with handling your plane and can blindly use the cointrols and auto-featzures it offers, and when your speed and other factors already are set good. When you are close to the airport, and still are high and fast, go around.

For a beginning, I would recommend you just ignore the radio, choose one airport, find it in the map and klick it, then have the data there (runway heading and ILS freqeuncies and such) noted on a paper. Then take off, do a race track pattern, and position yourself at 10.000 feet and in 20-25 miles distance to the runway - and then do the approach without control just using the instruments and my recommendations, so that you get a feeling for how it all goes ideally, and that you get used to it. Do touch-and-goes, when the wheels hit the runway, launch again: throttle full forward, gear up, spoilers up, flaps up, in this order.

Another question, when I open up the GPS and select to choose my approach (In this case ILS on Runway 09) and I activate it. Do I have to enter where the white line/arrow shows and fly that pattern for a bit before I land? Or do I just go with what the ATC is telling me? which is to pretty much fly straight in and land?

It seems you make me needing to have a default flight before I get an idea of what you mean. I use Boeing FMCs and small planes always fly manually with AP only keeping altitude. Autolands via default GPS I never do. Must check first.

Or is this doing the trick for you?
http://easy-fsx.blogspot.de/2010/05/...-approach.html

In this glass cockpit display, the glideslope indicator is: on the right side of the screen,the dot on the vertical scale left of the altitude band

This is a bunch to absorb and process at once But Ill get there

You surely will, with time and practice comes routine. Does the sim work stable now, or do you still get crashes?

Originally Posted by Skybird

The AI control will sometimes call you for vectors that indeed have you intercepting localisers and glideslope quite close to the runway. That is not a problem when you are fam iliar with handling your plane and can blindly use the cointrols and auto-featzures it offers, and when your speed and other factors already are set good. When you are close to the airport, and still are high and fast, go around.

For a beginning, I would recommend you just ignore the radio, choose one airport, find it in the map and klick it, then have the data there (runway heading and ILS freqeuncies and such) noted on a paper. Then take off, do a race track pattern, and position yourself at 10.000 feet and in 20-25 miles distance to the runway - and then do the approach without control just using the instruments and my recommendations, so that you get a feeling for how it all goes ideally, and that you get used to it. Do touch-and-goes, when the wheels hit the runway, launch again: throttle full forward, gear up, spoilers up, flaps up, in this order.


It seems you make me needing to have a default flight before I get an idea of what you mean. I use Boeing FMCs and small planes always fly manually with AP only keeping altitude. Autolands via default GPS I never do. Must check first.

Or is this doing the trick for you?
http://easy-fsx.blogspot.de/2010/05/...-approach.html

In this glass cockpit display, the glideslope indicator is: on the right side of the screen,the dot on the vertical scale left of the altitude band


You surely will, with time and practice comes routine. Does the sim work stable now, or do you still get crashes?

Actually quite stable as of yet. Im quite happy about it Im sure it will crash sooner or later, but I need to save some money up for FSX Gold / Acceleration. Then some money for REX or maybe a good dual prop plane or Cessna. I think I want to try the PMDG 737 eventually.. But like I said. Im waiting until I get the basic routines down right, then its a matter of converting them from plane to plane, which now that I think about it, is kind of my hinderance so far. Im just not USED to how each cockpit displays the information to me in the way I need. So heres to more practice and more crashes Btw what weather settings do you use for a nice haze / fog down low so that its a challenging yet still fun landing?


PS: Your picture and the little picture tutorial you just gave me just helped make everything MUCH clearer.

Heres another question, whats up with ATC giving me different bearings during flight when I should be following my waypoints?? (Even when Im quite a distance away from the airport)

PSPS: I also think my problem seems to be that Im trying to do it with autopilot, I think for now, Im going to do all landings manually to get a feel for what I need to be doing / having done. Including ILS landings now that I know HOW they work.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith

PS: Your picture and the little picture tutorial you just gave me just helped make everything MUCH clearer.

Good, then it served its intention.

Heres another question, whats up with ATC giving me different bearings during flight when I should be following my waypoints?? (Even when Im quite a distance away from the airport)

That happens either when you are at very high altitudes - then they start bto lead you down to lower flight levels so that you can complete your descent before reaching the airport, or when you are entering the control zone where control starts to sort the incomeing and outgoing planes. A flightplan usually does not include all the details like active runway direction, left or right runway, becasue this pretty much depends on cidntions that could change: wind direction, visibility, time of day (noise abatement active after a certain time on the watch). That's why you get the info on which runway to use for takeoff you onmly get very short before takeoff. Same for approaches in reality: your flioghtplan, if done correctly, only leads you to a handover point close to the airport. From there to the proper courses for intercepting the currently active runway extensions, you get lead by control. Ideally. Sometimes they just hammer you with somewhat random course changes only to make life difficult for you. At least the AI does. In reality, these links between runway apporoaches or takesoffs, and linkupo points to the waypoints of your flioghtplan, are standardises, any many airports have a whole catalogue of these, they are fiuctional resept routes that become actiovated according to situational factors. A fully functional Flight Management Computer has them all stored, and you can chose them by nutton clicking, or you just get lead by Control. These stzandardises linking routes are called STAR (Standardised Terminal Arrival) and SID (Standardized Instrument Departure). FSAX does not know these things for real, and Control does a - sometimes poor - job in trying to compensate for that.

PSPS: I also think my problem seems to be that Im trying to do it with autopilot, I think for now, Im going to do all landings manually to get a feel for what I need to be doing / having done. Including ILS landings now that I know HOW they work.

There must be a reason why they teach it in this order in reality as well. A pilot should never be depending on that the autopilot lands the plane, but must be capable to land by himself, like inline skaters should not depend on a lightmast to embrace for braking, but should be able to brake all by themselves.