Hi, I have been flying this sim for a while now. I usually make a flight plan in the simulator itself from gate to gate, and the approach is always automatic to make it a little more natural. for a while, I got ILS landings but now it won’t give any ILS, only VOR DME approaches. is there a setting I need to adjust? or do I have to manually add ILS landing in the flight plan? that would be kind of a bummer, after all. I don’t know which runway is in use at the different airports, so it would be great if this was automatic.
Sorry for the bad explanation… hopefully you guys know what I mean
It should say (Approach type) (runway number). Take note of the number and select the ILS for the runway. Some airports don’t have ILS approaches for all runways however.
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I assume “it” is ATC. You are lucky! I mostly get a Visual approach. It is possible to request a different runway and/or approach. If I request a different runway and approach, ATC will give me the new runway and approach but they make it “circle-to-land” approach to the original runway.
FWIW due to the advanced navigation capabilities using GPS, non-ILS approaches are flown using the GPS, not the specific radios. For example, I flew a VOR/DME approach. The GPS used the waypoints in the chart and guided the aircraft correctly making it like an RNAV(GPS) approach. Of course, the minimums are higher than ILS. I didn’t have to use the VOR or fly the DME arc at all. Of course, if you want to use the VOR, you can use it instead of the GPS.
Actually you can’t file a flightplan without a desired approach, it has to be stated (as far as I remember, if I’m wrong someone correct me please), just as you need to select the landing runway and state it in the flight plan
It might change later due to wind, weather, etc., but the most “natural” (taking “natural” as “close to real life”) thing to do would be to file an approach, and eventually ask ATC to change it if, for example, you see that winds have changed and now another runway is better, or if for example you selected an RNAV approach and the minimums aren’t enough so you need to take an ILS approach.
I have to respectfully disagree. IRL, you don’t file an approach let alone a runway. You file to a waypoint/navaid that gets you into the airport environment. ATC will assign the landing runway and the approach to be used. However, that doesn’t preclude you from asking for a different approach. In the sim, if you leave the approach type to Automatic the sim ATC will assign an approach. If you don’t want that approach, there is an option in the ATC window to ask for a different one. Just don’t ask for an approach to a different runway. If you do that you will still get the approach you asked for but with a “circle to land” instruction to the originally assigned runway.
This is true. You can file a STAR, but you might not get the one you filed if the flow changes or they need to put you on a parallel runway.
In the absence of a STAR (which don’t exist in over 90% of US airports that have instrument approaches), you generally want the last waypoint on your filed route to be an initial approach fix (IAF) or maybe a feeder fix of the runway/approach you prefer and think might be in use, based on weather forecasts. This comes with the same caveat as above: you might not get it.
Regardless, we NEVER file for an approach. The filing system doesn’t even include a way to do that, anyway. The closest thing you can do outside filing to the IAF is put the approach request in the remarks section.
Whoops, just scratched my head and tried to dig into the old notes from the ice age when I took some flying lessons. Probably regulations differ from country to country. In the official flight plan form (in my country), when you add in your route elements related to the arrival and approach, you need to add in a separate box the code of the chart for that STAR and approach (that’s mandatory, if and only if you included all that info in the route) and explicitly the desired arrival and approach, as @CharlieFox00 mentioned.
However, specifying the desired STAR and approach isn’t mandatory at all and there are no specific boxes for that. What seems to be mandatory is what mentioned above. And yes of course, as any plan, it can change and you might not get what you asked. Probably between different regulations and the fact that I took my flight lessons long long long time ago, got confused a little bit between what’s mandatory and what’s not, my bad guys, sorry 'bout that.
Thanks for everyone’s replies Much appreciated!
I am neither an expert on this topic nor a real pilot in any way. When I select an approach the simulator has been locket on that and suddenly I have landed on not “active” runways etc. after switching to “automatic” it made more sense when following other aircraft down towards the airport etc. lot more fun I also just changed to FsHud and using simbrief, a LOT more challenging for one that’s not really sure how this works… BUT! I have managed some flights with this setup and flying the Fenix. very technical for me, and don’t really know what to do, but I’m getting there glad there is this place called YouTube
