Flying into Valencia Spain in the A320neo (Standard one, not FBW version), established on the ILS LOC and G/S, at just over 7 nm from the threshold, the plane suddenly starts turning sharply to the right. I switch off autopilot and manually get it back on track at 3.5 miles from threshold. Then, at 2.5 miles out with both diamonds dead-center, I engage the AP and approach mode to see what happens. This time, it turns sharply to the left. Ended up landing manually.
I flew the same flight plan and approach a second time, and exactly the same thing happened. I was wondering if anyone else can get the same results.
I’ve attached the PLN file, and you can fast-forward to the approach.
I don’t fly the big jets, but I’ve seen this behavior in another aircraft. This can happen for several reasons, but usually, it happens when the GPS gets confused and tries to fly to a waypoint other than the waypoint indicated in the GPS.
Just yesterday, I was trying to land the Citation Longitude at Scholes International. I had programmed an arrival STAR (thanks @PZL104) and an approach. When the plane got to the end of the STAR it suddenly started turning sharply. The PFD indicated that the leg was from USR to one of the waypoints of the approach, but the plane was obviously not on track to that waypoint.
Instead, it appeared to be flying back to USR, thus in a tight circle. Once it arrived back at USR, it turned back to the specified waypoint and continued on track to Scholes.
It seems to be just one of those bugs that still plague the GPS and autopilot.
I loaded an Arrival using the SOP2E STAR and ILS Y-12. I don’t fly airliners, so I used the Bonanza. Note too I am using Navigraph instead of the stock Navblue navigation database.
This is what your approach would look like in Little Nav Map:
Note the interesting turn at A6 in the VFR map which might correspond to your hard left on Final. However, despite it being on the map, it did not activate.
CF12 is the Initial Fix for the ILS approach at 2,800’. Notably auto-tuning did not work, I manually tuned in 111.50 for the Runway and it started guiding after the FAF, FI 12.
However, it quit out somewhere around 2 nm to runway threshold despite GS indications in the annunciator. I had to disconnect above 500’ and hand fly to touchdown.
Long story short, there’s still a lot of work left to do in the Flight Planning and Routing, which is what’s preventing proper approaches (and sometimes enroute planning) from working. Working Title indicated they will address this as part of their Garmin improvements, because fixing one without the other doesn’t address the whole problem.
I see you’ve gotten a lot of information already, but interestingly, when I input your basic guidance, I got a different flight path from the one in your PLN (see attached screenshot) using the standard included flight planner. This path basically flew fine for me. Hope you’ve got the info you need.
Regards
Yours is using low altitude airways as opposed to high altitude airways in the other posts. The final waypoint is different, hence you get a different transition routing into the STAR out of the algorithm.
Thanks for trying it out. I saw that dogleg at A6, but that was not it, because I had already switched to APPR mode on the ILS maybe a minute or so earlier, so I should have been going dead straight all the way to the runway at that point.
Well it does not look like it’s easily replicable, and I did have a couple of mods (just aircraft skins and the like, nothing big). Maybe that was the root of it.
