Hi, I think this will be hard to explain, but if any of you have thoughts, I’d appreciate hearing them.
I’ve repeatedly tried to land an ILS approach to KSEA 16L via PAE, and I’ve never been successful. I’ve watched most of the ILS tutorials for the concorde on YT, and read the manual from DC designs.
I’m approaching the runway from PAE just to make sure I have a long stable approach. I get to PAE using the simbrief loaded flight plan in the FMC and INS selected, then I use TRK HDG to line up with the runway. I have the ILS frequency (110.30) loaded into both NAV 1 and NAV 2 on the FMC. I even dial it in on both of the standby selectors on the AFCS panel.
Once I get onto runway heading, and think I’m close enough, I switch the RAD/NAV selector to RAD, and select VOR/LOC on the AFCS panel. I have AT1 and AT2 active, as do I have AP1 and AP2.
This is where it gets hairy. Neither the flight director nor the HDI seem to be able to locate the VOR/ILS frequency. Sometimes it wants to point in a not-quite-180 degree direction opposite of the runway bearing. Most of the time, it doesn’t seem to direct the plane at all, like it’s passive.
I think I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, which is line up with the runway, use VOR nav to fine-tune, and once I’m close enough, low enough, and inline with the glide slope, click GLIDE/LAND to activate autoland. Every time so far, I just overfly the airport on some wonky heading.
Hi SpryBard,
Having just finished a Round the World trip in my Concorde, I thought I would give this a go. I checked that 110.30MHz was working first using a Cessna 152 and no problems there. I got in Concorde in Vancouver and made my way down to Seattle. I settled the plane at 170 knots and 3,000 feet about 20 miles out and switched to the radio and put the second AP on. All looked good. When the Concorde was obviously tracking the ILS, I switched on Autoland and the red ‘Autoland’ light lit in the cockpit. Then just like you, nothing… Concorde drifted off towards Tacoma at 3,000 feet. I tried to land on the reverse runway 34R which shares the frequency but had the same problem. I retuned the radios for 16C and turned once more to try an Autoland approach. Failure again. At 0/3 on Autolands, I landed my Concorde manually at Seattle.
In my world trip I only saw this type of thing once at Cairo International, at all other airports the system worked just fine. I thought I had made a mistake but perhaps not? I can confirm your findings but I am afraid I have relatively little Concorde experience and do not know what to suggest other than a message on the DC Designs discord?
Thank you for such in-depth confirmation. I tried your flight plan (CYVR - KSEA 16L) this evening and ultimately came the same result. I landed manually, however, with the NAV/RAD switch in NAV, and close to the VOR, after pressing GLIDE/LAND the HSI heading seemed correct, albeit too late to autoland. I’m going to try other airport ILS’s before reaching out to DC Designs to see if I’m actually doing it the right way. Sincerely, though. Thank you.
I hand fly most ILS approaches in the Concorde, but when I want it to work with AP I make sure I have an approach path in the FP that is close to the ILS course. With NAV/RAD switched to NAV, I then hit GLIDE and confirm that the AP turns slightly to track the localiser then switch NAV/RAD to RAD for the ILS approach. Sometimes this doesn’t work first time, so before switching NAV/RAD to RAD quickly reselect INS and GLIDE and it picks it up properly. In the rare event it still doesn’t pick up the ILS, I kick off the AP and hand fly that puppy all the way down.
I have exactly the same issues as you.
I watched like 6-7 Concorde landing tutorial videos on youtube, that well are now 9 months old so maybe they are outdated as we have version of Concorde 1.0.6 I think. So maybe DC changed a few things.
Anyway I did all the things like you, in my past 12 flights, and only 2-3 were working and doing the autoland. Rest nothing.
I am pulling my hair out. I am new to the Flight Sim and love Concorde so this autoland feature is great to have for learning the landing. But it is so frustrating when it is only working in like 25% of my landings
Hi Jovzin, welcome!
The one thing that improved autoland reliability for me was setting both active and stand-by radio frequencies to the correct frequency i.e. 4 settings, two on each radio. There is a button under the frequency display on each radio to switch between active and stand-by frequency. Make sure the white switch is on radio and not navigation and both auto pilots are on for landing. In the 11 landings I made in my round the world trip, 10 worked perfectly and only Cairo did not which is a known problem. I have not tried Seattle again since the recent Concorde update but suspect something will still be wrong.
Hello. I have various problems with the concorde. It all starts well. when i want to land with the ils nothing works anymore the plane can’t find a LOC, you can no longer set the frequency, it’s all bugged if you want to land with autopilot.
I tested different situations. if you fly without a route, for example, a round flight starts and you land again, the ILS autopilot works. Try it yourself!
if you fly a complete route and want to land, nothing works anymore. I can’t even change the frequency anymore.
but as soon as i landed at the airport the plane recognizes the LOC ILS and it shows
I’ve flown many Concorde flights recently and the AP behaves just fine with ILS and autoland approaches. Make sure you have Concorde V1.06 installed as that is the latest and works well with SU11. Also, make sure you have the RAD/INS switched to RAD for correct ILS indications.
I agree with ResetXPDR, it is working well. I have been testing Concorde on my round the world bush trip and all seven landings worked perfectly with autoland. I set all 4 radio frequencies to the ILS landing (2 pilot, 2 co-pilot to be sure) and arrive at about 2-3,000 feet agl with about 20 miles left. Once the DME is awake, make sure both autopilots are on before pressing autoland.
I have only ever had problems at Cairo and Seattle Airports which I don’t think is the plane’s fault.
I haved done a tour with this aircraft and most approaches I had to land it manually. I didn’t try to tune all 4 radios to the ils freq.
But, I’m nearly sure that it is related with the approach phase MCDU.
As you all should now by now, the MCDU is taken from the default A320, so, it has differents phases of flight. And when you reach somewhere close to the approach, it automatically triggers.
Maybe this happens only when introducing flight plan in world map, but this happens.
When approach phase is active, I’m no longer able to even change the standby freq, so it’s impossible to correct it.
So, the best we can do if this does not work is to do a RNAV approach and be lucky of having good visuals of the runway
Hi Andres291,
I am happy to try autolanding at a couple of the airports where you had to land manually if you would give me some names. It might take us a step forward in understanding what is happening in case we want to report to DC Designs at some point.
Hi Andres291,
I have made three quick Concorde flights this evening to try out some of the airports you named.
Dublin - Manchester using Runway 5R @111.55MHz
Naples Fl - Miami using Runway 9 @ 110.9MHz
Alicante - Madrid using Runway 32L @ 109.9MHz
On all three flights the plane intercepted and flew the ‘Autoland’ approach correctly. I chose to take over when 100-200 ft AGL but the plane had navigated and descended from ~15nm out in each case.
I tried to fly fairly accurately towards the glideslope and set the airspeed for landing to 170 knots. I used AT1, FD1 and both autopilots to land and my usual trick of setting all 4 available frequencies to the desired value.
@N6722C the autoland on the Concorde is fine until just above ground but benefits from the human touch for the final touchdown and roll out in my view. This is 1960’s technology after all.
I used the world map to position then flew from there, there was no flight plan just a starting runway selected for these short flights. I have just tried Buffalo to Toronto which worked even though the DME readings never showed.
I have made two round the world bush trips involving long legs using Little Nav Map to plan legs. The only two airports where I have had real problems with autoland so far are Cairo and Seattle.
Hi, everybody
Does autoland still work for you. I am unable to pick any ILS signal in Concorde.
Nothing happens, just flies over. Can somebody give me a short brief SOP what needs to be done so I can verify everything I do is correct.
Thanks
Tom
