Once again, coming into my local airport, KBDL after a long flight, the ILS worked as far as centerline, but not in altitude, thus I basically turned it off. Cannot have AP on and adjust as it turns it off. So I can still fly / land, I used the VASI. Luckily, I remembered the Ol’ saying, white up all night, red dead, you know. Now I am thinking, when real time pilots are landing, and there is no ILS, can they really use the VASI? The jets, more than slower propeller, as they are further out. Also landing at the Keys in FL, they do not have ILS but I swear in FSX there was. I searched for VASI and read those posts, but not exactly what I am asking here. Thanks in advance.
The 3:1 ratio works very well for approaches. For instance 3 miles from touchdown should be approximately 1000ft above ground, 6 miles, 2000ft, etc. Yes it is mental math haha
Well in the case of Asiana Airlines Flight 214… They can’t!
1 Like
Nothing beats learning and practicing hand flying. I just put an iced-over X-Cub on the runway with full realism and an A/P that stopped responding 40+ miles out.
Yes, I’d already practiced for just such a thing because you never know, do you.
Also, many non-precision approaches include a CDA (Coded descent angle), which is programmed into the FMGC to provide vertical guidance.
1 Like
A yoke, a throttle and a windshield. And no, I’m not being a wiseguy.
4 Likes
Yep, one of the most dangerous things in the world is having two captains in the cockpit. Or in this case, three.
Like @cptruski said, VNAV - right down to the touchdown zone. Almost no reason to land without some sort of in-cockpit vertical guidance (in a modern aircraft).
Sounds like the Aerosoft CRJ may have an advisory VNAV glidepath modeled correctly (sometimes called a snowflake). But as with most CRJ’s, no ability to couple the autopilot to it, so have to manually follow it using vertical speed.
I’ve been doing that, I’ve not used AP but decend to 3000 to pick up the ILS then manually fly down the decent trying to balance speed and decent to keep the marker in the middle.
It’s really good fun but hard work trying to watch and balance multiple things.
1 Like
Sounds like you are doing a LOC approach…not ILS?
Landing an airliner with no ILS?
Well if in bad weather, you need instruments, and you can rely on an external ILS, or your can program your inertial system to lookalike your ILS. and you can do other tricks too. Used to have outer, middle, and also inner markers. Those combined with old school DME could get you there, but not as easy. … Using the VASI, or PAPI in French is a good way to visualize wether you are too high, too low, or on the correct descent plan. 4 lights. 4 white > way too high. 3 white, too high. 2 white 2 red, OK, 3 red too low, 4 red. you will soon be smashing the ground
In a clear day, to land a 747, you need your eyes, your hands, airsped, altimeter, Variometer… and that is it…
You fly this thing like any plane, and this is why you have to take flying lesons to fly a plane, and to land it in one piece. You need to visualize your approach slope, which is a bit difficult for me in fs2020… it is easier in a real plane. And of course you need to have the right parameters. speed, vertical speed, and you need to keep the correct approach level. When above, correct it, when below correct it.
Relying on instruments like ILS and not properly monitoring your speed is a receipe for disaster. Asiana 777 in SF is a perfect example of poor pilot skills, not up to the job! You can fly a 747 and make patterns with it like you do with a DR400, and I saw my preferred pilot live doing in in Grenoble France, 1500 fr middle downwind, no problem. And this was not a flight simulator.
1 Like
The three listed instrument approaches are listed as “ILS/DME,” so there should be a glideslope.
As for the actual landing, that’s why students learn stick and rudder skills first. Rwy 32 at KGSO didn’t have any instrument approach for a long time, but in winter, you can often see the wind coming almost straight down that runway combined with clear skies. Planes would take off from 23 or 5 (this was in the days before the new 5L/23R), but would land using visual 32.
Most airliners will are now capable of providing some sort of vertical guidance, regardless of the approach. In normal line flying, this would always be loaded, regardless of the approach flown.
For the regional guys flying multiple sectors a day into quiet airports, visual approaches are normal. For long haul, where 3-4 sectors a month is normal, visual approaches are almost never seen.
Ultimately though, every pilot should be capable of landing the aircraft visually from 5-10nm. Some places require crew to preform visual circuits as part of the type rating to demonstrate this, even in wide body’s like the 787 or 747.
1 Like
Even in “real life” it might happen that you have to fly a visiual approach. Patterns are trained and also described in the manual. If you google that, you will find a chart copied from the manual.
Standard ist 1500ft above ground, donwind from baseline you count 3sec/100ft ± a 1sec/kt wind. After 45 sec Floas2, turn ro final with -300ft and on final 3 degrees nose down and approx IASx5=vs ft/min, for example 750ft/min. The Airbus within MSFS has no Bird-Mode, with that you can set the bird on -3 and that is fair enough.
Landing by hand and eye (plus the basic instruments) is much more enjoyable, you are throttle, stick and rudder pilot then, not only system operator. Having such skill requires training, so flying big jets requires hundreds hours on smaller planes first, with gradually increasing size and complexity
There are other means of avionics on some airliners that can aid visual approaches. For example, the velocity vector that Boeing and Airbus displays on the PFD gives a lot of information. Also we definitely use VASI or PAPI when available. However, due to some models being much longer than your typical GA aircraft, you have to follow the slope guidance a bit lower to maintain correct landing spot. Ex. 777, 747, 767/757, A321, A330/340
Well, the OP asked “how do airliners land without ILS” , so the right answer technically is “any other instrument approach available”. Namely, VOR/DME, VOR, NDB/DME, NDB, LDA and so on. Airliners fly IFR so visual approaches are also possible when transition to visual is possible depending on the weather conditions.
Hand flying has nothing to do with the existence of an ILS approach, unless company policies and SOPs dictate so.