I just want my experience to be realistic and I do not really know which approach to go for when flying airliners. Can anyone post a guide or how do I know if I should go for a visual, gps or ils?
On a controller airfield it’s the ATC’s job to assign you an approach. In most cases it will be ILS unless for some reasons it’s unavailable.
When flying airliners you don’t really make any decisions regarding the routing. It’s your companies operations department for planning and ATC / clearance for execution.
1 Like
So in my case, should I plan ILS landing for every flight I do on the sim?
If you are doing an IFR flight plan, you should be given an arrival runway and approach by ATC when you are 50-60 miles out. You can then confirm the approach and runway or ask for a different one through the ATC menu.
Just like the departure runway, you will generally be landing into the wind.
I would highly recommend you looking at approach plates and airport diagrams. That will help you a lot and make a lot more sense once you can visually see what ATC is asking you to do. You can find most airport diagrams by just typing “KJFK airport diagram” or " EGLL airport diagram" into google. I like to use Navigraph.
1 Like
I would disagree to an extent. You can ask for any approach you want, and ATC will generally give it to you if they can. If they’re landing runway 33 and give you the ILS, and you want the RNAV, ask for it. They might not give you an approach to a different runway if you ask for it, but they may even give you that, traffic permitting.
It depends on the runway you are landing at, the weather conditions, the pilot’s 'take" on the approach and landing conditions, and also IRL, the airline’s policies.
A lot of airlines insist that their pilots use ILS approaches when available and safe to do.
Some runways don’t have an ILS at all, so your obviously landing visual.
Some have just a localizer and the pilot has to control descent.
GPS approaches are not normally done in airliners, as most don’t use, or have, a GPS.
Some airline SOPs dictate that visual approaches are prohibited if an ILS or RNAV approach is available.
Depending on weather, some crews will opt to take a visual approach for smaller regional jets if there’s an operational advantage (save time and fuel).
If you want to do the cookie-cutter policy and always be conservative, then the order of preference is:
- ILS
- RNAV
- Visual
- VOR
- NDB
My personal preference for private flying where I care more about saving air time and reducing fuel consumption is:
- Visual
- ILS
- RNAV
- VOR
- NDB
2 Likes
Yeah, that’s funny. Of all the possible runways and approaches at KSFO with almost no wind I got assigned 1R visual (inbound from the north) yesterday for whatever reason. Surprisingly I made it safely but I think several people in the cabin needed to change their underwear on the airport toilet.
Yeah, they’re constantly giving RW28 approaches at TNCM/St. Maarten, including to airliners. I’m rather certain RW28 approaches are prohibited by the airlines, given it’s visual-only. (They go missed every time, which you would expect).
1 Like
Yeah, I’ve flown in there a bunch of times and spent countless hours watching the webcam. Never once in my life have I seen anything larger than a light twin land on 28.