Please add the msfs-2020 or msfs-2024 tag to your post, depending on which sim your post is about.
I am used to flying the Boeings and am fully capable of flying an ILS approach in real bad weather.
HOWEVER: In these missions I am landing in bad weather with a Platius 24 or Caravan. These obscure airports don’t even show up in Navigraph, some not even on can’t be found in GOOGLE, you can’t enter the airport in the FMC and there are never any ILS approach plates or runway charts.
So what am I missing, how do I fly a landing in low visibility with no charts? I wrecked too many planes and it really sets me back in $$$$
Hey @JokingCrayon538. First of all, your post is regarding “missions”, and it is unclear if you are referring to MS2020 missions or MS2024 career mode. If I have overlooked the obvious, please forgive my oversight.
Using modern glass cockpits in the aircraft you listed offers the opportunity to fly to any airport in the world using a visual or IFR (RNAV/ILS) approaches down to minimums. In MS2024 I do this frequently when landing at some of the very small/obscure airports in career mode missions. Here’s a YT video to help you understand how this can be done anywhere in the world.
I do hope this helps when trying to land at an obscure airport with poor weather. It has certainly done wonders for all my approaches when there are zero published charts. And again, if I missed your point, apologies.
If an airport does not have an approved/published instrument approach procedure, do you still find it in the glass cockpit? If so, that would be an artifact of sim as game, rather than simulating IRL IFR flight operations, correct?
Yes. As long as the airport is listed by the FAA (USA) or other regulatory agencies elsewhere, you should find them in the sim. If I am wrong, hopefully someone will correct me.
As to your second point… there at thousands of airports without published approaches that glass cockpit type aircraft (modern, GPS equipped - G1000 NXi, G3000, etc.) can compute approaches to all day long without charts. The approach is computed all on-aircraft with zero dependence upon a ground-based signal. All it needs are accurate coordinates for where the airport is (lat/long/altitude).
Good to know. About that last point, just because the on-board system can compute an approach path does not mean that one should fly it in IMC without an approved approach procedure to observe. Approved procedures take into account much more than glide path to establish flight parameters within which an approach can be made (and departed from as missed) safely when adhered to. Of course we all enjoy a flight simulation game and can make whatever decisions we choose to have fun. When it doesn’t work out, we live to share about it!
Absolutely. My point is that the onboard GPS avionics capability will compute a lateral and vertical path to the runway, but when not on an approved RNAV approach, it isn’t recommended (or approved) in IMC. You can perform VFR approaches like this all day long without charts anywhere in the world.
In Career Modes inFS2024, I am doing a cargo flight and the destination airport doesn’t show up in the PC-24. My Navigraph has no charts for the airport either.
I can line up my plane in a general line direction but I have no idea where I am on the glideslope as there is no ILS at this airport. So are the missions flawed in Career mode in FS2024 by giving me an impossible approach for the weather they pre-selected for the mission, Or is there another way to fly an approach where you can see nothing out the window. Please remember, if I take the same PC24 into say KJFK, I fully know how to input the ILF Freq/heading into the FMC and fly this plane to minimums with no problem, but in the MS2024 Missions I am flying into some private airport like 2S4 in Kansas
Even if you never plan to fly on their network, sign up for VatSim. Why? Because you need that to access ChartFox. If charts are available for a given airport outside the US, this is where you’re most likely to find them.
Some airports have “interesting” approach procedures. You may be required to fly a certain VOR radial while monitoring altitude and DME distance. KBUY has one of those for Rwy 24. If you can spot the runway lights by the specified distance, you can follow them in, otherwise, go somewhere else. Other fields are strictly VFR only.
I think you hit a bug in Honeywell avionics which are installed on both PC-12 and PC-24 - they don’t accept 3 character airports, which apparently are very common in the US. I think that if you go via EFB and send route to avionics it will be added and then you can select approach (either vectors or straight) via the avionics, to the point where if you select straight, a new waypoint will be added and altitudes will be set, which in turn provides g/s for vnav. And while I haven’t done so personally, I’ve heard that PC-24 can then even perform autoland…