Last Hail Mary for Help. I CANNOT Land an ILS approach

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1

Ok. I thought I would try this last attempt to see if anyone can tell me what Im doing wrong. I have had around 50 Failed attempts to land the 787 at Indianapolis ILS 5L. I have it set to fly the High Altitude Airways.
I take off from Chicago KORD and have a flight plan to fly an ILS to Indianapolis ILS Runway 5L. I have the AUTOPILOT engaged after takeoff and I have my nav radio set to the ILS frequency of 111.75 I have the Course set to 50 degrees. I fly LNAV with FCLH the whole way to the WAAYN final waypoint hitting it at 5000 feet. LNAV will line me up. I am told to decend to the next marker at 4000 feet. I engage the LOC waiting for the GS to see both diamonds. As soon as they light up, i hit APPR. Then i am told to decend to 3000 ft. But that’s where it falls apart. Even when i am on the GS, the airplane will not decend below the 3000 feet mark. It somehow loses the APPR glide slope. It wont ever drop below the 3000 foot mark. It wont follow the GS downward. So i go zipping down the runway at 3000 feet above the pavement.

Ive tried hitting the APPR at the final waypoint (WAAYN) no good
Ive tried just letting the LNAV and FLCH take me the whole way.,… nothing…
Ive tried disabling the LNAV at the WAAYN marker and just using the LOC until I see the GS diamonds… Failure.
Honestly, I am completely stumped. I don’t know what else to do. Im either not doing something correctly, or Im obviously doing SOMETHING wrong…
If someone is kind enough to either help me, or just shoot me, either way it will put me out of My misery.
Thanks

2
Summary

I haven’t tried doing an ILS approach in the 787 so I can’t speak to that. Are you sure NAV1 was set to 111.75?

Edit: looks like you’re seeing the GS so I’m guessing that’s working.

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3

sounds like you have alt hold, or the vertical climb option locked? OR you aren’t locked onto the GS just happen to run into it. Not sure with the MS2020

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4

You havent talked much about your speed. what speed are you at when you attempt to descend? I have found that if you speed is above the auto pilot set speed (managed or not), it will never ever descent. It wants to be at or below that speed.
just a wild guess

5

Are you at the correct altitude? Maybe speed restriction? Study the approach charts.

6

Try descending to 3000 before engaging approach, or remain at 4000 until the plane is on the g/s. This shouldn’t happen. Both the ATC and the autopilots are rather buggy. Another thing to try would be to engage the localizer mode at 4000 to lock you in laterally, and then after you descend to 3000, engage the appr mode to get lateral and vertical.

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Ya that is an interesting thing. I turn off the auto throttle but somehow it turns itself back on and I start speeding up. That drives me nuts. I have been told that you have to have the AP on for the GS to work so I don’t disengage it

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Ya I shut them off but somehow they magically come back on. Drives me crazy

9

Could there be a radio frequency for the glideslope that I may not be putting in manually?

10

I haven’t figured it out either, I do agree the controls seem to have a mind of their own like the auto throttle. Its a lot different than FSX and from what I found out its more reaslistic in MS2020, so maybe it was just simplified in FSX? try youtube, there are a few ILS videos some peeps did

11

Ya I never had any of these issues with FSX.

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12

Well I guess I feel a little better now. I decided to let the copilot fly the airplane and I will watch and see if I can see anything going on that I can learn from. All I learned was the copilot is worse than I am he crashed the airplane into a field. Note to self: don’t watch the copilot fly to learn.

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13

Just for a test, I flew the A320 into KIND - ILS runway 5. Everything worked as expected as ATC directed me down to 5K, then 4K, then 3K until I intercepted the localizer and then the glide slope. And the A320s auto land feature even greased the landing.

I have tried the 787 as well, but am not as familiar with the AP and the sequence required to fly the ILS approach. One thing I read is that you should not use the LOC as that turns off some of the systems required for the ILS approach. I would recommend letting the autopilot get you roughly lined up with the runway using the waypoints, then use the APP to lock you onto the localizer. If you intercept the glide slope from below, it should lock you on and start the final decent.

14

Sounds like it’s staying in LOC mode and never switches to ILS. I haven’t looked at the 787 FMS but I think there’s a setup step you’re missing

15

Hmm Interesting. I will try it again letting LNAV guide me and then not use the LOC and just use the APP when im getting closer. But i have noticed the auto throttle and alt hold have a mind of thier own. Perhaps Ill have to try the A320. But like you with the 787, I am not as familiar with the A320 But I really appreciate your response

16

Is the problem with the approach itself or getting the autopilot to fly it for you? Have you tried flying the approach without the AP? What are the command bars in the FD telling you?

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I have a lot more luck with the Airbus than the 787. If you haven’t already, get the 320 mods as well. They are very good and makes the airbus a somewhat reasonable flyer. With the mods It is definitely a much better plane in this sim than the stock 787.

18

It is really hard to offer any help when you don’t specify what aircraft you are flying. Quite frankly, I’m not sure there is even a problem for YOU to sort out. It very well might be the sim and the aircraft and/or the incomplete modelling of systems.

Terminology you use in your post leads me to believe you are in an airliner, and in that case I lean heavily towards it being a MSFS2020 issue.

But, assuming it isn’t MSFS2020… here is how it “should” work.

TL;DR make sure you have your MCP altitude set to the glideslope intercept point alt – and that you are below that alt when you want to intercept and follow GS. Make sure you have the ILS freq dialed into both NAV radios, and the CRS knob(s) set to the ILS course.

You program an arrival in your FMC and fly it with autopilot, both LNAV and VNAV and adjusting your MCP alt along that arrival. Along that route you get assigned a runway via a transition, and you get cleared to that transition IAF and cleared for that approach.

Now it is time to put that approach into the FMC, and activate it.Time to put that ILS freq in the nav radios, set the CRs knobs to the runaway course, and set your MCP ALT to what that IAF says your alt should be at that point.

I actually usually set MCP ALT a little lower, at the altitude the approach says will be the GS intercept. Note, that won’t make autopilot put you at that altitude when you arrive at the IAF – it just tells the autopilot that it is allowed to guide the plane further down past that IAF.

As you near the IAF, your FMC will probably indicate it is time to DECCELerate. Since you have autothrottle (AT) on, it will try to do this, but you may need to help with speedbrake, and extend flaps a few notches when at the right speed.

As your AP continues to follow the approach, at some point you will be on a path to intercept the final course, and your aircraft will probably be below the glideslope (GS). If you are flying in AP HDG mode, then you can’t yet set HDG to runway course. But if you are in VNAV mode, go ahed and set HDG to runway ILS published course.

This is where you want to be. in order to intercept LOC and GS. Below GS is important. As you get near the intercept point(s) you will see LOC diamonds become solid, and the GS diamonds become solid. Now it is time to hit the APP mode.

Once the APP mode is active, the aircraft should intercept and follow the LOC and also the GS and then descend on the GS. You shouldn’t have to do anything.

That said, if you have forgotten to put the CRS knobs to the ILS course, and/or the HDG to ILS course, then things aren’t going to work as expected.

But if you did everything right, the aircraft will intercept and follow LOC and GS, and now it is time to get flaps and gear in landing config and the speed set to Vref + 5kts. Unless the aircraft is equipped and certified for autoland, you should disengage autopilot and autothottle around decision height, or at your discretion.

Now, I can do as described above all day long and not have issues in any other sim (even in default aircraft) But I haven’t had a lot of success getting the 747 or a320 in MSFS2020 to really work as expected. But to be fair, I haven’t spent too much time on it because I am convinced it just isn’t really ready. Autopilot is too buggy and avionics modelling not mature and incomplete.

The majority of my personal experience is in Boeing airliners and avionics in other sims.

19

What helped me the most is watching videos on YT. Doesn’t even matter if it’s this sim or not. The principles are the same. Also try different airports. I’ve found there are some inconsistencies in this sim in the auto pilot and some localiser/ILS approaches.

20

Ok I have tried this 3 more failed times. Here’s what its doing now… I get to WAAYN and i descend to 4000 feet then to 3000 feet. I try to cut airspeed to 145 so maybe, just maybe, it will catch the GS. It wont let me. I shut off the AT and the ALT HOLD and try to slow down manually. IT WONT LET ME. It turns itself back on and speeds up. I have tried everything including shutting off the autopilot master. I try again to slow down. It turns itself on again and speeds up and climbs back to 3000 feet. This airplane is POSSESED… Nothing i try to do will let me slow down and try to find the GS. I literally cannot control it. I cannot seem to control anything manually…
I REALIZE i am not a pilot. I don’t even play one on TV… But I really enjoyed FSX and had years of fun with it. This version at least for me is a NIGHTMARE!!!
None of the rest of you seem to be having any problems with this… So it obviously is ME …" Sigh"

I have a i7 7700 processor with 32Gb DDR4 memory running this program from a dedicated SSD running through a NVidia 1080 Video Card. I run the graphics at the optimized NVidia recommended settings.