I’m getting the hang of the ILS workaround for the G1000 NXi. I flew multiple times (lost count) from Salinas (KSNS) to San Luis County Regional Airport KSBP, south of San Luis Obispo, to do an ILS landing on RWY 11 there. Out of, I dunno, four or five attempts, I managed to more or less nail two ILS approaches. I had to abort a couple of those flights out of Salinas because the flight plans I’d “filed” in the World Map loaded weird in the NXi, and I didn’t clean them up in the PROC menu before taking off. I aborted another flight transitioning to final near KSBP when I hit the REV button instead of the NAV button on the autopilot.
On flights I completed I also wound up flying a couple of different routes due to either something I did in the World Map or in the NXi, but I couldn’t tell you what at the moment. One route took me down the Salinas Valley to Paso Robles before turning west over the mountains to the coast, and the other turned west before Paso Robles. I didn’t mind, because I used to live in the Salinas Valley and I enjoyed seeing it from different perspectives.
Anyway, back to the NXi and ILS. Today I found that even when I did everything right, the autopilot would still be a degree or two off course on final. I set the LOC needle and heading bug for 110 degrees before takeoff, but still wound up flying on a final heading 111 or 112 degrees – after switching the CDI to LOC and pressing NAV immediately thereafter. So I had to make some minor adjustments after coming off autopilot.
As for my failures, on one attempted ILS approach I was too high at the final fix, didn’t catch the glideslope, and disengaged the autopilot early to land the G58 I was “flying.” I compensated for this the next time by descending below the glideslope before I reached the final fix. That landing and the one following went well, but the next time I tried to duplicate it, something went haywire. Though I was on the glideslope, I was too high, too late, and the tower told me to go around, which I did. The upside was I got some more hands-on experience with the G58, and I have to say it’s not my favorite airplane. For reasons I don’t understand, I had a hard time trimming it in that situation. It was bouncing all over the place as I pulled up and turned away from the airport. This may have been due to my tardiness in retracting my flaps and landing gear (I had a lot going on), but it does seem to be a somewhat bouncy plane – even on takeoff, maybe for the same reason. The G36 is less touchy. I like this livery anyway …
