ILS

[DeltaMike]

ILS is messed up. Sort of. Been playing the ILS lottery last few days -- I can get it on the ground, just no guarantee where -- and this is what I've come up with -- if you guys could check my work that would be cool.

 

The HSI course appears to be the runway heading, I figure if you can find the airport, I can follow the inverse course for 10 or 15 miles descending, do (at least one) 180 to line up with the runway, and try to be at 3000 ft AGL 10 miles out. If I can get that far without running into a mountain, then I follow the HSI until it quits -- CDI swings to one side -- and at that point it looks like the needles are working and... well, nothing can possibly go wrong at that point, right? Skid to a stop, Jim Carey style: like a glove!

 

As for finding the airport, I can do waypoint zero to get back where I started. If I want to go someplace else in general, ATC occasionally has useful information. But I'm getting the feeling that the steering bug, and the localizer are both pointing somewhere in the vicinity of the airfield. Yes? No? Couple of days ago it was pointing me toward the initial point, now I'm not sure what it's doing but ... get me on the runway heading and I can generally figure it out.

 

If there's an easier way I'll be glad to hear it... the F15 is a fine tool for certain things, but dang. The thing needs avionics. I swear it's like between the F18 and the F-15 I have enough parts to build one decent fighter, ya know?

[draconus]

Here you can read about the good method:

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2058068&postcount=7

or read the whole thread.

 

 

It all depends how serious you are about your sim.If you want it as real as possible in the game you should know where you are and where you want to land. Check the desired airport chart (kneeboard) to properly join the pattern and check elevations. Call the Inbound, ATC will tell you the bearing and distance to the Initial and designate the RWY. You take it from there - either straight in or overhead. When they have visuals on you - you can call Request landing. Mind you ATC will call missed approach while trying overhead - don't worry :)

 

 

Now a few answers:

 

Not all airports have ILS (thus no needles working for them).

 

The ATC comm menu is sorted from the nearest to furthest (so not only simplification - it's a cheat!).

 

If you cycle through waypoints in ILS mode they are always in the same order no matter where you left it and yes, on the HSI there are current runway courses (you can tell all airports from that alone as they are unique, accurate up to the point of between the degrees; also they change course for most runways depending on the wind direction) plus distance (nm) and bearing to the Initial. So it's good to be allign with runway before hitting that point because the bearing/distance then changes towards the runway and if you're not alligned you just go off-course from that moment.

 

 

 

It's not perfect but for DCS/FC3 is the best you can get without mods. Happy landings!

Edited January 31, 2019 by draconus

[DeltaMike]

Thanks, yeah I saw that and the key is the runway heading (and knowing what the HSI is telling you)

 

Not every place has ILS, not every runway is bidirectional, and NTTR is kind of a mess, partially because there are a lot of airports right next to each other. But that is a good hack, and most of the time when it's bad weather and I need to get down *now* it's on a multiplayer caucasus map, and it does seem to work best on that map, no doubt about it.

 

Challenge is getting set up. I was toying with flying arcs but it's never totally clear where the center of the arc is. Also never totally clear where the mountains are. I figure the reverse-course-180 is probably the best bet in IMC.

 

I dunno that calling ATC is a cheat, it is possible IRL to call center and say, "I don't know where I'm at." Ya just hate to admit that flying around in a $20 million jet, ya know? "Yeah we've been watching you fly around in restricted airspace for the last hour..." But, what are they gonna do? Scramble an F15 to intercept you? Go ahead, make my day!

[draconus]

No, the cheat part is that you have it sorted by distance, so you instantly know your approximate location just by looking at the ATC comm menu. You shouldn't probably have all those airports (21) info IRL aircraft. Just a few: main AB and 1-2 diverts.

About IMC it's not really Eagle's thing. In case of total IFR you should probably divert IRL. You don't even have a radar altimeter. As for the mountains it's your responsibility as a pilot to know the terrain beforehand and to know where you are.

 

Good training is to fly beetwen Vasiani and other two nearby airports - just touch and go, use comms a lot as well as HSI.

 

As for the arcs you can use any waypoint as a "Tacan/radio beacon". That way you beam it with HSI and check for the radial. It's my personal hack I use in NTTR :)

[DeltaMike]

Yeah. At night. Hmm this doesn't look like nellis at all!!!!