ILS Indications

[Leg2ion]

After some feedback as to whether my ILS is working properly or not?

I was returning into Senaki - day sortie, contacted ATC who directed to use runway 09, with windspeed of 3 m/s - so expecting ILS to be off. Dialled in the TACAN and ILS frequencies and turned both systems on via their respective control panels.  ILS and TACAN were then both selected to on in the NMSP (not sure whether that is 'allowable' but seems to work OK). 

As expected I had no steer bars on the ADI but did have the warning flags, but then selected ILS off on the NMSP - at which point the vertical steerbar appeared and the flags disappeared.

Is this correct as cannot recall this happening before - but could be wrong?

Edited January 31, 2022 by Leg2ion

[ASAP]

2 hours ago, Leg2ion said:

After some feedback as to whether my ILS is working properly or not?

I was returning into Senaki - day sortie, contacted ATC who directed to use runway 09, with windspeed of 3 m/s - so expecting ILS to be off. Dialled in the TACAN and ILS frequencies and turned both systems on via their respective control panels.  ILS and TACAN were then both selected to on in the NMSP (not sure whether that is 'allowable' but seems to work OK). 

As expected I had no steer bars on the ADI but did have the warning flags, but then selected ILS off on the NMSP - at which point the vertical steerbar appeared and the flags disappeared.

Is this correct as cannot recall this happening before - but could be wrong?

 

Sounds like the ILS freq is either wrong, or not working correctly.

You can have TACAN and ILS selected at the same time. In fact its required for a lot of approaches. Having TACAN selected gets you the DME and having ILS selected gives you the needles to fly. What you described sounds like the ILS was not getting any signal which is why it was showing the red flags. When you deselected the ILSe, the steering bar that came back was for the TACAN. Double check frequencies, that the ILS receiver was powered on, and that you were in range. I wanna say the range is like 18 nm for the localizer and something closer to 10 nm for the glide slope. If that was all correct it's probably a game/frequency issue.

Edited February 1, 2022 by ASAP

[Leg2ion]

To me then it appears all is well, as I wouldn't expect any steer bars due to daytime low wind conditions - so runway ILS would have been turned off - hence the flags.

Thanks.

[ASAP]

Yeah, I didn't think about the system just being turned off, but that would certainly do it too. As a pilot, unless the ILS is NOTAM'd down or out of service my assumption is that it would be on, even in perfect blue sky/calm wind conditions.

[Zodiacc]

First try to unmute morse signal for TACAN/ILS from left-aft panel, so it can give you an idea if you hook-up with the TACAN/ILS or not.Additionally try to increase wind speed in ME, because some airports forces you to use spesific runway without considering wind direction ( if wind speed is minimal ).However if both side of runways have an ILS freq it might not match with the correct runway because determination of ILS Power depended on wind direction.

In a nutsheel ATC might give you runway 27 but ILS might be turned on for runway 09.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Zodiacc

[SmilingBandit]

On 2/1/2022 at 8:15 AM, ASAP said:

Yeah, I didn't think about the system just being turned off, but that would certainly do it too. As a pilot, unless the ILS is NOTAM'd down or out of service my assumption is that it would be on, even in perfect blue sky/calm wind conditions.

Visual backed up by ILS is a pretty common practice.

[Frederf]

DCS uses wind state to determine which ILS (or PRMG or 2NDB) systems are on and off for a given runway. DCS always picks an approach direction for radio landing aids, turning them on for one direction and off from the other regardless of if either system exist. Last I checked there are edge cases where ATC directed runway and ILS operating runway are not the same but 90% of the time they agree.

Primary method of identifying a localizer in real life is by the Morse identification code. That let's you know identity at least. Dual NMSP TACAN/ILS selection is perfectly normal and useful. With both selected the TACAN drives a bearing needle and the distance readout while the ILS controls the CDI and GS needles.

TACAN or simply visual or any means of knowing you are in the rough localizer corridor is a good start. Within +-15 degrees of the runway centerline and 10-30mi at 1-3 thousand feet should be fine. When the ILS is NMSP selected and the CDI is not flagged you're receiving valid localizer. The next step is to check if it's forward sensing or reverse sensing. By flying left and right of the centerline verify that the needle shows the correct direction to return (set inbound course on OBS to make this easier to see clearly). If you're unsure fly low over the runway along the centerline picking up the glide path as it centers, it will only work on the front side of the pattern.

[ASAP]

14 hours ago, SmilingBandit said:

Visual backed up by ILS is a pretty common practice.

Yup totally agree, at night especially I always back up the visual with the ILS. During the day, maybe, maybe not, the ILS guides you on a 3 degree glide path to the captains bars on the runway which is long of where fighters are normally going to land. Fighters typically aim for the runway threshold on final and flare to touch down short of the captains bars when they are flying in visual conditions which would give you slightly below glideslope indications and three red one white on the PAPI.

In real life, you'd get the ATIS and be talking to approach and tower and it would be abundantly clear what the runway in use would be and if any of the navaids are not working/turned on there would be a notam for it, and it would probably be mentioned in the ATIS. Even if the winds favor the opposite direction, I'd still expect the ILS to be operating for a given runway unless it's notam'd out. Fighters occasionally do have to make landings opposite the normal traffic flow for abnormal situations like hung ordinance.

All I meant was that the pilot having to guess what approach to use based on winds and what navaids are turned off and on in calm wind situations is purely a game-ism from DCS.

[jaylw314]

19 minutes ago, ASAP said:

Yup totally agree, at night especially I always back up the visual with the ILS. During the day, maybe, maybe not, the ILS guides you on a 3 degree glide path to the captains bars on the runway which is long of where fighters are normally going to land. Fighters typically aim for the runway threshold on final and flare to touch down short of the captains bars when they are flying in visual conditions which would give you slightly below glideslope indications and three red one white on the PAPI.

Oof, nothing wrong or illegal about aiming for the numbers, but whenever I do flight reviews in a single-engine slow GA plane and land on a runway with an ILS and PAPI, my CFI smacks me in the back of my head when I aim for the numbers  "What is this, a short-field landing?  Aim for the aiming point!" 

Edited February 11, 2022 by jaylw314

[ASAP]

1 hour ago, jaylw314 said:

Oof, nothing wrong or illegal about aiming for the numbers, but whenever I do flight reviews in a single-engine slow GA plane and land on a runway with an ILS and PAPI, my CFI smacks me in the back of my head when I aim for the numbers  "What is this, a short-field landing?  Aim for the aiming point!" 

 

LOL I had a similar experience doing my GA training. Like most things, fighters do it different than most. Sure, when doing an approach down to mins through the weather they stay on glidepath and aim for the aimpoint as well. During the day-time VFR conditions all that gets you is 1000 feet less runway to stop in. In UPT if your wheels are not on the ground by the time you pass over the captains bars, it's time to go around. They are graded on their ability to land in the first 1000 feet of the runway.

I found a few cool videos that illustrate what I'm talking about if you're a nerd like me and like watching that kind of thing. (None of this is intended to throw spears at SmilingBandit. He absolutley correct about backing up straight in approaches with the ILS. I'm diverging into irrelevant but cool military flight-isms at this point.)

Here's a good video of a T-38 doing an overhead pattern you can see his aim point on final at the 1 min 45 sec mark.

The second video is how they do it in T-6's at UPT. Its a video of a guy doing a visual straight in and the landing is around 4 min 45 sec. Best of my knowledge there's not an ILS at Kegelmen aux field in Oklahoma. At UPT bases though they are also starting their the straight in at 500 A because they are staying beneath the overhead pattern at 1000, so they are also probably too low to get much use out of the glide slope anyway.

 

 

[Suthernxtreme]

i am having this same issue. ILS and TACAN  on and operation, but no steer bars on the ADI. im running a training mission for ILS at night in a storm with zero visual aids. Storm so bad you never see the runway lights at Batumi. idk  if there is a problem with game or something with my scripts.

[Frederf]

Still works. Make sure the able/stow switch is able, primary indications (CDI/GS) are showing good, ILS ident is positive, and NMSP selections as appropriate. In certain wind condition ILS might switch on for the opposite direction which does not exist. Due to a limitation of the sim make sure your CRS is equal to the magnetic front course of the LOC to get correct ADI lateral bank steering.

A10C2 ILS ADI directors.trk