question on landing tutorial

[Byeohazard]

I am working through the various tutorials and they are starting to make more sense but I certainly don't have it all down pat.

 

At them moment I am working on the landing tutorial with ILS. I do fine up until I radio the tower and it gives me coordinates of 228,30.

I am not sure what I am suppose to do with 228 for 30 as well as qfe 29,89 Am I not seeing anything on my HUD to steer towards beyond the tadpole?

 

Also the tutor tells me to set the HSI to 130 (if I am remembering correctly)

 

What is 130 corresponding to. He just told me to set it w/o an explanation.

 

I probably need to revisit the nav tutorial again. There certainly is a lot of information.......but I am actually making baby steps and doing better as I go.

 

Thanks for any help!

Edited October 3, 2013 by Byeohazard

[Rongor]

130 degrees is the neared direction of the runway centerline which demands a final approach path towards 130°. The HSI is then used to determine your deviation from the approach path, indicated by the needle(s).

 

The tower doesn't give you coordinates. He orders you to head 228° for 30 miles. Overall idea behind this is to let you intercept the approach sector a few miles out of the runway. There you will turn towards runway heading.

Simply comply the towers advice by heading towards 228° until tower instructs otherwise and/or your HSI indicates you getting near the extended centerline.

Edited October 3, 2013 by Rongor

[Byeohazard]

Thanks Rongor,

Is the neared direction something a pilot knows before starting a flight or something the tower will give him. Is it somewhere on the MFD? I am wondering how I would get this info if the tutor did not tell me.? Lookin foreward to hearing back....thanks for the help! takin 'er up now.

[Rongor]

Well, yes, the pilot will in most cases know the direction of the runway. He will know the base already, maybe even operate the whole mission from there. In other cases he will be informed in the mission briefing.

In real world every airfield is mapped and the airfield layout as well as predefined approach procedures can be looked up in military and/or civilian publications of aviation charts.

 

For self briefing visit your DCSWorld\Doc\Charts folder. There you will find some nice data designed in real world approach charts style.

Edited October 3, 2013 by Rongor

[Faelwolf]

Handy beginner tip: Once you have set the heading into the HSI, the bar will show the runway as it appears from your current position/bearing, and the arrow will point in the direction that you will be landing on that runway. (The arrow is also pointing in the direction the airfield is relative to you, if it's pointing, say, up and to the left, you will find the airfield is ahead to the left. If it's pointing down, you might want to head back the other way..........)

 

So you can "see" the runway long before you get near it. So, if by some chance the bar is vertical, you are aimed right at the runway and can land directly. If the bar is horizontal, and you head directly in, you are going to find the shortest and widest runway you've ever seen! :)

 

This really helps with making a decision on what bearing to take to set up your final approach when there is no tower to direct you, and when there is, helps with understanding just where they are sending you.

 

The 130 is the nearest compass direction you will be facing when lined up on the runway for landing. It's usually off by a few degrees, I won't confuse you by going into an explanation of magnetic variation and declination. The 130 will be close enough as the A10 is not rated for full ILS landings. But it will be close enough to let you set up for final.

 

If you are not getting tower info, you can get the same runway info from the divert page in the CDU, or from the airfield charts. I have a set printed out for quick reference. You can download them from the downloads section on ED's site, and several squads have sets available too.

 

QFE is the barometric pressure at the airfield, so you can set your altimeter to match and be more accurate. In this case, rotate the knob on the altimeter until it reads 29.89. Or do like many and use the radar altimeter on the HUD and the Mk.I eyeball, which do fine (though some squads are sticklers about procedure) Frankly, I find that the analog altimeter is not accurate enough even with QFE to trust in socked in conditions, I wouldn't bet my life on it. Also, when landing without info from a tower, you won't have it, best not to get too dependent on it.

 

Baby steps are the way to go! I found that practicing near the field in clear conditions was a great help, after a while it gets more intuitive, and I often find myself glancing at the HSI and just "knowing" where to look to find the airfield and line up an approach. It just takes practice.

[Rongor]

Handy beginner tip: Once you have set the heading into the HSI, the bar will show the runway as it appears from your current position/bearing, and the arrow will point in the direction that you will be landing on that runway. (The arrow is also pointing in the direction the airfield is relative to you, if it's pointing, say, up and to the left, you will find the airfield is ahead to the left. If it's pointing down, you might want to head back the other way..........)

No, not exactly. At first, what you obviously speaking of is not "set the heading" but selecting a course by turning the course set knob on the bottom right of the HSI. The course arrow will only point towards the direction of our navigational source if our position is on the inbound radial of the set course.

Also the whole procedure requires:

-a TACAN present

- the TACAN's channel tuned in the properly configured TACAN receiver

- TACAN selected on the NMSP

 

btw...

-the bearing pointer 1 is pointing towards the TACAN station (hopefully co-located with the airfield)

-the arrow does not know the bearing of the airfield, nor the bearing to the TACAN station. There is no way of reading this bearing out of the arrows position. It points towards the selected course line. The CDI (the moving white bar) indicates our deviation to this course line. The bearing can of course be achieved by turning the course set knob until the CDI is centered.

Edited October 3, 2013 by Rongor

[Byeohazard]

Thanks for the great comeback! Very helpful! I managed to find the airfield, land and park A-10C! Not the most perfect landing (used all of the runway) but the plane is not damaged....forgot the airbreaks are in increments..looked over at my wing and said oops and quickly got them the rest of the way up.

With the HSI just to be sure I understand......if the line is vertical and to my right and the arrow is pointing to my right......that would mean I am flying beside the runway which would be on my right? If all things were the same except the arrow was pointing straight up that would mean I am going to be flying beside the run way?

[Byeohazard]

No, not exactly. At first, what you obviously speaking of is not "set the heading" but selecting a course by turning the course set knob on the bottom right of the HSI. The course arrow will only point towards the direction of our navigational source if our position is on the inbound radial of the set course.

Also the whole procedure requires:

-a TACAN present

- the TACAN's channel tuned in the properly configured TACAN receiver

- TACAN selected on the NMSP

 

btw...

-the bearing pointer 1 is pointing towards the TACAN station (hopefully co-located with the airfield)

-the arrow does not know the bearing of the airfield, nor the bearing to the TACAN station. There is no way of reading this bearing out of the arrows position. It points towards the selected course line. The CDI (the moving white bar) indicates our deviation to this course line.

saw this posted after my last post. will re compute.

[Faelwolf]

My post has nothing to do with TACAN, he has the wrong arrow in mind. I think the confusion is coming from me trying to keep it short and not overwhelm you with technical terms and such, so I did a pretty lousy job of explaining it. Let me see if I can explain it better and expand it.

 

This is just a simple trick to visualize the orientation of the runway, give you an indication of which side of it you will want to head to for your turn on final, and help you spot it, not a replacement for procedure or proper navigation.

 

Use your HUD to orient yourself towards the airfield you wish to land at.

 

Once you have the runway heading dialed in to the HSI, the big center bar of the HSI that has the long movable section in it and an arrow at one end will act as an virtual runway for visualization purposes even though it is actually showing a "course line". It is letting you "see" the airport from any distance away, so you can plan:

 

The arrow on the course line will show you the direction you will want to land on the runway, so you now know to adjust your course to the other side so you can turn on final heading in the right direction. For example, if the arrow is pointing right, aim to be to the left of the airfield, relative to your current position. (Point your aircraft a bit to the left of the tadpole) You also now know you will need to make a right turn to get on final and can anticipate it. This can really help to prevent disorientation in bad conditions.

 

Looking at the angle of the course line, you now also know the relative angle of the airport to your current approach, so you know how sharp a turn you are going to have to make to turn on final. Also, if it will be a very sharp turn, you know to set a course to a preliminary point, then turn to the point you need for final, to ease the turn. Especially when you are new, you don't want to turn more than 90 degrees onto final, it's just too big a pain in the butt when you are trying to close the bar. The shorter the turn, the better. By being able to visualize the runway, you can plot a course. :)

 

As you approach visual range to the airfield, the arrow will act as a reminder of where to look for the runway. The bar does not change direction to point at the airfield, it is just showing you the relative angle, so you know to look for it lying at that angle, which makes spotting easier. As you look out, you will see that the runway angle relative to you matches the angle indicated on the HSI.

 

If you are passing the runway, and it is 90 degrees more or less to your right, you will note the bar has closed and is passing through to the other side by then. (You missed your turn, big time) But the arrow itself will not change direction, the relative angle of the airfield to you will not have changed.

 

You want to begin your turn when the bar starts closing, or even a little sooner, depending on how big a turn you have to make. (Which is why you don't want large turns, small turns don't make you guess when to start the turn.)

 

As you make the turn, closing the bar will put you pretty close to lined up on the runway, and since you are changing direction, the indicator will start to move, indicating the relative angle of the airport is changing, too. (You are actually aligning yourself with the course line, but we are using it to visualize the runway right now.) Remember though that the heading is not perfect, so the bar does not necessarily close completely when you have good runway alignment. But the line should now be more or less vertical, with the arrow pointing up. Looking out, you should see the runway directly ahead of you, and can make the minor adjustments to get centered up for landing. When making the adjustments, use small course changes, try not to over-correct. A great way to think of it that was given to me by my instructor was to think of it like changing lanes in a car. You don't change lanes by whipping the wheel around ;)

 

The further out you are from the airfield, the slower the bar is to close up and the easier it is to turn on final, but don't get too carried away with it, you don't need (or want) to turn on final 50 miles out :) . For a total beginner, about 8 miles out is not a bad start, bit of a ways, but gives you plenty of time to make the turn, and some practice holding glide slope. As you improve, you can shorten final.

 

Practice until you intuitively know how the bar closing is relating to your position and bearing to the airport so you can judge your turn timing in bad conditions better when you can't see the airport.

 

So to start with, you are using both the bar closing and your visual on the runway to make the turn, eventually you'll be able to make the turn in the blind using just the HSI and get it fairly close, if you have to. You are still not going to want to land fully in the blind, as the A10C is not rated for a full precision instrument landing. You must be able to land visually once near the runway threshold.

 

Another handy rule of thumb, for altitude. Multiply your distance in miles from the airfield by 300 and it will give you the rough altitude in feet you should be at for a reasonable glide slope. So at 8 miles out, 2400 feet should be about right. Nose-down to -3 and bring her in. So now think about it, if you know you want to be at 2400 feet at 8 miles out, what should you be doing about your current altitude while heading there? :)

 

No instrument is a replacement for common sense and good judgement, these are aids to a good landing, not absolute controls. Don't obsess with closing the bar just to find yourself landing in the dirt on the side of the runway or worse! I have also had the cross bars on the ADI try to fly me into a building/the ground. Stay alert, stay aware.

 

Also practice landing by the seat of your pants. It not only will give you a good feel for what a good landing should look like, but you may find yourself with a badly damaged aircraft, and will have enough problems on your hands without having to learn a new skill at the same time!

 

I hope this made more sense. I really need to start work on a .pdf of this and a few other things so I can include illustrations, etc. to make it easier to understand.

[Maverick-X]

I guess I get what you are trying to say. Instrumental navigation can be confusing to beginners and therefore is not the easiest to explain. I didn't read the whole posting as it is very long, so plz forgive me if I explain something already done, but I'd like to give some hints, too ^^

 

HSI (horizontal situation indicator) gives you information on the track error relative to your position and distance. Like VOR navigation, you set a course (RWY heading) for the ILS to measure your current position realitve to the localizer.

The HSI is a command instrument: the center displays the Runway, you are the Arrow. When the Arrow show upward direction, you are on runway heading, if the center part is left of you, you have to steer left to be on the correct path, if it is right, to the right.

 

Although this might be handy, you can ignore the ILS in most situations as the weather is good enough in most missions to do visual approach.

Just try to be on a -3° to -5° dive (tvv - total velocity vector on -3 to -5 on the ladder) while aiming the tvv on the beginning of the RWY, and try to maintain a speed of about 120-140 kias, dependant on your current weight. You have the correct speed for your current weight when the green donut below the g-meter lights up.

 

PS: whats the correct english term for describing the lateral offset to the runway? (shown on the HSI)

Edited October 3, 2013 by Maverick-X

[Byeohazard]

Thanks again for the very informative information!

Faelwolf...if you ever get that PDF put together let me know...send me a PM and I will be downloading it!

Always up for flying also! Lots of info..some confusing but I am not intimidated...more excited by it!

[Faelwolf]

PS: whats the correct english term for describing the lateral offset to the runway? (shown on the HSI)

 

If you mean the long bar that closes as you line up it's called the "Course Deviation Indicator"

 

[Edit] Might as well add here that I will be getting a start on the .pdf soon, it may take a while due to other r/l issues I have atm. There are some great training vids on YouTube, but not everyone learns well by watching vids, some like to have a guide they can refer to and work through.

Edited October 4, 2013 by Faelwolf

[Maverick-X]

I didn't mean the bar but the Deviation itself. thx