Questions on ILS approach landing

[durkheim]

Hi! I had encountered several difficulties while trying to land my Singapore Airlines B747 plane at SYD runway 34L(ILS 34L approach). Firstly, I was a bit confused when the ATC instructed me to turn left heading 005(to face the runway) and maintain 4000 ft until I have established the localiser .At this point in time,my plane was about less than 25Nm from the airport and flying at 2300ft . I attempted to establish the localiser by keying 110.10MHz and switching Nav1 on . I also adjusted the heading to 335 and switched the Nav hold button on and the heading hold button off.However, the localizer did not respond at all .

On my second attempt, I decided to adhere to ATC instructions and engage the localizer at 4000ft and at 25Nm from the airport . My plane was facing in the direction of SYD international while I engaged the localizer .Similarly , my efforts were futile .The specific ATC instructions were "Boeing SPQ, you are 31 miles south.Turn left heading 005 .Descend and maintain 4000. Cleared ILS 34L approach . Maintain 4000 until established on the localizer . Contact Sydney Tower on 124.70."

Isn't 4000 ft a little too high ? What is the appropiate method to resolve this issue?

Thank you for your advice .

P.s . ILS landings have always been bugging me so I am pretty frustrated over poor landings .

[mrzippy]

Unless you need the ILS landing practice you can always request visual approaches to your run way. 4000 feet at 31 miles out. Not too high I don't think. A 747 is a might big aircraft!

[mjrhealth]

No all seems right. did you press the APP button, thats approach mode which activates the ILS on the plane. There is also a problem with one of the YSSY ils feathers its either 34L or 16R cant remember, you will find out soon enough

[ReggieF5421]

The approach plates for YSSY do require the aircraft to be quite a bit higher than other similar airports I've seen. For example - Rwy 34L at YSSY requires the aircraft to approach at 4,000 ft, while a similar approach at KJFK is at 2,200 ft.

This might be because the terrain west of the city is would make it advisable to approach the airport at a higher altitude than an airport like EGLL or KJFK. FS does have some terrain type quirks in that it sets the MSA for a rather larger grid than the real world does.

I also adjusted the heading to 335 and switched the Nav hold button on and the heading hold button off.

Do not select Nav Hold. We do have to switch the GPS/NAV switch to the Nav mode.

When you select the APPR (approach) mode - the aircraft should be in Heading Hold. Do not turn off heading hold or altitude hold. When the aircraft intercepts the localizer, it will turn off heading hold and align the aircraft with the localizer. If the aircraft is not too high, it will also intercept the Glide Slope and turn off Altitude Hold.

Unlike the real world, FS is very unlikely to intercept a glide slope if the aircraft is above the localizer.

One other point - after the ATC tells me to hold at 4K and to contact the tower, I would decrease my altitude immediately to 3,000 or 2,500 even before I got to the localizer - if I could see the terrain and was confident I would not find any granite clouds.

BTW - which B747 are you flying? The default? PMDG?

Knowing which aircraft and panel you are using will help us give more specific answers.

[mikeandpatty]

Your biggest problem is probably expecting to see the localizer alive too far out. The ATC heading was given so as to be on a reasonable intercept course to the localizer when it starts to come available. Hold the heading until you are about 25-20 nm out from the airfield, then you should see it come alive. Once it is, ATC intends for you to maneuver as you see fit in order to capture and track it, intercept the glideslope as well, and track it also. "Maintain 4000 cleared for ILS" really means that once you are established on the localizer you can descent at your discretion to intercept/track the glideslope - however, you must adhere to any altitude restrictions on the approach plate until you do get established on the glideslope.

For planning purposes, a good gouge for the glideslope is that it will be about 2000 ft AGL at about 5 nm assuming a 3 deg glideslope - 4000 AGL at 10nm, etc

[ReggieF5421]

One other point I need to add.

The FS ATC does not come up with things like the 4,000 ft altitude on its own.

That type of data comes from the real world approach plates, and approach data. The MS team did not make up the approaches in FS, they only built a way to convert the real world data into something FS can understand.

On another subject - one thing which can cause the FS ATC to set your aircraft up at 'approach altitude' very far out from the airport is if you have AI traffic. FS sets different IAF points for each aircraft inbound to try to maintain some separation. This can result in the fifth inbound aircraft being told to setup at approach altitude and heading - 35 miles out from the real IAF. That can at times try to make you fly through mountains.

[durkheim]

One other point I need to add.

The FS ATC does not come up with things like the 4,000 ft altitude on its own.

That type of data comes from the real world approach plates, and approach data. The MS team did not make up the approaches in FS, they only built a way to convert the real world data into something FS can understand.

On another subject - one thing which can cause the FS ATC to set your aircraft up at 'approach altitude' very far out from the airport is if you have AI traffic. FS sets different IAF points for each aircraft inbound to try to maintain some separation. This can result in the fifth inbound aircraft being told to setup at approach altitude and heading - 35 miles out from the real IAF. That can at times try to make you fly through mountains.

That might be true. ATC was handling 2 other aircrafts at that time .