Navigational equipment required:

Standard basic avionics fit plus VOR indicator and DME

Aircraft:

lpma1.pdf

This tutorial is written for the Microsoft default 737. I have an unreasonable hatred of the color scheme on this plane, so the screen shots were taken using Hiroshi Igami's repaint of Sandro Bernardini's 737-800 (DAH738TC.ZIP). However, by the time you read this, the DreamFleet 737 will have been released and this would be my aircraft of choice. If you don't use the default 737, please check the fuel load and cut it to around 30% - landing a fully-fuelled 737 at Funchal is just a little tricky.

Scenery:

FS2000 has Funchal as it was, with runways 06 and 24. They have completely rebuilt the place and the new orientation is 05/23 - if you download Jeffrey Lung's LPFU2000.ZIP, you can try it the way it is now. The only problem with Jeff's scenery is that the PAPI doesn't show up as well as the default lights, and this is a factor when you are on finals. Since we aren't doing this for real, you can use the same approach plates with either scenery, why not fly both?

Downloads:

funchal.zip - extract all these files into your \FS2000\pilots folder

Comments:

This is a non-precision VOR DME approach. The tutorial assumes that you understand the basics of VOR navigation and can fly an ILS approach. If you don't, read the tutorial.

Funchal is not an easy airport. There is high rising ground to the west and the runway has been shoehorned in under the shadow of the hills. In IFR conditions, the final approach is fraught with difficulty, as there is no ILS and some difficult turns are required. It is not unknown for pilots to mistake the rising ground on the right of the final approach for hills, so be careful.

Instructions:

Please make sure you have Indicated Airspeed (IAS) set. If you have True Airspeed set, the instructions which follow will make no sense at all. Also, ensure that you do not have gyro drift checked under the realism settings, unless you are proficient at making corrections for this. Do not use the GPS on pain of death. The approach plates for this tutorial have kindly been supplied by the FSS project site, and we encourage you to visit their web site.

Talk Through

Situation 1: non-precision VOR DME approach runway 24 select situation Funchal737vordme24

This situation is designed to introduce you to Funchal. Visibility is perfect, and the 737 is on a heading of 173 degrees at 4000 feet, approaching the FUN VOR at 190 knots with flaps set at 2. There is some light turbulence, but nothing you can't cope with, the radios are set and all you have to do is fly her in. If you have the DreamFleet 737, and you want to create the right atmosphere, you can imagine a full load of tourists in back, singing "Espana por favor" loudly and tunelessly, blissfully unaware that Madeira is Portugese.

Take a good look at the plate. We are going to fly most of the approach on autopilot, and all you will need to do is alter the heading, course, speed and altitude until we get near to the MAP. The plate actually shows two different approaches in one: the approach we are flying, which crosses the IAF at the FUN VOR, does a loop course reversal starting at D8.0 FUN, and flies inbound on 213; and a straight-in approach from the IRSAN intersection, complicated by a holding pattern at D12.0 FUN. The Final Approach Fix (FAF) is at D7.0 FUN inbound, and the Missed Approach Point (MAP) is at FUN at 1330 feet. You require 3 miles visibility to fly the approach.

Missed approaches require a left turn to 140, intercepting radial 173 to FUN and a climb to hold at 3000 feet at the FUSUL intersection.

OK, we are set. Hit the pause button and let her fly. The autopilot is engaged and you can expect to sink about a hundred feet while Flight Simulator gets its act together, before the 737 recovers altitude and speed. The HSI CDI needle will begin to drift laterally within D3.0 of FUN, which is your key to start preparing for the turn. When you reach DME 1.0 from FUN, alter course to 011, and fly outbound. Once you are established on track, reduce speed to 180 knots, set 5 degrees of flap, and begin a descent at 500 feet per minute to 3000 feet. Set the course to 011 degrees, which will allow you to line up on the outbound radial, but remember the CDI won't read true until you are at least 3 nm out. Keep watching the DME - at D8.0 exactly, alter the course to 150, and let the old lady come around until she begins to roll out. Set the course to 213 degrees, which will allow you to line up with the inbound radial. The CDI needle will still be deflected two dots out of line, but it should begin to move in fairly soon. When it reaches one dot off center, alter the heading to 213.

The one thing you don't want to have happen on this approach is to find yourself tracking in any distance west of where you should be - it doesn't matter so much now, but in IFR conditions, you could hit something solid. In any event, you must be as accurate as possible when you fly an approach. The screen shot above shows the aircraft just beginning to fly around the course reversal - the shot adjacent shows the aircraft beginning to roll out of the turn, dead on track, with the CDI lining up beautifully and the DME just beginning to drop to 8.0 again.

Let the aircraft steady on 213, and as soon as the DME reads 7.0 - the FAF - you can set a new altitude of 1400 feet (the nearest the default 737 can get to 1330) and a descent rate of 1200 feet per minute with the aim of arriving at the MDA with one minute to go before the MAP. Then reduce speed to 140 IAS, drop the gear, and as permitted, drop the flaps in increments down to 30 degrees. If you have a panel which supports it, now would be a good time to set the missed approach altitude.

Incidentally, I use a CH Products yoke, and I have found that the neatest way of getting the Microsoft 737 down without a panic about power settings when the autopilot is knocked out, is to bring up the throttle quadrant on screen so I can eyeball the position of the levers, then switch out the autothrottles early on finals and match the lever position again. This avoids big alterations in the power settings as the software adjusts to match the yoke. Once I am happy with the way things are, I let the autopilot fly the plane down, making small adjustments of pitch and throttle to maintain 140 IAS - and sometimes it even works.

In the next screen shot, we are nearing the MAP, with 1.8 miles to go, and the outer marker light has lit, but we are visual, so we can go straight in as soon as you are happy. The inbound course is 237 for the "new" runway. If you were doing this for real in IFR conditions, you would disconnect the autopilot when you were at 1400 feet and fly down to the MDA - speaking of which, you might like to save the flight at this point? I certainly didn't get in perfectly first time I tried.

The key thing to making a successful approach here is to get lined up on the lights as soon as you can, and to maintain a steady rate of descent on the VSI all the way until your wheels touch. The default 737 has decidedly squishy handling at approach speed and its inertia means that it doesn't turn like a fighter, so you want to plan to get in without any major changes of heading at the last minute. That means you need to get lined up out here, while you can. You will find there is plenty of runway available, and as long as you touch down near the threshold, the autobrakes are all it should take to get you stopped.

Situation 2: non-precision VOR DME approach runway 24: poor visibility and crosswind - select flight Funchal737vordme24cloud

This time the weather conditions are slightly less friendly, because I have given you a 15 knot crosswind from 100 degrees. There is light turbulence and 4/8 cloud, so you are going to be pushed towards the island all the way in. There will be a slight tailwind component on approach, so be careful! You have just about got time to work out how much wind compensation you need to apply as you head inbound to the IAF, so I suggest using this leg to good advantage. Otherwise, just fly the approach the same way as you did before and you shouldn't get into trouble. You have ten miles visibility, so you should be visual at the MAP - which is below the cloud base, so all the minimums are satisfied. You could easily find these conditions on a real approach to Funchal.

Situation 3: circling VOR approach runway 06 - select flight Funchal737circling06

In many respects, this is the big one, the approach that makes Funchal so notorious. As you fly the final approach segment, you get a great view of the airport, and everyone there can see you too. The reason the approach is potentially so dangerous is that you have to execute a course reversal at less than a thousand feet and nerve-wrackingly close to the threshold. In real life Funchal has a magical curved line of sodium APL and EFAS lights leading you in, but Microsoft didn't think to put them there, so we are going to have to do without them. This approach is so lethal it actually has a segmental wind limitation on the plate, and guess what? We are going to fly in right at the limit of wind strenght that is permissible for this approach, so turn your hat the wrong way around and get ready to burn some gasoline.

The situation puts you descending to the FUN VOR, at 140 knots - where you would be if you had completed the procedure turn in the approaches above - if you want you can start this approach by loading the first scenario, and flying that segment first. You have 25 degrees of flap and the gear is down. We want to cross the VOR at around 1400 feet, then descend to 1140 feet and fly out from the beacon on 215, descending to 1140 feet; which means you are going to have to fly manually. All the time that wind is going to be trying to push you nearer to the airport than you want to be, so use the descent to the VOR to work out how much wind correction you should apply.

Once you have crossed the VOR, set the course to 215 and the heading to allow for the wind. The MAP is at D4.0 FUN at an altitude of 1140 feet. If you are visual at that stage, you should be able to see the runway out of the right hand window, and you can descend to 940 feet on the same course. Lower flaps to 30 and get ready to make a turn inbound at D6.7 FUN - remembering to increase power as you go around the turn or you may wish you had floats. This is where judgement comes in. In a real aircraft, you can see the threshold out of the corner of your eye all the way around the turn, but in Flight Simulator that is denied you unless you open another window and sacrifice frame rates. It may take you a few attempts to get the turn absolutely right, and if you find it difficult to begin with, go ahead and reduce the wind to make things easier. One hint is that it pays to roll out of the turn just before you reach the shore, then bank right again a few seconds before you cross it, so that you can fly down the shoreline and make a relatively small alteration of course to land.

The problem here, of course, is the wind. If you don't keep to the approach plate track and make the course reversal at D6.7 FUN too close inshore, then you will either have to make a vertical bank to get around, or else you will run out of airspace and end up picking olives out of your teeth. Even if you do get around, if you don't make it a priority to kill the momentum by rolling out as I described above, the plane will line up just fine with the runway, but then will carry on skating past it, carried by its own inertia. Either way, the wind will make judgment very difficult until you have had a lot of practice, so be prepared to do short finals at some very odd angles. I reckon that setting down anywhere on the airport is good for a first effort.

To anyone who isn't used to flying the 737, this will seem an almost impossible approach, but I think that is the correct message to take away from the tutorial. To put things in perspective, to be able fly from Madeira at all, the pilot in command must have a minimum of 200 hours as captain on the aircraft type in use, and a minimum of one take-off and landing at Madeira in the last six months, or one supervised flight accompanied by a pilot qualified to land there. If you check out the SASFS pdf which contains the approach plates, you can read all about it. This is not an easy place to fly into without breaking into a sweat.

Good luck. Let me know how many attempts it takes you to make the pavement - and don't forget that the one strength of the Microsoft 737 is that whatever angle you find yourself adopting on short final you can always kick the bird straight at the last minute with the pedal! And, if you think doing it in the sim is exciting be sure to take a look at the real Funchal airport via the phototour.

Andrew Herd
andrew@flightsim.com