(1) I understand that there may be a number of different approaches to any given airport and that each of these approaches may not have the same number of pieces (or segments).
(2) I'll fly the thing again. I am approaching the Reno-Tahoe airport at 18,000 feet, 75 miles out from the airport in a stock, Boeing 737-800. I am flying a heading of 330 with GPS in control of the plane. I am not using ATC. As I begin the descent, I load an approach plan by doing the following: PROC/SELECT APPROACH/ILS16R/VECTORS/ACTIVATE. i notice that now, when I go to the alternate page of my flight plan, the various "pieces" of the approach have appeared: Approach ILS16R; TAKLE;RW16R; 6500; FMG; NICER; There is more, but it is off at the bottom the screen and I don't know how to scroll down to see it. (Question: What is all that other stuff doing in there below RW16R? I never use it. The only "pieces" I use are TAKEL and RWY16R.)
So, having activated my approach.I continue my descent. As I do so, I notice that the GPS line of flight (in red) no longer appears on my main, flight plan page. Descent continues. I continue on a heading of 331. (I have leveled off at 12500 ft. because there is a mountain in the way of my descent path and I have to hold the descent at 12500 in order to get over the mountain. After leveling off, I am on a heading of 338.)
As soon as we clear the mountain, the descent continues to 6,600 ft., which is 2000 ft. AGL. Note: The NAV/GPS switch is on GPS and the NAV HOLD switch is ON. Descent continues. I am now 6.8 miles out. The RWy16R ILS frequency is on. The airport is ahead, on my left at an estimated angle of 20 degrees. My heading is 331. My approach plan says I am heading for TAKLE and that is 17 miles away. I am now at 9,000 ft., flying right by the airport on a heading of 331. (I know, I know .... I started my descent a little too late but it is what it is.)
Once I reach TAKEL, the plane begins a left turn. The next point of the arrival plan is RWY16R. I began the turn at a heading of 336. At the end of the left turn, the plane levels off on a heading of 128, 8 miles out from RWY16R. I switch to NAV and hit APP. The plane immediately begins to turn left - I assume to pick up the localizer. The plane then descends and crashes into the ground - I guess because when I activated NAV and hit APP, it deactivated ALT HOLD and I didn't notice that.
If I had not crashed, the plane would have picked up the locaizer and I would have done an ILS landing on RWy16R.
(3) See above for a description of the turn.
So - that's it. Is this the way an Approach is supposed to work, because it seems to me there is an awful lot of unnecessary flying around the airport before landing.
And what about the crash? Are we supposed to immediately re-activate the ALT HOLD, once we switch to NAV and hit APP?