Colins Flight simulator 2002 Web Page

ILS-Page 1

At last the ILS. Knowing this will quadruple your enjoyment, being able to land in pure fog is pretty impressive. ILs is similar to Vor navigation, so knowing this should help you when it comes to Vor navigation as well.

What's ILS?

It allows you to land perfectly on the runway, perfectly, so rather than looking out the window which you can't do in foggy conditions you can just use ILS. This type of flying where you use the instruments rather than looking out the window is called IFR, which stands for Instrument flight rules. The normal type of flying is called VFR, that stands for Visual flight rules. It's how real pilot's land in foggy conditions.

LITTLE EXTRA: I highlighted the I in the "IFR" bit because it makes it easier for you to remember, the I stands for instrument, remember that. I done the same with VRF, you will have noticed, the V stands for the Visual. It's an easy mistake to get mixed up.

How it works

Your aircraft receives info from a radar station, this station tells you from the runway where about your aeroplane is compared to the runway.

Get it straight with your self, it doesn't tell you which way to go like the ADF(Auto directional finder). It tells you where you are in reference to the runway.

If you are to the right of the runway, it tells you this, and you have to act on this by turning left until the Vor tells you that you are in line with the runway, then you turn to the runway heading. It does not tell you which way to go. So why is this useful? it allows you to land in the centre of the Mainpic.bmp (764854 bytes) runway, at the right point. Look at the diagram to the left.

The blue line is just an imaginary line which is aligned with the runway called the centre line. Your Vor equipment tells you if you are on that line, and if not how far off you are from that line. You want to get on that line, and stay on it so you can land in the middle of the runway.

I will admit, my pictures are not great, but you should be able to see the numbers and work out the situation. Try to picture this image, there's 4 planes, each one is numbered and there all flying and trying to land. They have decided to use do a landing with the ILS. Their main aim is to get on that blue center line so they are lined up and in the right place for the landing. Its a 2-D picture, but you should be able to tell me the obvious idea about each plane. 1 plane is perfectly lined up for landing on that runway, 3 are not.

	Plane 1: Would you be suprised to know that in fact this plane is in no wrong according to the ILS, it's on the centerline (for now anyway). Its the ILs were using here, it tells you if you are on the center line. In this case it is. True, its possible that if it isn't windy then he will soon be off the center line, but now he is on the centerline. I told you It tells you where you are in reference to the runway.
	PLANE 2: All I have to ask is, "is it on the runway center line?". Nope, it may be in the direction that the runway is going, but it is not the center line.
	PLANE 3: Much the same as aeroplane 2.
	Plane 4: This pilot knows how to use the ILS, he's the bee's Knees. His on the runway center line, and he is facing the runway so he will stay on the runway center line. However consider what it would be like if it was windy? Pretty soon the plane would drift off course (depending on the winds direction). This is why plane 1 might be right, it might be angled against the wind to compensate so that the plane remains on the center line.

The ILs also has something which tells you if your too high or low for the runway. This will be discussed later.

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