Turbofan wrote:Yeah this next edition of FIS is coming rather late due to me being quite busy the past few months, but I can finally add another topic to this segment. And someone wanting a simple tutorial with a video is enough to get one to do it also.
NOTE: The video here has been flagged as "unlisted" on Youtube for good reason-I want it to be seen only on YSFHQ and not have it freely available on Youtube, so please do not copy and paste the link elsewhere on the web. If I find out someone did that I will have no choice but to remove it from here and from then onwards, it will only be available by request.
Also, this video should not in any way be taken as a message that real procedures and calculation-based flight is something I'm against. In fact, I am all about realism, but I know that as a beginner you want a rough guide so-to-speak and so this guide follows that philosophy. Thus, it is by no means directed at anyone in particular who wishes to use real-life procedures, the guide has only to do with beginning flyers.
This July edition of FIS covers landing in thick fog as requested by Phoenix. Of course, it should be helpful to anyone starting out with more advanced landing techniques in YSFS. First, let me clarify a few things: I am fully aware that this is probably not to the liking of some members, in that I don't make any calculations or anything of that sort; rather I use what's visually available (the HUD, ILS/glideslope (GS) display and radar and radar ground object markers), and my own judgement to land an aircraft in dense fog. I have calculated however my initial descent rate (when I start my turn for final), which is about 1,500 ft/min. I then eased that back to around 1,000 ft/min and then once established on the GS, it was around 750 ft/min.
YSFS is not MSFS, it's a simple simulator game, and I like to keep things on the simpler side as well. So this guide is more attuned for the beginner who wants to know the techniques one can use to attain the goal at hand, while doing it as realistically as YSFS will allow.
With those long-winded clarifications out of the way now
, let's take a look at the video below:
Start the video and look through it, I have added notes that frequently pop up as the video plays. I have tried my best to keep them up as long as possible, but you may find that you need to pause and/or rewind to read some of them.
A few things I would like to add here that the video doesn't quite address:
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Fog in YSFS doesn't quite emulate fog in real-life. So it doesn't matter what altitude you start from, you'll be flying blind until you break out of it, depending on how you have set the visibility. Of course if your visibility is at or greater than 3 miles, roughly speaking, then it's not really that dense.
-I have set the visibility to zero in YSFS, but I found out that YSFS automatically increments it to 0.1 mile, so you can't have absolute zero visibility. Regardless, this is the lowest vis. setting, and from my estimation, this translates into a ceiling of approximately 900 feet and a horizontal visibility of around 500 feet. No doubt low enough to make the first-timer actually feel as if they were flying blind.
-To land in fog, one must understand the importance of actually following something similar to real-life procedures for setting an aircraft on final. I have seen on many occasions on servers where pilots do not allow enough distance between them and the runway end, or they come in too high and, because it is actually possible in YS, do a nose-down dive to land on the runway. Trust me, this will not work in thick fog
. In general, you should make your base leg turn around 12-14 miles at a minimum from the runway end at no more than 3,500 feet, get established on final as soon as possible, and at least 7-8 miles from the runway end be no higher than 2,100 feet at that point. You will see this as well with your glideslope (GS) indicator.
-The rate at which both, the ILS and GS indicators move as you get closer to intercepting will obviously be dependent on your airspeed, heading, and altitude. If you are too fast, or at too wide of an angle to the target heading, the localizer will move much faster, and you'll have to turn that much quicker to intercept the localizer or at least come within a few degrees of it. As stated in the video, you can make minor corrections afterwards. The same goes for the GS, too high or too low, and you'll need to make greater nose-down/nose-up/power-up/power-down inputs to get established on final. A good thing to remember is that if you are off by a few degrees w/r to either indicator, you are not going to completely miss the runway, as you go further along, keep making small inputs to get aligned with the ILS/GS as closely as possible.
Established on the glideslope, with the localizer indicator on the HUD moving toward the center, and about to start a right turn to intercept it.
There's not much more to add other than emphasizing a proper procedure of establishing a large jet on final approach in such foggy conditions. Once you get enough practice, you'll find that you can use the same techniques to land at other airports as well with the use of just the VOR and the ILS/GS indicators. Hope this helps, and happy flying!
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