AI ILS problem

[cj241101]

Using FS2004 for my 60's/70's AI traffic I have noticed a recent problem.  At some airports aircraft now make a visual approach regardless of whether the flight plans are IFR or VFR, and whether or not there is an ILS available.  My first thought was it was the result of me stupidly saving a couple of AF2 files under the scenery name (AP947130 and AB950150 located Eurw\scenery).  Fortunately I have a back up of my scenery library and replaced this file with the original (dated 22/05/2003).  It didn't rectify the problem.  So my next thought was it could be something to do with Ultimate Terrain Europe that I installed recently, so I deactivated it in the scenery library.  That didn't work either.  Narrowing it down, it would seem to be the southern half of the UK that is affected - Exeter to Birmingham and most airports SE of them, although not including the Channel Islands, Stansted or Southend.  Outside this area everything seems normal.

Anyone any ideas?

[Defender]

Hi,

Have a look at Jim Vile's explanation here,

www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/tutorial-approaches.14074/

All I would add is in relation to his comment "If a ILS exist in the approach code (with or without a actual ILS beam) the AI Plane flys it in both clear weather (VMC) and severe weather (IMC)". Yes, but when there is a moderate to severe crosswind, ATC will switch to any available wind aligned runway. 

There are quite a few addon airports around that have no approach codes and some stock airports with only limited codes. The only solution I'm afraid is to add codes yourself using ADE.

Bill

[Tom/CalClassic]

If making a user aircraft approach to these airports, does ATC give you the ILS approach? And can you load the ILS approach into the GPS?

[cj241101]

Jun 13, 2020 8:48:01 GMT -5 Tom/CalClassic said:

If making a user aircraft approach to these airports, does ATC give you the ILS approach? And can you load the ILS approach into the GPS?

No, given a visual approach although the ILS was received on NAV 1 and in the GPS.  DME was absent, though.

It seems strange that airports which hitherto have always had ILS approaches are now all clearing aircraft for visual approaches.  These include the 3 London airports LHR,LGW and LTN as well as others.  North of Birmingham, as I have already mentioned, seems unaffected.

[Defender]

Hi,

Well the area you describe and these affected airports all come within AP947130 so I would double check that you definitely have uncorrupted files for all the 947130's. Do all the stock airports and their navaids still show up? It must be missing approach codes somehow. Can't see any other reason.

Good luck

Bill

[cj241101]

Thanks Bill, you are correct. There are actually 2 problems, both of the "shoot yourself in the foot" type. The 2 files I stupidly overwrote using AFCAD I replaced last night, restarted FS9, went to Gatwick and there was no difference. This morning I've been looking at the other affected airports, including LHR, and ILS approaches have been restored. Still not at Gatwick, though. Strange....

Around 3 years ago I experimented using AFCAD to change runway designators to match those used in the time period I am creating my AI traffic for i.e. 1967-1977. Heathrow became 10L/28R and 10R/28L. It was nice to hear aircraft being cleared for take off or land on 28L etc but of course the ILS didn't match the runway so everything started making visual approaches. I think they was a post on the subject on CalClassic at the time. So I changed the runways at LHR back to what there were before I tampered with them.

My AI project gets quite complicated - as per the CalClassic 1959-1962 traffic (which is what inspired me to create my own) I have a separate folder in Addon scenery for each year. A small number of airports get a different AF2 file for each year to reflect changes in parking (e.g. nose in or nose out, changes in ATC frequencies and to assign new airlines over the years to their own parking spots). Gatwick is one of those airports. At some point, I must have also changed Gatwick's main runway from 08R/26L to its old designator 09/27, forgot I'd done it and never changed it back. The AF2 file for 1968 - the year I have been monitoring my traffic - has runway 09/27. Why I missed the fact that aircraft were reporting "inbound visual runway 27", not 26L I have no idea, maybe my brain switched off as soon as it heard the word "visual". At least I didn't have to meddle with my local airport Luton which has always been runway 08/26 up until 20th May this year when it changed to 07/25.

So everything now appears fixed, thanks for everyone's help, at least I've learned something from my mistakes. Think I'll head to the pub to console myself. Except it's still closed!

[Defender]

Thanks for that very honest explanation! I didn't think of that runway issue either and yes it has been discussed on this forum before. Not helped by the absence of any warnings in AFCAD about approach codes. I didn't know they existed until I started using ADE. No doubt this thread will be searched in future by folk with the same problem.

Yes, let's hope we all get back to the pub before long!

Bill

[Tom/CalClassic]

BTW, there is a way to use ADE to get those new (old) runway designations their IFR approaches back - Mike and I have been using it for the last few sceneries we’ve created/updated. If anyone is interested we can probably write up the procedure.