B737-500 Autopilot and ILS Landing. Help please :(

  • Guess what ? You were absolutely correct. My issue was 100% because I wasn't choosing a runway at the origin

    It makes perfect sense why it would work sometimes, and other times not work. Because sometimes I would click on an airport and just choose "Set As Origin", and other times I would free hand type and search for the airport and just choose the runway from there, but never went in and actually clicked on the runway and set it as my starting point with my plane,. I assumed placing the plane in the starting location (just AT the airport) was good enough

    So, i tested 5 different flights with ILS airports. ALL 5 now have the visible gauges i need as I am approaching so i think you resolved my issue. So it working PERFECTLY. I cannot thank you enough

    Note - Is it safe to assume that ANY ILS airport I want to land at, the gauges will ALWAYS line up perfectly (eventually, if I watch them closely) so i can hit the "APPROACH" button? Or are there some airports that I need to take control of the plane manually to bump it in the right direction and give it some help? (I really hope this question makes sense)

  • Is it safe to assume that ANY ILS airport I want to land at, the gauges will ALWAYS line up perfectly (eventually, if I watch them closely) so i can hit the "APPROACH" button?

    Yes...if the ILS frequency is set correctly!

    Btw. If you don't choose an arrival route from the menu, the final approach can be very short, or even too short for the autopilot (and you).

    KMHR 22L is a good example. See below. Simply click on the pencil symbol next to APP and choose a STAR (StandardArrivalRoute) which fits best to your flightplan.

    If you are using a STAR you will also get the correct altitudes and no strange FL indications.


    Noticed that KMHR is a bad example in many ways. Not only is the ILS frequency wrong, the localizer location is wrong as well.

    If you (or the AP) are following the localizer, you will land far off to the right of the runway.

    The long final option for approach training is unusable as well because neither the ILS frequency nor the course are automatically set.

    Since you can't adjust these settings while paused, you can't dail in the correct numbers fast enough to be able to practice flying the ILS approach.

    Additional problems are that the AP is not following the STAR depicted on the screenshot and the FLP distances to the waypoints on the FMC aren't updated.

  • You have no idea how much this information means to me

    Thank you so much. Everyone in this thread has been so helpful

    I spent more money on DLC for this game. My wife is not as happy as me right now. 😊

    Seriously though, thank I’l you

  • You are most welcome. Don't hesitate asking. :)

    I’ll try to make this my last question

    The triangles on the map when planning my route. If I enable them to display, there are THOUSANDS of them. Should I care about those when planning my route? I haven’t seen a need to even pay attention to them (yet)

    And thank yum again 😊❤️

  • These triangles are waypoints and you don't need to consider them.

    If you zoom in close enough on your routing, you will see that the flight planer automatically uses the required ones and the green stars on your route are superimposed over these triangles.