• I just flew the CRJ from Amsterdam to London Heathrow. I set my navigation by making Amsterdam my origin and Heathrow my destination. It plotted a route and had me reaching the top of my cruise at 38,000 feet. After takeoff I activated the auto pilot and it immediately put me into a steep climb that took me way above the green markers. The plane did eventually get near the 38,000 feet but it did not get to it. It was about 800 feet short when I passed where the plane should start descending. The plane wouldn’t descend. It stayed at about a 1400 fpm climb struggling to get to 38,000 feet while the green boxes descended quickly below me. I eventually had to turn the auto pilot off to get down to the right height. Am I doing something wrong? Also… Is there a way to set the maximum height of your cruise? For example could I have modified the 38,000 foot top and made it 28,000?

    It just seems at a lot of time when you have navigation set and you turn on autopilot it does not stay with the green marker path.

    I thought navigation was as simple as doing your origin and destination and adding any waypoints you want. Maybe I’m missing something and it’s more complicated than that. Thank you for any help that any of you can provide.

  • I just flew the CRJ from Amsterdam to London Heathrow. I set my navigation by making Amsterdam my origin and Heathrow my destination. It plotted a route and had me reaching the top of my cruise at 38,000 feet. After takeoff I activated the auto pilot and it immediately put me into a steep climb that took me way above the green markers. The plane did eventually get near the 38,000 feet but it did not get to it. It was about 800 feet short when I passed where the plane should start descending. The plane wouldn’t descend. It stayed at about a 1400 fpm climb struggling to get to 38,000 feet while the green boxes descended quickly below me. I eventually had to turn the auto pilot off to get down to the right height. Am I doing something wrong? Also… Is there a way to set the maximum height of your cruise? For example could I have modified the 38,000 foot top and made it 28,000?

    It just seems at a lot of time when you have navigation set and you turn on autopilot it does not stay with the green marker path.

    I thought navigation was as simple as doing your origin and destination and adding any waypoints you want. Maybe I’m missing something and it’s more complicated than that. Thank you for any help that any of you can provide.

    it is true it is very annoying to fly at 38 thousand feet... even if it is short flights the autopilot and the co-pilot force you to fly at that height it is extremely annoying

  • Do you mean the in game ‘co-pilot’ or do you want a few tips on using the autopilot and planning the trip? The ‘co-pilot’ is pretty stupid🤪

    If there is a difference then yes! I thought the co-pilot button was for autopilot. So it seems I either don’t set a route in navigation then I can control copilot… but then I’m having to check the map all the time - or I set a navigator route and the plane doesn’t follow the green box road in the sky. So then I have to turn off copilot. Again, I thought they were one and the same. Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks!

  • Thanks but can you tell me why the copilot doesn’t follow the route? In the flight planning guide it tells you that you can have your copilot follow the route. That’s my question and point… it doesn’t. Or didn’t in the example I gave. It kept trying to climb to 38,000 when we were almost over the English coast and less than 100nm from Heathrow. The green flight route was descending quickly beneath the plane thousands of feet below.

  • Include the 10 miles out fix at Heathrow, give yourself distance for slowing and losing height.

    The approach is at 2,500 feet from ten miles out. The ILS glideslope is intercepted at 7.5 miles.

    Set the ILS on nav side one using NAV SOURCE and the nav selection panels below the throttles, ILS 27R is identified as ‘IRR’ on 110.30 on 273 degrees.

    Set the VORs on nav side two, ‘SPL’ at Amsterdam on 108.4 and on standby ‘LON’ on 113.60. The course is 257 degrees. Switch from SPL to LON at about half way.

    Set the NAV SOURCE to FMS1 on nav one and VOR2 on nav two.

    Set the BRG needles to FMS1 and VOR2 on nav one and to VOR1and VOR2 on nav two.

    The Aerofly navigation route selects 38,000 feet with a quite far out Top Of Descent (TOD) because the CRJ cannot reach 38,000 feet in the distance available so we chose our own TOD.

    In reality the plane would be levelled off for a brief cruise at about 25,000 feet and would start the descent at about the altitude in thousands times 3 or about 75 miles out.

    We can start our descent from a continuous climb at the corresponding distance out, for 33,000 feet pick (33 X 3) 99 miles, for 34,000 102, for 35,000 105 etc.

    Once cleaned up select the autopilot AP ENG, SPEED and NAV. Selecting SPEED on the autopilot adjusts the appropriate rate of climb to hold the selected speed for the given set thrust, 250 knots indicated up to 10,000 feet then 290 knots indicated to the top of climb.

    The engines are run at or close to maximum in the climb and at idle in the descent.

    There is 136 miles to go displayed on the route page, at this hight the TOD would be 30 thousand times 3 or 90 miles out.

    The maximum height gained on the short flight was just under 34 thousand feet, the (34 X 3) TOD is 102 miles out so with 104 miles to go displayed the descent is started here.

    Select 2,500 feet on the autopilot’s ALT, close the throttles and select -3,000 feet per minute on the autopilot’s VS. When the plane has settled change the autopilot to SPEED and 300, ‘DES 300’ will be displayed on the attitude indicator.

    Select -500 feet per minute on VS to slow to 250 before 10,000 feet, I was a bit slow here, start slowing at about 11,000 feet.

    Passing LONDON CITY airport the descent has given the plane 12 miles to lose the last thousand feet before 2,500 feet and the distance to slow to approach speed.

    The route information gives the time and distance to the next waypoint so the descent can be monitored and adjusted if necessary.

    The true airspeed (TAS) or groundspeed (GS) divided by 60 gives the distance covered per minute as a separate check. IRR10 is 12 miles out and the plane is covering 4 1/3 miles every minute.

    Altitude to go divided by the rate of descent gives the minutes to the next level.

    Flaps one.

    APPR armed on the autopilot.

    Edited 2 times, last by Overloaded: course 257 miss-typed (February 4, 2022 at 6:07 PM).

  • Established on the localiser

    Fully established.

    Set the speed bug on the approach speed and select the landing flaps, turn off the autopilot between 1,000 and 500 feet and manually continue the approach. The decision height (DH) or minimum descent altitude (MDA) should have been set earlier.

  • https://opennav.com/pdf/EGLL/EG_AD…_2012-07-26.pdf

    This is an accurate copy of a real world approach plate for LHR ILS 27R.

    Wow this is awesome! I am going to have to study up on this. I was looking at it very simply, just putting in my origin and destination and adding one waypoint to extend the final approach. I want to master this and fully understand it. Thank you so much for taking the time to post this help!!

  • To use less fuel get as high as possible. You might want perhaps an 80 miles level cruise segment in that example stopping the climb maybe 4 minutes early. The engines will end up at a significantly less efficient lower N1 speed and the the plane would need to use more fuel to accelerate to a cruise speed but a bit less fuel would be burned in the climb.

    The steady speed and altitude would give the crew and air traffic control time to prepare for the descent,

    The airways in use might dictate the levels available and outside airways the levels available jump in several thousand feet intervals based on the track flown. For a track of 257 degrees the choices would be in even flight levels (Where the altimeter is set on 1013mb, the STD setting in many Aerofly planes, The weather is always set on 1013 in current Aerofly) so FL240, FL260 or FL280 might be chosen in this example.

    (Easterly traffic would be on FL250, FL270. FL290 etc, it is supposed to reduce collision risks).

  • Overloaded thanks again. I’m having fun using the actual autopilot in the cockpit rather than the copilot. It sure adds to the immersion and realism to push buttons and turn dials. I’m no expert but you’ve steered me in the right direction! I want to learn more about the navigation systems in all these aircraft!

  • Darren I had a look out of curiosity and it seems straightforward. It takes any named fix from the nav page or (hopefully) real life as well as VORs so you just input the name of the fix on line one and on the next line whatever track/bearing and distance you want and your range circle and your track are displayed on the cockpit’s nav display.

    There was something funny about the run into Oakland runway 12, the distances and bearings were not right so I entered a track and range circle from the (iaf) fix RAIDR as described in the approach plate for the (if) fix ALCAT which was giving me bother.

    Instead of following the sim’s route towards ALCAT on LNAV the autopilot was set on HDG for the leg from RAIDR to ALCAT as shown on the approach plate and displayed on the nav screen’s track and range circle.

    Just past the range ring I was at ALCAT’s defined position of 12.5 miles and 289 degrees from OAK and 331 degrees from SFO, just then the version of alcat in the FS2022 database was about two miles away on the nav screen.

    LNAV then was used to take the sim to the route’s alcat and the distance from OAK and bearing from SFO were seen to be well off.

    The information from the approach plate enables a track and range circle to be entered. The site SkyVector.com is a great source of information. Clicking on an airport brings up lots of navigation data for U.S airports. For the rest of the world a web search brings up what you need.

    On HDG on the autopilot. The chosen track and range circle clearly shows where ALCAT should be. In the FIX INFO page 12.4 miles could not be entered so a bit past 12 miles on the nav screen was used. The alcat in the FS2022 database’s route was obviously incorrect. The OAK distance is 12.5 miles, the bearing from is 289 degrees and the SFO bearing from is 331.

    Overhead the route alcat using LNAV.

    The true position of ALCAT is on the left. The false position’s two distances and bearings were plotted in SkyVector and compared with the correct position, ALCAT lies just south of of Angel Island.

    (The airspeed used is very slow to allow the positions to be easily followed).

    Edited once, last by Overloaded (February 10, 2022 at 6:16 AM).