How do I land using ILS on my iPad?

  • I bought the Aerofly app over the weekend and am impressed by the details.

    But, I need some guidance in figuring out how to engage ILS. Currently I have both Switzerland and California regions purchased.

    I am able to position the airplane close to an airport (for e.g KSFO), then I am choosing an ILS runway. When I run the simulator, I am switching on the C/P and the "ROUTE" option. What I see at this point is the plane lines up with the runway, but flies over it and not follow the glidescope. How do I enable "APP" option?

    I would be grateful if somebody can help me with an example of what selection to make and how to land ILS.

    I have an iPad running this app.

  • You can turn up at Monterey runway 10 and the ILS and 5.5 mile final NDB will be ready for a manual ILS (no ADF in the Airbus 320). You need to program an Aerofly route to get an automatic route followed. The destination runway must have an ILS frequency. Some like San Diego 27 are localiser only and will not work automatically in the Aerofly route. The route end is pretty dumb and bears no resemblance to real world proceedures so look out for mountains between the runway and the compulsory 10 miles at 2,000 feet last fix.

    My PC Aero has been out of action since the May update so I might be way out of date there. The excellent IGSs at Sion and at Lugano are much steeper than a normal ILS and need manual control or manual heading and rate of descent selection on the autopilot.

    It helps enormously to look up a real world approach plate for your chosen destination.

    Edited once, last by Overloaded (July 31, 2017 at 8:14 PM).

  • I guess I asked the question wrong...In the iPad app Aerofly, the panels are not active for me to engage ILS by selecting the MCD panel switches.

    In that case let us say, I position at 3000 feet and about 8nm from SFO 28L. On my iPad what selection should I make to have the plane land by ILS... I am able to see the plane is centered and below glide slope, as the plane intercepts the slope it doesn't descent....What options should I on the screen for the ILS descent.

  • Aero is a bit funny. IPACS do not allow realistic procedures, you have to use their navigation page to enable a game feature which runs with the on screen 'autopilot' menu. It makes control easier on small screen mobile phones.

    Only a few on screen adjustments could be fitted onto a mobile touch screen. In the absence of nav radio and realistic autopilot menu pages they have the simplified box controls overlying the sim's instrument panel. I do not use their route or co pilot much, the performance boxes of the autopilot can be used to follow real life procedures instead of whatever path the route and co pilot follow. The route can be used to attempt to program the nav radios, it is quite hit or miss but there is no proper nav radio menu.

    The navigation feature and simple route ('co pilot') selection will follow the depicted flight and intercept the ILS as shown in this 747 example. Speeds and heights cannot be selected! The final leg is inflexible.

  • The 747 flew the route once the co pilot function was engaged and intercepted and descended with the ILS. It remained a bit low but was inside a half scale deflection so it was good enough for passing an instrument rating test! At 500 feet a manual landing can be flown.

    This seems crude and a bit patronising but the IPACS people are restrained by the limitations of mobile devices and they see it from that perspective, not from that of pilots of the complex aeroplanes depicted.

  • I did it again in Android beta Version 2.4.13 and got the same results. Is it supposed to display "loc" and "gs" and perhaps flash red to confirm autoland?

    It performs like a slightly maladjusted Cat I autopilot, It does the basic approach.

    PS I cannot post a forum pic from Android.

    Edited once, last by Overloaded (August 1, 2017 at 8:13 PM).

  • On the screenshot it doesn't show that it actually captured the ILS. It is still following the route and descents on the flight plan. That is why it might be below the ILS glide slope and PAPI lights

    how do I see that it has captured the glideslope? There is nothing I can see on the flight director. It flies nicely down the glideslope so I know it has captured ok, but nowhere do I see the glideslope bars or whatever.

  • The Android Pixel C screen shot was reduced from 2560 X 1800 pixels. Here is a 1024 pixel crop, the big original is too large to post. The route ILS localiser and glide slope indicators are working. They are visible on the original post if clicked for full screen.

    Jan are there plans to fix the missing 747 VOR/ADF needles? Only the DME indication works on the nav panel on the right. They used to be OK.


    Edited once, last by Overloaded (September 29, 2017 at 5:36 AM).

  • Another Flight Sim on mobile has Autoland feature on it and is quite simple (Infinite Flight, and i’m Not sure about X-Plane). I wonder if IPACS can make a similar type of Autoland for mobile.

    Just an Aviation and Space enthusiast who lives in Australia and loves Aerofly FS 2 on his iPad Pro 9.7 :|

  • As far as I know there are more things planned for the mobile market and IPACS officially said so in the past.

    Autoland is one of the things that will probably be added in the future, it's working on desktop already since my autopilot update. My autopilot update for the desktop version somewhat broke the copilot interface that you absolutely need for mobile. We're working on a fix for that and will probably expand the features that you can access from that interface in the lower right corner. Until this is finished there probably won't be any update for the mobile version because that would break the autopilot, we have to fix this first.

    Be aware that all the work we put into the desktop version also benefits the mobile one since they run on the same core engine. I don't know about any public plans for the Aerofly mobile version I just know the mobile market hasn't been forgotten, we're working on the Aerofly FS 2 for desktop and will continue developing it and the mobile version will probably see those changes sooner or later.

  • The Android Pixel C screen shot was reduced from 2560 X 1800 pixels. Here is a 1024 pixel crop, the big original is too large to post. The route ILS localiser and glide slope indicators are working. They are visible on the original post if clicked for full screen.

    Jan are there plans to fix the missing 747 VOR/ADF needles? Only the DME indication works on the nav panel on the right. They used to be OK.


    So your screenshot shows me I'm nearly one division low on g/s and slightly to stbd of localizer? So I need to fly up and left. Is that correct? Thanks for taking your time to clarify for an old 737 jockey that is finding immense satisfaction in this incredible sim.8)

  • The screenshot clearly indicates LNAV and VNAV PTH on the flight mode annunciator so the autopilot completely disregards any ILS localizer or glide slope at the moment. And for flying manually: up a little bit, localizer looks like it is moving inwards and the track on the ND shows you are pointing left of the course, so actually a correction to the right is needed to be able to capture the moving localizer from left to right. If you were to correct to the left at this point the needle would be centered for a very brief period, then it would overshoot to the right.

  • You see that on the Flight Mode Annunciator (FMA) on the Primary Flight Display (PFD).

    In the top right of the highlighted area it should display GS for glide slope.

    I'm pretty sure the mobile version doesn't have this feature yet, but I could be mistaken.


    wiki:b747_fma.jpg

    Click for full pic ... thanks for you response... The mobile does have it

  • Sorry but I don't see any glide slope indication in the FMA. And I have programmed both the FMA and the autopilot so I should know :D

    I only see the glide slope indicator in the attitude indicator but that is just the needle, doesn't mean the autopilot is tracking it.

    -> mobile version autopilot is not flying and ILS it is flying the route lateral (LNAV) and vertical (VNAV) which looks similar but isn't an actual ILS. Therefor there is no autoland because you can only do an autoland with ILS (LOC+GS captured) in all of the aircraft we model so far.

  • Hand flying an ILS to minimums is just fun. It is great just flying Aerofly in the soup for ten minutes and maintaining a chosen height plus or minus 100 feet, the sim height keeping is harder than real life! Perhaps if a certain genre of pilots did a lot more hand flying they would be better at fixing unexpected events.

    IPACS have mentioned mobile beta testing, a 100% minimum visibility ILS is brilliant with the fog piercing PAPIs fixed. Seeing the runway lights appear properly when well below any sane decision height is so rewarding.

  • Sorry but I don't see any glide slope indication in the FMA. And I have programmed both the FMA and the autopilot so I should know :D

    I only see the glide slope indicator in the attitude indicator but that is just the needle, doesn't mean the autopilot is tracking it.

    -> mobile version is not flying and ILS it is flying the route lateral (LNAV) and vertical (VNAV) which looks similar but isn't an actual ILS. Therefor there is no autoland because you can only do an autoland with ILS (LOC+GS captured) in all of the aircraft we model so far.

    Oh, I see! So now I will go to my PC version (Aerofly 2?), and compare the experience. Thanks for your responses!