The ILS approach
Have you ever wondered how pilots do in poor visibility to guide themselves and land on the runway?
They use what is called an instrument approach, there are several types. Today we are going to talk about the ILS or Instrument Landing System. The ILS allows pilots to be guided vertically and laterally, which is called a precision approach. This system uses two antennas on the edge of the runway. One, called "locate", will guide the aircraft sideways indicating whether it is too far to the left or right of the runway. The other, called "Glide path", will guide the aircraft vertically and tell it if it is too high or too low compared to the optimal glide path of 3 ° (standard).
In our cockpit the indications provided by these antennas are represented by two magenta diamonds along the artificial horizon. The diamond always tells us how to correct to get back on the ideal trajectory.
The magenta diamond at the bottom and horizontally represents our runway axis. If, for example, we are to the left of the runway centreline, our diamond will be to the right of our scale. We must therefore turn right heading towards the diamond to get back on the runway centreline.
The vertical and right part works the same; if we see the diamond at the top it will mean that we are too low in relation to our optimal descent plan. We will therefore have to correct by reducing the descent in order to return to the descent path and center the diamond ...
If you think you can meet the challenge of landing our fog simulator with only the instruments as a navigation aid, don't wait any longer and book your flight aboard our simulator!