Spinning In Circles on Approach.

airernieairernie
in General

Sorry for all of the questions, but trying to learn this bird. I have done the YouTube videos thing, but none have addressed my issue with Approach mode.

Doing an ILS approach; setup WPT, ALT, etc. in VNAV.

  • Set and press ALT SEL. Around 50nm out I set the ILS RWY HDG using FORMAT.
  • Press ARM and TUNE APPROACH. I'm not flying with ATC, so no Vectors, so I continue flying the approach.
  • 10 miles out or so, I switch to HDG and set NAV source to ILS1 (I've tried leaving it on LNAV longer).
  • Once I'm on final approach (I've tried earlier) I press ACT APPROACH.
  • I then immediately begin a left turn off my HDG and do 360s until I manually terminate them.

I'm not sure what ACT APPROACH is supposed to do, but I flew an RNAV approach today without it and it went great. I may just abandon this activate approach mode thing, but would like to know what it is supposed to be doing for me.

Thanks..

Comments

  • airernieairernie

    Some more digging and it appears that ACT APPROACH removes all of the waypoints between the current position and Final Approach Fix or Final Approach Intercept Fix. Maybe the 360s are the Q400's way of dealing with having lost waypoints. I'm still confused though because HDG mode is still set and ILS1 is on the PFD.

    The v2 tutorial doesn't use the ACT APPROACH feature, so that may be the way to go.

    In any event, thanks for reading my rather lengthy message, but consider the issue closed as I couldn't find a way to delete it.

    Ernie

  • freddyfreddy
    edited March 5

    Yeah, for using ACT APPROACH manually, a number of ducks do need to be in a line. Personally, I usually let the aircraft arm and activate the approach automatically, and it works perfectly fine.

    If you want to get a better idea of how ACT APPROACH works, have a look at this UNS-1 manual (link below) on page 5-45 and, more specifically, on pages 5-96 and 5-97.

    Whether or not our Majestic Dash 8 simulates the ACT APPROACH 100% faithfully, word-for-word, as per this manual, I wouldn't know. That said, given just how good this Dash 8 simulation is, and the fact that Majestic service this platform not only on the edutainment spectrum, but also the commercial as well, I'd guess it would either be fully implemented, or, at the very least, be pretty damn close.

    Link: http://corporatejetsolutions.com/PDF/Avionics Manuals/UNS-1K Manual.pdf

  • airernieairernie

    Thanks freddy.. Will give it a read. I think that I am now of the same mind as you. Gonna find out soon as I'm doing a route this morning.

  • freddyfreddy

    👍

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