Trust But Verify!!

[Rupert]

It's pretty easy today to put more trust in our gadgets than we should. A day or so I found a perfect example in the sim that Real World could easily kill people at KSFO. I was "flying" in the area and thought I'd shoot a few T&GS on ILS so perhaps I could take some shots from "outside the plane."

 

The first thing I noticed is our sim says SFO has a 30L and a 30R runway. But RW info says they are now numbered 28L & 28R. And of course the opposite runways are now numbered 10L and 10R as well. That didn't surprise me, over the last few years many airports have noted their runways weren't numbered exactly in the direction they were pointed and so officially they've changed their numbers.

 

Noticing how heavy the "traffic" is into SFO and the 300* wind, I decide to shoot my T&G into 30R using the "published" ILS frequency and let the plane "Land Itself." So I set my frequencies up and preceded to the ILS pickup point, then clicked on APPR with my autopilot. Here's what I discovered.

 

(As usual, if you click on each image, you'll find a description of what the image represents.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from that last shot, I was almost at landing altitude on my ILS approach. But rather than being inline for touchdown on 30R, I was over the Bay!! Can you say wave off!!

 

Michael

Edited May 10, 2020 by Rupert

[flightsimg]

Fine pics anyway! :):)

[DAVIDSTRAKA]

Yep, run into those in FSX.

 

Interesting how those runway numbers change when there is a significant change in magnetic variation.

[DirkDP]

Hi,

 

Here's why the RWY numbers are changing more nowadays.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52550973

 

At BGTL (Thule AFB USAF) in Greenland, the RWYs are numbered 08T/26T, according to true north. Otherwise they'd have to repaint those numbers every year.

 

Regards,

DDP.

[andyjohnston]

Not sure what scenery you have, I fly into KSFO all the time landing on runways 28L and 28R. The ILSs set me up perfect every time, I just have to flare.

[Rupert]

Not sure what scenery you have, I fly into KSFO all the time landing on runways 28L and 28R. The ILSs set me up perfect every time, I just have to flare.

 

Hey Andy,

 

Thanks for the comment! What you saw on this post was using P3Dv4 with ORBX Northern California Scenery. It, as I noted, shows 30L & 30R and misses the runway by a good 100 yards to the right I'd guess.

 

So you made me curious. I fired up FSX on my backup computer and attempted the same approach using default scenery only. According to that map I had 28L and 28R to choose from. Choosing 28R it told me to dial in 110.75 for Approach.

 

So I fired up my stock Learjet and approached 28R tuned Nav1 to 110.75, hit APPR with a speed dialed in at 170knts. APPR worked just as expected and started letting me down at normal landing rate. By the time I waved off I was about to touchdown just inside the fence of SFO once again at least 100yds to the right. In fact I'd probably have hit an airport vehicle on an access road if I hadn't waved off when I did.

 

I then did a Go Around and repeated the procedure with the same result. This only difference on this approach was by the time I got back the airport vehicle had left.

[Rupert]

Hi,

 

Here's why the RWY numbers are changing more nowadays.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52550973

 

At BGTL (Thule AFB USAF) in Greenland, the RWYs are numbered 08T/26T, according to true north. Otherwise they'd have to repaint those numbers every year.

 

Regards,

DDP.

 

Great description of how our magnetic fields are changing. As an old boater I was aware that was happening some time ago Seems like we spun the compass more often every year.