Trident Autoland Tutorial. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Important notes on how to uses this tutorial: Obviously you MUST have David Maltby's Trident 2 and 3 aircraft installed in your FS2004 for this interactive tutorial to work. It is entirely unsuitable for any other aircraft. Unzip everything into a temporary folder like C:\Unzipped Print out this Document...put the last two pages with the red and blue text to one side. These pages are for later when you are more familiar. Move the FLT, WX and PLN files to here:- X:\Documents and Settings\Your Name\My Documents\Flight Simulator Files Seated in front of your computer, start with your printed copy of the tutorial in front of you and read and action everything in order. When you have got the idea and are just enjoying the practice, just use those last two pages with the Red and Blue text as Trigger and Action reminders. Full explanation of the Autoland Circuit at Heathrow in the Trident 3. Start FS9 and select the flight called “Trident Tutorial Basic”. You will find yourself lined up with engines running on Runway 27 Right at Heathrow. The Boost engine may also be running but it will shut down automatically…We will not need the Boost for this exercise. There is one thing we need to do straight away and that is to get rid of all Traffic…Go Options > Settings > Traffic and drag the slider fully left to Zero. You can put some Traffic back in later when you are more familiar with the aircraft. You will notice that the Autopilot Popup panel is already set up over the Doppler Map and you should leave it there for the whole flight…Practically all our selections will be on that panel so you should become acquainted with the names of the various switches on there. Look first at the three lever switches in the bottom left corner. Regard these switches as the Autopilot Engage Levers…to engage them you need two clicks…one for the left two levers and one for the right lever…try it now. Engage them and then disengage them again. While you are in that corner click on that Flight Director Engage knob…it is already engaged with a light on. When you click it the knob will go in and the light out…The Flight Director bars on the Attitude Director Indicator (ADI) will move to park out of sight and an orange flag will show with a cross on it. Click the knob again to Engage and the bars will reappear and the knob will light…Leave it like that for the whole flight. Next, in the centre of the Autopilot panel you will see another similar knob marked “Azimuth Master Bank Limit”…we will call this the Azimuth Master and when you pull it up, it will light and the word AZM will light in the Mode Indicator over the Captain’s Altimeter…try it. The switches on the bottom right section of the Autopilot panel will not be used in this tutorial so we will ignore them…Look now at the group of switches at top right on that panel. These are to do with Height Lock and Height Acquire. You will notice a millibar setting similar to the one on the altimeter…You will also notice that they both are set to 1009 mbs. This is the QFE at Heathrow today and makes your altimeters read Height above Heathrow rather than Altitude above Sea Level. Please leave them so set for this exercise and if you use ATC later and they give you an altimeter setting do not press “B” or they will go back to the QNH which today is 1013mbs. You will also see a select height window and it is reading OO.O00 at the moment. There is a White topped knob near the window and we can wind this with our mouse to set a height…Please wind it now to O3.O00 feet and leave it there for the whole flight. Below the millibar scale you will see a lever that can be moved with your mouse click from “Lock” to “Acquire”. Flick it now to Acquire and you will see ACQ flashing in the Mode Indicator…It is flashing because you have not yet Engaged it. Pull up the nearby Engage knob…It will light and the ACQ in the mode indicator will go steady. Flick the lever now from Acquire to Lock and you will see the Mode indicator change from ACQ to HT. Finally in this height section, click the Engage knob again to disengage it and its light will go out and the HT will vanish from the Mode Indicator. Before we leave this height acquire section you will see a little wheel marked “Pitch”…Clicking this up or down while in Height Acquire mode will pitch the nose up or down to adjust your attitude. Now over to the top left section of the Autopilot Panel…This is all about Speed. The IAS window is showing 3 knots at the moment…That’s because there are 3 knots of wind on the nose. Click the Engage knob in that section and you will see SPEED light up in the Mode Indicator. Now to the three position lever switch marked “Mach”, “IAS” and “Throttle”. If you place your mouse pointer on any of those three words and click, the lever will flick to that position and the appropriate word will light in the Mode Indicator. Mach and IAS both show SPEED and Throttle shows THROT and this also brings on an adjacent warning light near the lever. While it is still engaged you will see that you can dial the Speed window numbers up with that little wheel beside it…Just place your pointer on the wheel and move it till it shows + and press and hold down your mouse button. When you let go the mouse button the number will stay as it is. On the ground here you should not really try this in THROT mode or it will start opening the throttles. Only one more switch on this panel to look at and that is the big rotary switch at top centre marked Glide, Prime, Land and Off. You can click on the words Glide, Land or Off and the switch will move there (Note it will not go to Land while we are here on the ground). We will use all the switches, so far mentioned, in this tutorial and one other on the HSI…If you look at the top left of the HSI, you will see a little switch that can be clicked to make it point to 12 o’clock, 3 o’clock or 6 o’clock. On the real aircraft, the pilot moves this switch but on this model, it has been slightly automated. You will merely have to return it to the 3 o’clock position in your after landing drills. The switch is called the “Sense Switch”. Well that covers the names of the switches and just before finishing this section I would like to point out that the most difficult part of this flight and the one where you may come unstuck is the Take-Off…It is the bit at 500 feet where you engage various bits of the autopilot. You need to be a bit slick at this and you need to be stable and in trim with 8 degrees nose up attitude when you do it. Let’s just do the engage sequence now here on the ground a few times to get the feel of it…Imagine that you are nicely stable passing 500 feet do these things:-
That is really five clicks that must be done swiftly and surely, and then with the Flaps brought in as the speed goes through 190 knots you go to the speed section and:-
Just practice those bits a few times to get used to it and then when it comes to doing it in the air you will probably get it right. If you get it badly wrong, you will finish up a smoking hole in the ground and will have to start again. However, assuming that you get that bit right, the rest is just child’s play…Just clicking switches at certain trigger moments and the Autopilot will do the whole thing for you. It will finish with a perfect Autoland and you will only have to apply reverse thrust and brake. We are nearly ready to fly now so I suggest that you shut down FS9 and go and have a coffee break. It is important to start again with the freshly loaded Tutorial flight to make sure that nothing has been upset by all our fiddling and practicing. O.K….If we are feeling refreshed we will continue the tutorial and for this first autoland circuit, we will NOT use ATC. Start FS9 again and select the same flight. When things have settled you need to set a few things that cannot be saved with a flight and check a few other. You will need to run through this brief checklist each time you join a tutorial flight :-
I will mention here that the fuel load on this flight has been suitably adjusted to give a realistic landing weight and you will have enough to make three complete circuits…After that, just reload the flight to repeat as required. O.K. you are nearly ready to take-off…this is how we are going to fly this first circuit. We will work together by using the “P” pause key. You will have your Printout of this tutorial in front of you and we will go round this first circuit in little sections then you will hit “P” and read the next bit…You will soon get the idea. Now just think about what we are going to do on this take-off, remembering that at about 500 feet you are going to get those slick series of clicks to get the Autopilot involved. I will just go over what you are going to do between releasing the brakes and pressing “P” for the first time :-
That is as far as you go on this first part and at this point you will hit “P” to pause and come back to me here…OK mull it over and when you are ready, do the 1 to 8 above and if you are still alive hit “P”. O.K. I assume that you are back here with me, reading this and in front of you the panel is paused…Well Done, you are home and dry now. The autopilot is now going to do it all for you and you will just watch for each “Trigger” and “Action” the appropriate switch. Let us look at where you are. The altitude is probably about 2500 feet and the aircraft is climbing nicely. When we press “P” again to unpause, the aircraft will continue to accelerate up to 250 knots and at the same time it will level off at 3000 feet. While it is in the process of doing all that, we will take our next action. That is to turn right onto heading 094 degrees (our downwind heading)…We do this with the knob at the bottom right of the HSI, the Heading Knob…you will place your pointer on it and move it a bit till it shows + and then hold the mouse button down to move the heading index round the compass scale to 094…try not to overshoot it or the aircraft will try to turn the wrong way click it gently onto 094 and leave it. While the aircraft is doing this turn, which will take a while, I want you to do one more thing…Fully close your Stick Throttle Wheel or Lever and leave it there for the rest of the flight. O.K. Unpause do the turn, close your stick throttle and when the turn has finished and you have levelled out on 094, Pause again and come back to me. Right, I guess you are back and you are paused and approaching abeam Heathrow…Let me just point out that I have tuned Nav 2 to London VOR and I have tuned ADF 1 to the beacon that is also in the centre of Heathrow near the VOR…So, the Red and Green needles on your RMI instrument are pointing at Heathrow and those needles will follow the airport as it drifts by on your right. When those needles are pointing to about three o’clock then you will be Abeam Heathrow. Prior to that point, your NAV 1 is looking at the wrong ILS…It is seeing and showing the ILS for runway 09 Left. As we get past Abeam Heathrow, it will switch over to the correct ILS and the dividing line on your HSI between the Blue and the Yellow (which represents the runway centre-line) will slide over to the right side (which is correct) and the Glide Bar, which we are interested in as our next “Trigger”, will vanish for a bit. Then the Glide Bar will drop down to the bottom and then slowly work its way back up the dial. We are going to watch that bar move up to the centre and the moment it gets there, is our “Trigger” to reduce speed…BTW this trigger will occur at RED DME distance of 10 miles (The RED DME is on NAV 1, our ILS)…This is how we reduce speed. Place the mouse pointer on the Speed wheel and move it till it shows a minus sign – and then press and hold your mouse button to dial the speed window all the way back to 180 knots…Immediately, you have it at 180 click your first notch on the flap button or tap F7 once…this will actually put out your Droop fully. Then watch the speed decaying on the ASI and as it passes 210 knots click flaps or F7 again for the first 10 degrees of Flap and then as the speed passes 190 knots click again for the second chunk of Flap to 16 degrees…leave it there and press “P” for pause. O.K. off you go and do the above…you can use your hat switch to look right as Heathrow passes abeam if you like…get back to me here when you are paused. Well, I see you are back…Our next “Trigger” is only about two miles ahead…It is RED DME 15 miles. This is our turn-in point and at that moment start clicking the + side of the heading knob to turn us Right onto 225 degrees. This is our intercept heading…We will also do the next thing and the “Trigger” for that is The Bank Starting to Come Off as you level out of the turn…The moment that starts to happen click the word “Glide” on the central Prime switch on the autopilot panel…Note that GP starts to flash in the Mode Indicator panel…Now Pause. O.K. do that bit and get back to me…BTW you may notice the Millennium Dome going past the nose about halfway round the turn. The next “Trigger” is the descending Glide Bar reaching 1 dot to go to the centre…At this point hit “G” to put the gear down and immediately dial the Speed back to 160 kts…then Pause. O.K. do that now and get back. Well you are back and you can see that it is turning onto the localiser but it is not quite there yet…But the Glide Bar is moving down towards the centre and our next “Trigger” will be soon after that…As the Glide Bar reaches the middle the HT in the Mode Indicator will go out and the nose of the aircraft will gently dip. This is the trigger point…give two clicks of Flap or two taps of F7 and immediately dial the speed to 150 kts…check also that BEAM is now in the Mode Indicator and tidy the Heading Index by turning it onto 274 and leave it there…Pause and get back to this reading. Well you are back and almost at the next “Trigger”…That is 2500 feet on the Altimeter…At this point we put down our last click of Flap to make 45 degrees. We then click the grey Chinagraph board to update it and then we dial in the VAT into the speed window. You can then carry on to the next “Trigger” which is 2000 feet on the Altimeter…At this point click the word “Land” on the Prime Switch to Prime Land. A magnetic indicator on the glare shield will turn Green…Pause now and come back. O.K. you are back AND you have done all your switching…You are nicely established and on your way to a perfect Autoland…Here are a few things that you may notice as you go down the approach :-
O.K. Time now for your last bit of involvement…Press and hold down F2 for reverse thrust. As speed falls through 80 knots, let go of F2 and tap F1 once. Grab your brake lever and start braking. When the speed is safe, turn off the runway. STOP and do these checks to make ready for the next take-off :-
O.K. now we will get ATC involved for the next circuit…press your key to get the ATC window…it is the @ key on my keyboard. Press 3. Request Taxy – Depart Straight Out. 1. to Acknowledge and then call the window again and turn on the Progressive Taxy. Follow the purple line to 27 Right and switch to Tower before you get there. Call for take-off and away you go again…BUT for this one I won’t be there but you can use the two Red and Blue pages of this tutorial to remind you of all the “Triggers” and “Actions”…press Pause whenever you feel a bit hesitant…look up what you need and continue. As far as ATC is concerned, just ignore the Clear to change frequency after take-off and then when back on the approach just select Heathrow from the list of airports, select the Tower and request a “Full Stop Landing”. Later on when you are getting good at this, you may like to feed in some traffic with your slider…not too much though. Well this concludes my tutorial and I hope you have enjoyed it. You will soon be proficient at Autolands and might like to move onto the “Trident Tutorial Advanced” flight. The weather in this flight is different…You now have a crosswind and the KOD (Kick Off Drift) will be active. How this works will depend on whether you have rudder pedals or not. If you have pedals and you have the “Autorudder” box in Realism Unchecked then it will kick off very nicely in the flare. However, if like me, you don’t have pedals and you have the “Autorudder” box checked then it will not happen. What I do to make it happen is get airborne in the usual way and then at some convenient point in the circuit I call the realism menu and Uncheck the Autorudder box. The only problem with that, is steering on the runway after landing…it is difficult to steer with the KeyPad and Reverse thrust and brake all at the same time…Well my solution to that is to hit “P” at the moment of touchdown…Then I nip out with Shift+S and examine where I have touched, AND while I’m still Paused I call up the Realism menu and get that tick back in the Autorudder box…Not very realistic but then when I hit “S” to go back in and “P” to unpause, I can steer with my stick while I’m reversing and braking. One of these days I will buy some pedals! The final flight is called “Trident Tutorial CAT IIIb”. The weather is FOG and the RVR is 100 metres and that is as low as FS9 goes. The Real Trident was cleared for 75 metres at the touchdown end, 50 metres at mid point and 50 metres at the far end. There is a slight crosswind so KOD will work but it won’t have much to do, so you can ignore it if you like. Because of the weather, you can not use ATC or Traffic on this flight as you will be refused all permissions, so turn off your traffic and don’t call ATC. This flight is your “Graduation”… Good Luck and I hope you make it all the way through…I would be pleased to receive an e-mail from you when you have successfully completed your first CAT IIIb Autoland. ADENDA…In case you are a glutton for punishment and would like to fly a full CAT III flight with ATC and Traffic, I have included an extra Flight called “Trident Cat IIIb from C20 at Heathrow”. This flight comes preloaded with a Flightplan called CAT3.PLN and you will be able to obtain ATC Clearance before pushback. When the flight loads, let the fog arrive then hit “S” to get aboard. Get your clearance and dial your cleared Altitude. Use SHFT+P to pushback, use CTRL+E to start your engines as you are pushing. When you have taxy clearance get the purple line to follow out to the runway. If you have a lot of Traffic, ATC may take you a long way out after take-off, in order to feed you into the flow…Just follow ATC handoffs and instructions staying at 250 knots till YOU decide when to do the slow down. If ATC lose track and give up, telling you to maintain VFR!, just reload the flightplan “CAT3.PLN” and request clearance in the air…They will turn you in now and all will be well (It has just happened the once to me). I hope you enjoy this flight, it is longish, they may send you out as far as 60 miles if the Traffic is intense, but it is very satisfying to do this full IFR flight. Peter McLeland. 27th April 2005 |
Trident Autoland Tutorial |
|
Trigger | Action |
You feel lucky | Release brakes and open throttles. |
VR | Rotate to 10 degrees nose up. |
Climbing | Gear Up and trim forward to hold 8 degrees nose up |
500 feet | Engage three Autopilot levers, Pull Azimuth Master, Select Acquire and pull engage knob. |
Speed through 190 kts | Flaps Up. |
Speed through 200 kts | Select Throttle, engage and immediately dial 250 kts. |
Speed 225 kts | Droop Up. |
Droop up | Turn Right onto 094 degrees. Set your stick throttle wheel or lever to closed. |
As you pass abeam EGLL (RMI) the ILS signals will reverse. Glide Bar will vanish then drop down, then move slowly up the scale…When it reaches centre (DME 10 nms) | Dial speed back to 180 kts then immediately select Droop Down. |
As speed passes 210 kts | 1 notch of Flap (10 degrees). |
As speed passes 190 kts | 2nd notch of flap (16 degrees). |
15 nms on Red DME | Turn Right onto 225 degrees. |
As bank levels | Prime Glide…(GP flashes in Mode Indicator). |
Glide Bar at 1 dot to go | Gear Down and immediately dial 160 kts Check BEAM in Mode Indicator and tidy Heading Index to 274 degrees. |
HT clears from Mode Indicator and nose dips | Select 2 more notches of Flap (28 degrees) and dial 150 kts. |
2500 feet | Land Flap (45 degrees) and click Chinagraph board…Dial VAT |
2000 feet | Prime Land…check Mag Ind Green. |
Approx 1000 feet | KOD green flags in Radio Alts and Blue light. |
Radio Alts passing 500 feet | Check KOD green flags and Mag Ind Green P3 would now call “Autoland 12 feet”. |
133 feet Radio Progress light come on. | Watch the aircraft Flare…Watch throttles close, Feel touchdown. |
Nosewheel touches down | Press and hold F2 for reverse. |
80 kts | Let go F2 and tap F1 once then start braking. |
Speed safe | Turn off runway. |
1. | Flaps | 3 clicks up to finish on the TO line (16 degrees with Droop still down). |
2. | Sense switch (Top left of HSI) | To the 3 o’clock position. |
3. | Trim | 3.0 degrees nose up. |
4. | Thrust Index | Click top half of one gauge (153?) |
5. | Chinagraph Board | Click to write new V speeds. |