Has anyone encountered this. Arriving IFR yesterday, runway 05 in use, app 13 DME, controller vectors me on heading to intercept localizer from right, report established. Also descends me from 3tk to 2k.
I could not get the needles, and got myself into a state of some confusion. I knew roughly where I was, but flew through the beam, I think he had vectored me too late, and too far out. I ended up with some false IlS glide slope indications. Ie with the vectors, I had not captured it. To far out I think.
It was to begin a false capture, and he began giving me ever tighter vectors to get me back. Adding I might add, to my consternation.
I eventually captured the true course by closing from the left, around 7 DME. I then became visual, breathed some relief, and learnt from it.
Is this normal, or was I unfortunate to be given wrong vectors?
Appreciate advice from anyone who has experienced the same.
Has happened to me into Augsburg – in theory the false glide slope occur above the real slope – I was demonstrating a coupled approach and the A/P captured a false slope – the DME heights did not tally so reverted to manual – but this was on the back of RVs a fair ways away – 12 DME?
I then became visual, breathed some relief
In such a situation I make sure I see the right airport. Having some troubles then spotting a runway and going for it sounds like the usual way to end up on the wrong airport 
I suppose you did maybe worry too much about the glideslope too early. I usually capture the localizer and fly to the DME distance given on the chart where I should capture the glide at the altitude cleared. Then maybe 1 or 2 miles before that point I really whatch for the glideslope. As far as I remember proper glide slope indication is not guranteed beeing too far away or beeing not on the localizer. Also obstancle clerance is only available on the localizer. So following the glide not beeing on the localizer might be dangerous.
Thanks, yes I think that is what may have happened. To be honest it was a bit of a blur at the time, my expectation of what to expect did not happen. I probably went through above, too far out, then ended up left of the true slope , and had to come back, closer at level, to capture. The issue for me, is that I have two Glide slope indicators, one in my scan, the other on the far RHS of panel. When I did not see what I expected on the one in front of me, I broke my scan, looked over to the RHS, and probably got a bit of ‘leans’ in the process. Lost SA for a bit, but recovered.
It was in cloud, hand flying, and in future, think I will block the RHS one from view, or not use.
What happens quite often is that ATC assume you are going to do the final descent quickly – perhaps -1000fpm. In GA we rarely do that, and one can end up vectored to the LOC but still above the GS. In that case one has to go around, without descending, simply by continuing the approach laterally. To try to capture the GS from above is sometimes possible by diving down but is best avoided, especially if one was on autopilot and the autopilot failed to capture the GS, which becomes apparent very late, and suddenly you have to fly it by hand.
Then why not initially descent with -1000 fpm to catch up on the GS?
It is better to fly smoothly, setting up the descents so they are nice and continuous, as far as possible.
It is also best to avoid extended periods of low level flight in the UK Class G (anything around or below 2000ft is very busy on a nice day) so plummetting down at 1000fpm as soon as cleared and then flying for 10nm at 2000ft is not a good idea.
Also setting up a 1000fpm descent, if already doing say 140kt, is going to take you to Vne pretty quickly (in a retractable, especially) unless you drop the power a lot, which is not good CHT management.
ATC are entitled to expect 500fpm climbs and descents, unless previously advised that that rate cannot be achieved (or is not desired).
The ROD one might set up on the AP will depend on one’s situational awareness i.e. knowing where one is relative to the LOC. Most pilots, flying the ILS “classically”, do not know clearly how far away they are in terms of distance. You may have the ADF or the RMI pointer showing you the bearing to the LOC but that doesn’t give you the distance. The only time one will see a clear picture is if one
I use the middle one.
Sometimes ATC do literally forget about you. Happened to me at Caen last year. Somebody on the radio was dictating War and Peace (in French)…
You have a nice NDB at your airport – GLW 331 – so when they vector you from the right ( south east ) to the localizer for the ILS 05 just look at the ADF and it will show you the
displacement from the LOC in degrees. It is easy when your plane has got an ADF RMI – it will show 051 when on the localizer. So when it shows 5° less (046°) it’s about time to turn inbound onto the LOC or for a smoother intercept, depending on intercept angle and distance to the field, of course. When you have only a fixed scale ADF you have a relative bearing and you can add or subtract to see how far off you are. A moving map is easier to show the off-set but the ADF is a good thing to know where you are and perhaps to ask the controller to turn you in if you think he forgot you.
edit: just saw that Peter has also mentioned the ADF – and the a.m. GPS in OBS with inbound course to the runway / airport is a great help as you get the distance too
Surely at 13DME the glide slope is a little over 4000 feet, so you cannot have intercepted from above if you were at 3000 descending to 2000? Once you were down to 2000 the glide slope intercept would be after 7 DME so you were still not above.
Therefore your problems were more about intercepting the localiserI would worry only about the localiser until established. As Neil says, it seems like you were miles away from a glideslope intercept.
