What is the difference between ILS, GPS, and visual landing? I understand ILS and visual approaches, but I’m not clear on GPS and its usage.
Just means following your waypoints up until the runway.
No guidance or systems on board to tell you how high you need to be or anything else.
At the simplest level: in Infinite Flight, it means there’s no vertical or lateral guidance. In Infinite Flight, to my knowledge, a GPS approach (gray cone) is really a visual approach (correct me if I’m wrong though)
In real life, there may or may not be vertical and/or lateral guidance depending on the exact type of approach. RNAV (fancy term for GPS), LPV, LP, LNAV, LNAV+V, RNP, and LNAV/VNAV are all types of GPS approaches.
Also in real life, the ILS (Instrument Landing System) is basically lateral/vertical guidance using radio signals to keep the aircraft on a specific glide path to the runway.
(I’m almost a certified flight instructor irl so if you have any more questions please let me know! I’m working on explaining things thoroughly while also keeping it simple, and answering questions)
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I’m pretty sure in IF you can use waypoints for your gps approach, which won’t give you vertical guidance and doesn’t give you a super strict lateral guidance, but ILS would be using the ILS on your HUD or instrument panel
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Hey!
Have a read of this page of the User Guide which explains what a GPS approach is and how to fly it -
No… A GPS approach is a series of waypoints to follow to the runway. Some of these waypoints usually have defined altitudes and the rest can be interpolated, giving you almost complete vertical and horizontal guidance.
The cones themselves are not approaches, they are simply extended centerlines and ILS interception guidance if they are red.
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Yeah the cones depict where an approach is and also function as an extended centerline.
I know that the actual approach is the fixes with their altitudes, and you can find them on an instrument approach plate.
What I’m saying is that in Infinite Flight you can’t set them up and get guidance like an ILS, RNAV, etc. (red cones) so if you know how to find the real-life approach you can set it up yourself.
The GPS approaches listed in IF have the waypoints and the mandatory altitudes included on the real world charts.
You can really just set the runway altitude and hit VNAV for most GPS approaches.
Oh that’s sick. I legit didn’t know that. I’ll check the user guide and play around with it to see what this is then.
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