ILS Approaches!

1) First off, fly a route from one airport to another and set yourself up for an ILS approach. Save this flight by pressing ';' (the button next to the L key by default) - this means that you can then keep practicing your ILS approaches without having to fly a whole route each time - you can just load your ILS approach flight.

2) Make sure you start off using calm weather with no winds so you don't need to worry about crosswind correction etc.

3) Start off using a small aircraft like a Cessna and then work your way up to a Learjet etc. Don't start off in a large jet because it won't work.

4) Never 'chase' the needles on the HSI. Imagine you are driving a car, trying to follow the central line down the middle of the road. If you veer slightly off that line, you don't spin your steering wheel the whole way around, but you make a small correction to line back up with it. Its the same in an ILS approach; drastic movements only get you into a worse position than you were already in.

5) Try using the Visual Flight Path. Its a very helpful aid and shows you how much control movement you need to stay in line with the ILS which stops you over compensating with the controls.

6) VOR practice has helped me a lot with accurate control movement. Practice some VOR navigation i.e. flying towards a VOR station, making small movements on the control surfaces to stay in line with a certain radial.

In short, practice is the only way. Find ideal conditions and an ideal aircraft and with practice you'll nail the landings to the point you never knew what the problem was 😉

What aircraft are you flying?

Using the autopilot to within 200 feet of the runway on commercial jets is quite realistic. I usually let the autopilot bring me down to within 200 feet, and then transition to controlling the aircraft. I turn off the speed control about 5 miles from the threshold this way it is easy to cut power and reverse thrust when necessary. Very small adjustments of the control surfaces after Autopilot is turned off and your on the ground.

Even with small planes I tend to use the autopilot to set up my approach, but turn it off as soon as I have visual of the runway (10 miles?).

Are you using a joystick or keyboard? I cannot control the aircraft very well with the keyboard and have a hard time flying straight. Get a joystick or flight yoke if you don't have one.

No, I have a joystick. Ok I'll try the suggestion, let's see how it goes.