Honolulu GPS Rwy 8R

GPS3

Purpose: Fly a GPS Approach

Aircraft: default Beechcraft King Air 350
Depart: PHNY (Lanai City, Lanai, Hawaii)
Arrive: PHNL (Honolulu Intl, Hawaii)
Distance: 67 nm
Time: 45 min

When the flight starts, you are parked at Lanai City on the ramp, engines are off, avionics are off, battery is off. Lanai City has no tower, so you will have to choose the departing runway and taxi course. The general procedure you want to use for this flight is as follows:

Do a visual walk-around of the aircraft. If you're using a joystick or flight yoke, check that the rudder, elevators, and ailerons respond to your inputs.

Check the fuel level [ Menu Aircraft, Fuel and Payload]. 100% aux tanks and 30% mains are adequate. You should always check fuel level before attempting to depart an aircraft.

Get in the cockpit [keyboard S] and set the parking brake. Never operate the plane on the ground without the parking brake set (except while taxiing)

Open the engine panel. Check that the thrust levers are full down, the prop levers are full up, and the condition levers are full up. Close the engine panel.

Battery switch to On. Crank engine 2 until it starts. Gen 2 switch on. Crank engine 1 until it starts. Gen 1 switch on. Avionics switch on.
-OR-
press Ctrl-E to initiate the auto-start sequence.

Reduce the condition levers on the engine panel to slightly below the Idle position. You should hear the engines whine down to a lower level. This will make ground taxiing easier. (If you retard the condition lever too far, the engine may stop. Advance the condition lever slightly, then operate the ignition switch again to restart the engine.)

Open the kneeboard and check your flight plan. The first VOR listed is Lanai City LNY (117.70). Initial course to the first waypoint, JULLE, is 278°, so tune your NAV1 radio to 117.7 and set 278 into the OBS course. Close the kneeboard.

Press the ` key to open the ATC window. The only option available is "Tune Honolulu Radio to 122.1". This is the FSS station available through radio link at Lanai City. Choose option 1 and proceed to get your flight clearance. Select your assigned initial altitude into the autopilot. Since there is no tower, you will have no further ATC contact until you're airborne. Choose the new option, Tune to PHNY Traffic, then type ` again to close the ATC window.

Bcn switch to On, to activate the rotating warning beacon on the airdraft exterior. It's not considered polite to turn on the strobes or landing lights until you depart the terminal area. At night, you may use the taxi light and the Nav lights.

If it has already left, there should be an Island Air Dash-8 commuter plane on the ramp, about ready to leave. If you're unsure what runway to use for departure, observe the departing plane, and listen to its departure announcement on the PHNY traffic frequency. Because of the weather settings, Runway 3 should be inuse.

When you're ready to taxi, release the parking brakes and type Shift-P for pushback. Allow pushback to continue until you have space to turn, then Shift-P again to halt pushback. Advance the throttle slightly until you start to roll, then turn left until you can see the taxiway to the runway. You will probably have to reduce throttle to idle to avoid building up too much speed, then advance throttle again when your speed drops too much.

At the runway, stop. If any plane is the runway, wait until it has taken off. Then use the ATC window to announce departing to the West. Advance throttle, and enter the runway, turning right, and taxi to its end. If you're fairly skilfull at taxiing, you should be able to turn the plane around without leaving the runway. Line up for departure and stop.

Check that you're ready for departure. Prop levers full foward. Condition levers full forward (you'll hear the engines speed up to full idle). Flaps down to first notch. Auto-feather switch On. Landing lights On.

Advance the throttles smoothly to the top notch, taking care not to exceed about 90% throttle. With jet engines, we don't use full power for take-offs, generally 90 to 95% throttle is normal. (Turboprops are a type of jet engine that uses its power to turn a prop). When you reach about 120 to 130 knots, pitch up and allow the aircraft to lift off when it's ready.

After take-off, Gear up. Retract flaps. Control pitch and keep climb rate at or below 1500 fpm until speed builds up to 180 knots. Autopilot on. Set yaw damper, activate altitude hold, and keyboard Ctrl-H to set heading hold with current heading. Now open the ATC window and contact Honolulu Center. You will recieve additional flight instructions from Center, and you're on your way.

On contact, ATC will probably put you under approach control, assign a heading and arrival runway. If not, follow the flight plan by coming to course 278 on NAV1, and continue climb to your initial altitude. You should receive arrival instructions shortly.

To run this scenario as intended, after you've been assigned an arrival runway -- probably ILS 8L -- you have to contact ATC and choose the option, "Request another runway." Choose runway 8R. The ATC menu then allows you to either request the runway, or to select an approach. If you request the runway now, ATC will assign you the ILS runway 8L approach, circle to land runway 8R, and that's not what you want. So, next, choose the "Request another approach" option. Choose "GPS Runway 8R" from the list. Achieving that, you are then ready to "Request runway and approach." To review:

Wait until ATC contacts you and assigns you an approach heading and runway.

Instead of acknowledging it, choose the option "Request another runway."

Request runway 8R from the list.

Now, you have the options to request the runway, or request another approach. Choose "Request another approach."

Choose the "GPS Runway 8R" approach.

Choose the "Request Runway and Approach" from the menu.

ATC will assign you runway 8R, with GPS Approach Runway 8R.

Turn to the assigned heading. Select the GPS Runway 8R approach on your GPS.

You can set up your GPS to perform the Runway 8R approach using the following procedure:

Open the GPS

Press PROC

The GPS asks if you want to select an approach. Press ENT to accept.

The GPS display lists the available approaches for the destination airport in your flight plan. GPS Runway 8R is further down the list. Cursor mode is already active, so, just press the -> key on the outer ring of the dial to step down the approaches until GPS Runway 8R is highlighted.

Press ENT to accept the highlighted approach.

The GPS asks if you want VECTORS, or any of several named waypoints. Accept VECTORS TO FINAL by pressing ENT.

The GPS asks if you want to LOAD the approach, or ACTIVATE the approach.

Press the -> key on the outer ring of the dial to highlight "ACTIVATE"

Press ENT to load the approach and make it active.

The GPS is active and ready to fly your approach, but will not do so until you set the autopilot to GPS mode and activate NAV. For now, you should be using HDG control, becaue ATC is giving you heading instructions. Leave it like that until ATC tells you clear for the approach. Then select the NAV/GPS switch to GPS, and press NAV on the autopilot. The plane should now turn to intercept the runway.

With a GPS approach, the GPS will control lateral navigation for you, but you will have to control the descent manually; there is no glidepath hold for a GPS approach. Your initial approach heading will be 3100 ft. This is too high for a visual approach when visibility is only 1 mile. You will need to be much lower so you can get down to the runway after you see it. Therefore, after ATC clears you for the approach, begin another descent to 2000 ft. Hole that altitude until you are about 6.5 NM from the runway 8R. Then began a descent (you can use altitude hold) to 800 ft. Use a descent rate of about 700 fpm. Be prepared to hold 800 ft if you reac it before seeing the runway. You should see the runway VASI lights beween 3 miles and 1 mile from the runway. At that point, you can turn altitude hold off and manage your descent by hand. Turn off autopilot before reaching the runway threshold, otherwise it may begin an automatic go-around procedure, and you don't want that (unless you want to do the go-around).

Overall, you should find this a pretty easy procedure, and should have no difficulties with it once you're familiar with operating the equipment and interacting with ATC. By taking up a low altitude during the final approach, you've put yourself in a position to defer the final descent until you can see the runway, and when you can see the runway, descent and landing should be assured.

Good luck!

Download: GPS3.zip