PilotEdge Forums

Keith - need your guidance on what to do in this situation. I am approaching an airport on an IFR flight plan, the controller says to expect the visual approach, gives me vectors to field and says to report field in sight. The screen resolution in the sim just does not match real life and I'm just a few miles out from the airport before I can actually see it on the screen, even in CAVOK conditions. The problem is more prevalent during daytime operations when field lights are hard to see. By the time I actually can make out the field, I am way too high to be able to descend at a safe rate to land. I'm using Foreflight, so I know exactly where the airport should be, I just can't identify it until too late. What should I do for purposes of being able to make safe landings without having to go around? Should I report airport in sight at a distance out when you would normally be able to make out the field in real life? I don't want to do anything that is not right, but this is just a limitation in flying a sim that doesn't exist in real life. Looking forward to your guidance.

Try requesting an instrument approach instead.

I agree with Kevin. Knowing your sim's limitations (which are odd, btw, because I fly visuals all day long in XP11 without issue using a 1440p display), just request an instrument approach from the outset.

Keith: not entirely odd. I frequently can't make out airports in many areas. They often "come in" at around 20nm, but many don't, or are just difficult to make out. Sometimes "marching ants" which often delineate a runway from further away, can help. It's scenery dependent, of course, and the presence or absence of ortho, Orbx TE, alpilotx mesh, or additional airport scenery all have an effect. The old "Enhanced Runways HD" from Flyjsim can be a good dodge too. Use the "asphalt_dark" textures, and it can really make a lot of airports stand out - unrealistically so, perhaps, but could make ChipDeMoss's life a bit easier