IFR & VFR Real Charts

The problem is that in DCS, the ILS isn't coupled to a DME--the TACAN is the source of the DME signal. So you would need a different approach.

 

These approaches look pretty weird to me. I guess they're indicative of the type of approach one can expect in the region, but stuff in the continental USA isn't structured anything like those. Usually the missed approach point involves a holding pattern that can be flown while other aircraft are using the approach. In the case of the one I'm looking at from Bad CRC's link (Sochi) it seems like there is no MAP, and instead, you literally circle around for another shot at the ILS.

Yeah, I was trying to figure that out too. I'm an instrument rated pilot and I haven't ever flown an approach like these. It makes for a fun new challenge!

Though I've been trying to figure out exactly the procedure to use, as well. I guess it basically flies like a holding pattern, but instead of using time for the outbound leg, you use the radial that is shown on the approach? (in this case, looking at the ILS DME Rwy 12 for Batumi). Interesting approach.

--NoJoe

 

Use the official ones here: http://aviadocs.net/aip/html/eng.htm

 

Russian Airports, SID and STARS free and up to date. If someone got the same for the georgian authorities, please share.

.

Great Link, thanks. (Charts under AIP. ..../ AP PartIII/ AD 2/ AD 2.1.). As stated, all rusian AP. Link added to the first post.

In DCS only 5 airports have TACAN. They are all Georgians: Kobuleti, Vaziani, Kutaisi, Senaki and Batumi. For now we have IFR aproaches for Batumi & Vaziani (shared here).

For those new to IFR, Tacan, kind of a military VOR, a radio beacon, is need for IFR aproach until you can intercept ILS.

With time (going out on a hunting trip today) I'll prepare and share a simple missión with very low visibility, no functionals MFDs & HUD, and a briefing with IFR charts and step by step instructions for a TACAN/ILS aproach.

 

Though I've been trying to figure out exactly the procedure to use, as well. I guess it basically flies like a holding pattern, but instead of using time for the outbound leg, you use the radial that is shown on the approach? (in this case, looking at the ILS DME Rwy 12 for Batumi). Interesting approach.

 

--NoJoe

I think, looking at BATUMI chart, basically you have to:

Intercept the TACAN station flying on Radial 299 (heading 119) at 7000'. Bank left to heading 299 while descending to 3500'. Keep 3500'. When you have the tacan at 143 degrees bank left again to intercept course 119. On final conect and intercept ILS, follow the needles till you see the runway 12, land. If when your reach the minimum descend altitud stated for ILS (decision ponit) you dont see the runway, you climb to 3500' while turning left to a heading of 299 to start over.

Tested it in DCS, works flawless.

Hey Guys,

I sent a rather long PM to JorgeIII last night. But I only now noticed that he's 'away on a hunting trip' so I'm not sure when he'll read it.

So here's the basic idea of the message I sent him...

I've been wanting to get into the IFR concept of late (even bought FSX recently for this reason!) so this thread obviously piqued my interest.

After seeing those charts and reading that only five airports have Tacan, I decided to look around the sim files and do some tinkering ;)

After a bit of trial and error (and quite a few swear words) we now have a functioning Tacan beacon at Sochi-Adler...and it even shows up in the CDU

I just chose 32X as an example.

It appears possible to mod in ILS, TCN and DME beacons for every aerodrome in DCS:W but as I said, I'm an IFR newbie, so I'd appreciate a bit of help in translating the charts.

Is TCN basically the military version of VOR...can I just substitute the VOR for the TCN? I'm thinking of working with Sochi first. getting both ILS beacons up and running etc before moving on to the others.

Hi Ebs

Im the guy that compiled the IFR charts

This are the radio Aids

a NBD

Is a beacon that send a signal and recieved in Aicrafts using and instrument called ADF, with no distance information, the ADF is a Compass with an Arrow that always points to the NBD (Non DIrectional Beacon)

a VOR (very high frequency omnidirectional range)

is a Beacon that provides magnetic bearing information to and from the station... that is it can give you a "radial" 001-360

a DME is and equipment installed on the ground normaly on the vor that gives you distance measure to the station, when a VOR has a DME its called a VOR/DME =)

(edited) a TACAN

"is the same as a VOR/DME" see my next post

Vortac is a VOR and a TACAN

the VOR are in frequencys are from 108.00 to 117.95

I have no information about the format "##X" In dcs as im not a militar pilot, maybe some can help us here

P.D. Are you saying you can add a tacan when theres not?? how?

Hi Alfredo

Thanks for that information! Helps me a lot. I'll hopefully get some more work done on Sochi later tonight.

As you can see by my screenshot above, it's possible to mod the sim files to add a tacan station to an airport that doesn't have one. By default, Sochi doesn't have a tacan in the sim.

As for the x y channels there's a short table in the dcs sim files and a larger lookup table in another sim that I'm thinking of using. Is there a good tutorial on ifr approach procedures somewhere on the net that someone could recommend?

P.S. Are you saying you can add a tacan when theres not?? how?

Exactly what is like to know is how...

Exactly what is like to know is how...

Not quite sure what you mean there Paul. If you mean that you'd like to know how its done, then there's tons of stuff possible via modding the sim files. In the case of additional tacan beacon its "just" a case of figuring out exactly where they should go.

How about sharing what files to update for tacan and ILS so others don't have to search!

How about sharing what files to update for tacan and ILS so others don't have to search!

^^this

Yes, that would be really kind, Ebs. :thumbup:

I can give you information of the exact position of the vor\tacan in real life, let me get home tonight

How about sharing what files to update for tacan and ILS so others don't have to search!

^^this

 

Yes, that would be really kind, Ebs. :thumbup:

All in good time fellas, all in good time ;)

The plan is to mod every airfield with correct VORTAC and ILS and release it all as one big package for the community...I'm not holding anything back right now because the truth is I've made very little progress.

Alfredo I already have the real world positions from your charts and other charts available on the web. what I'm looking for right now is some info on real world approach procedures.

Right, back to work at Sochi-Adler for me ;)

I'm not asking for your work I'm asking how i can accomplish this myself. I guess something else to add to my to do list to figure out how and do it myself.

But thanks anyways.

what I'm looking for right now is some info on real world approach procedures.

Russia makes them available for free--there so far isn't a free link for the Georgian ones.

It's pretty difficult to learn real world approach procedures without an instrument background. A lot of the stuff isn't immediately obvious. But I'm sure someone could learn it at an intellectual level, with practice, in a sim like DCS.

A huge amount of the theory has to do with what ATC is actually doing. Which you can't get in a game (unless someone is pretending to be ATC).

So basically we need ATC plus TACAN (VOR/DME) mod and RL approach procedures for every single airport in DCSW to even come close to FSX realism in this department.

That is the only reason (plus small (turbo)prop planes and whole world as a theatre) which keeps FSX installed on my machine. There is much more to flying than bombing and fighting - RL flying procedures and navigation is essence of flying and any serious flight sim.

It would be great to have this sort of realism in DCSW.

Hi Ebs

 

Im the guy that compiled the IFR charts

 

This are the radio Aids

 

a NBD

Is a beacon that send a signal and recieved in Aicrafts using and instrument called ADF, with no distance information, the ADF is a Compass with an Arrow that always points to the NBD (Non DIrectional Beacon)

 

a VOR (very high frequency omnidirectional range)

is a Beacon that provides magnetic bearing information to and from the station... that is it can give you a "radial" 001-360

 

a DME is and equipment installed in the VOR on the ground that gives you distance measure to the station, when a VOR has a DME is calles a VOR/DME =)

 

a TACAN also called a VORTAC (Tactical Navicagion)

is the same as a VOR/DME

 

the VOR are in frequencys are from 108.00 to 117.95

I have no information about the format "##X" In dcs as im not a militar pilot, maybe some can help us here

 

P.D. Are you saying you can add a tacan when theres not?? how?

Hell No...

The military TACAN is NOT the same as the civilian VOR/DME nor is it also called VORTAC. A DME is not installed in VORs. A TACAN is functioning like a secondary radar. Your TACAN transceiver interrogates the ground station and gives you range and bearing information. Your military TACAN transceiver is working by transmitting and receiving. You select TACAN stations by channels, which are numbers of up to 3 digits followed by X or Y.

DME is only distance measuring. This ranging function of the DME is compatible to the range finding of a TACAN. If a TACAN and a VOR are co-located, this is called VORTAC, as a civilian aircraft can get radials of the VOR and use the ranging part of the TACAN like a DME. A DME (also secondary radar principle, transmit/receive) can be co-located with a VOR. Often this is the case. In many cases it is not. There are many VORs out there without a DME adjacent. Also there are DMEs without VORs nearby.

As far as DCS World is concerned, no VOR nor DME installations are of use, since none of the military aircraft modules provides receivers for these. The A-10C uses TACAN. The Ka-50 uses ADF. The A-10C also uses ILS, working in on same frequencies like VOR-receivers in civilian aircraft do for ILS operations.

So basically we need ATC plus TACAN (VOR/DME) mod and RL approach procedures for every single airport in DCSW to even come close to FSX realism in this department.

 

That is the only reason (plus small (turbo)prop planes and whole world as a theatre) which keeps FSX installed on my machine. There is much more to flying than bombing and fighting - RL flying procedures and navigation is essence of flying and any serious flight sim.

 

It would be great to have this sort of realism in DCSW.

Totally agree with you. Flying straight in and straight out of the DCSW aerodromes feels too plain.

The military TACAN is NOT the same as the civilian VOR/DME nor is it also called VORTAC. A DME is not installed in VORs. A TACAN is functioning like a secondary radar. Your TACAN transceiver interrogates the ground station and gives you range and bearing information. Your military TACAN transceiver is working by transmitting and receiving. You select TACAN stations by channels, which are numbers of up to 3 digits followed by X or Y.

DME is only distance measuring. This ranging function of the DME is compatible to the range finding of a TACAN. If a TACAN and a VOR are co-located, this is called VORTAC, as a civilian aircraft can get radials of the VOR and use the ranging part of the TACAN like a DME. A DME (also secondary radar principle, transmit/receive) can be co-located with a VOR. Often this is the case. In many cases it is not. There are many VORs out there without a DME adjacent. Also there are DMEs without VORs nearby.

A VORTAC is just a VOR and TACAN colocated together. The DME component of TACAN has the same specs as the civilian DME. The TACAN is more accurate than a VOR but the cone of confusion is bigger. Not sure of the technical details as to why this is.

Station passage is a valid fix for a VOR. That's not the case with TACAN. Notice how on an approach that requires TACAN, you'll never see fixes that are defined by station passage.

The wiki page for tacan is actually pretty informative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_air_navigation_system

"Altough theorical, or technical principles of operation of tacan equipment are quite different from those of VOR/DME, the end result, as far as navigating pilot is concerned, is the same"

Aeronautical Information Manual P 689

I think if its possible to add tacan to the game, we should add them where VORS are supposed to be, it would not be 100% realistic, but it will add great IFR

My mistake, VORTAC is not the same as a TACAN. :)

anyway, would it help to the modders to give coordinates of every vor in the area?

So here's an update.

ILS and TACAN is indeed possible for every airport/airfield. However, there are limitations....

Each airfield only has 1 active runway. In the case of Sochi-Adler this is 06/24 the additional runway 02/20 cannot be added for ILS (I tried a lot of things)

These are some of the available beacons that can be added to the airfields..

VOR

DME

VOR_DME

TACAN

VORTAC

RSBN

BROADCAST_STATION

Right now, all of the beacons act the same way but there's only models for VOR, RSBN and BROADCAST_STATION...so these will show up in game.

I input the real DVOR long/lat into the sim files but the actual model doesn't appear in the correct position in game. So, I slewed the freecamera round in game, noted the coordinates and used these. This way, the model shows up in the correct position relative to the airfield. Check it out...

THE NEW VOR AT SOCHI-ADLER

If you search Google Maps for "43.454508,39.962103" and zoom in, you'll see the real life DVOR at Sochi-Adler. The placement of the beacon has no effect on the TACAN operation with the A-10c...The needles always point to the centre of the airfield regardless of beacon coordinates.

I used TCN 48X with the call sign "ISO"...a really cool touch is that the morse code broadcasts this callsign when in range.

Now onto another airport.... ;)

BTW, while I'm here I have a question.

I used TACAN channel 48X based on the following table from aviadocs

So I'm not even sure it's right. I just saw what appears to be a tacan channel and went with it. That's all :)

So any additional information would be greatly appreciated.

Right now, all of the beacons act the same way but there's only models for VOR, RSBN and BROADCAST_STATION...so these will show up in game.

Isn't there also TACAN?

Check it out...

 

THE NEW VOR AT SOCHI-ADLER

 

If you search Google Maps for "43.454508,39.962103" and zoom in, you'll see the real life DVOR at Sochi-Adler. The placement of the beacon has no effect on the TACAN operation with the A-10c...The needles always point to the centre of the airfield regardless of beacon coordinates.

 

I used TCN 48X with the call sign "ISO"...a really cool touch is that the morse code broadcasts this callsign when in range.

 

Now onto another airport.... ;)

Just so ya know... I will BOMB that antenna every chance I get! :music_whistling: Seriously...Great Job! As a retired flyer, I miss tuning and monitoring navaids as I travel the DCS World... how will this install?

Again very nice work.

Isn't there also TACAN?

You're right! I can't believe I missed that, thanks.

Just so ya know... I will BOMB that antenna every chance I get! :music_whistling: Seriously...Great Job! As a retired flyer, I miss tuning and monitoring navaids as I travel the DCS World... how will this install?

 

Again very nice work.

Haha! Thanks for the kind works, I believe there's a 'damaged vor' model in the files but I haven't tried it out yet. As for the install, it's a simple file replacement. easy!

Here's what I've done.

Added TACAN to...

Airbase, Code, Channel, Callsign.

Anapa (URKA) 28X "IAN"

Gelendzhik (URKG) 33X "GNV"

Krasnoda P (URKK) 47X "KRD"

Min Vody (URMM) 30X "MNW"

ILS added to...

Anapa Runway 05 109.1

Krasnoda P Runway 05 110.7

A couple of airbases have ILS for the same runway (and sometimes different runways) unfortunately, they're bugged and don't work in game.

I don't know whether to just release what I've done so far and post a short tutorial so other people can add Tacan to the other airbases.

Or wait and finish the lot. Any thoughts?

Great work Ebs.

If you could add real IFR/VFR charts/data for every airport in DCS with finished mod it would be awesome.

Take your time, finish the lot - it's well worth the wait! :)