How To...Stay Aligned With The Runway On Approach

By Bob Allison (10 January 2005)

If I chicken out and engage auto rudder, rather than using my pedals, I can get my landings pretty well in place most of the time.

The Cessna isn’t too much of a problem at slow speeds, but get into a Jetstream, Baron or equivalent and the faster approach speeds throw me off.

So I decided to do some research, looking into various ideas on landings. I got all the hints about looking at the far end of the runway and variations on this theme, but the final solution came from Hal Stoen with a simple idea, which I will quote verbatim:

“How's the runway looking? What do you think? Are you going to land short? Long? Don't have a clue? Here's a tip that most pilots use in every visual landing. Pick out a spot on the aircraft that you can see as you are looking at your touchdown point on the runway. The spot you pick can be the propeller spinner, a spot on the brow, a spot on the center post, whatever will work for you. (In actual practice, a dead bug on the windshield is an ideal choice.)”

I didn’t have a dead bug on my monitor, and I didn’t want to mark the screen, so what to do?

Firstly I took the panel bitmap into an editor and added a very small square, in the center of the screen at an appropriate height above the instrument panel. I colored it approximately sky blue and went flying. Even at the first attempt, I knew I was onto a winner. I made some fine adjustments and this acted well as a guide for my landings.

After a few days I got fed-up with the bug, useful as he was. I needed a method of only having him there when I needed him. And the answer was to create a new window in my Panel.cgf file. With my extra window enabled and assigned to a suitable button, my bug can come and go as I wish. Of course this only works for each aeroplane you choose to modify, but I find it worth the effort. Perhaps when I have practised some more I can get rid of my “cheat”, but for now I need all the help I can get.

If you are going to follow my ideas below, please ensure that you have backed up the panel.cfg file before you start. At least then you have a fall back position when it all goes to pieces. If you don’t know how to find the file required, you are probably best leaving this alone until you have done a little more exploration.

The entries below are taken from my Cessna 172SP panel.cfg file. All extra entries are in red below: Firstly add an extra window to the [Window Titles] section, I called my bug window "target".

[Window Titles]
Window00=Main Panel
Window01=Radio Stack
Window02=GPS
Window03=Annunciator
Window04=Compass
Window05=target

[Window04]
file=172SP_compass.bmp
size_mm=70
position=2
visible=0
ident=COMPASS_PANEL

gauge00=Magnetic_Compass!Magnetic-Compass,0,0

//------------------------------------------------------
[Window05]
Background_color=41,200,253
size_mm=512
window_size_ratio=1.00   
position=0
visible=0
ident=Target
window_size= 0.007, 0.007
window_pos= 0.505, 0.25

//------------------------------------------------------

[VCockpit01]
size_mm=512,512
pixel_size=512,512
texture=$C172s_1
background_color=0,0,0
visible=0

window_pos= 0.505, 0.3 	into 	window_pos= 0.505, 0.25