I'd like to add my voice to the wish for a Virtual Localizer and Glideslope, a feature that would be available automatically (or at the touch of a button) for approaches to any runway in the database, not just those with a published approaches. This is an excellent emergency safety feature in case of flying with limited or no visibility or if above a layer and a situation arises necessitating a sudden need (like engine failure) to get down to the nearest runway.
The advantage to having this "V-ILS" is that the glideslope would automatically appear for any airport listed in the airport database, not just those with published approaches. Approach terrain clearance is maintained with sectional terrain and obstruction data - or with synthetic vision if and when that's available. Helping with this terrain clearance issue could be an adjustable glideslope angle. Setting up a 5-6 degree glideslope means your top of descent can be done at the airport boundry - a technique which pretty much guarantees terrain and obstruction clearance. Flying such a steep angle isn't hard.
The reason I sound so sure about this being a good idea is because AnywhereMap had this feature on their ATC model that I bought some years ago. As long as the V-ILS option was turned on in the set-up menu, when approaching an airport a small vertical scale would appear unobtrusively on the left side of the screen with a needle that indicated where you were on the scale. In the set-up screen one sets the default glideslope angle so at some point when nearing the airport the needle would center and thus would be the interception point.
It worked extremely well and was a great deal of fun to play with - which I did with just about every approach and landing. I wanted to stay proficient with it in case I ever did wind up in the soup with an engine failure. This feature always took me right to the numbers to any runway in the AWM database.
Then AnywhereMap screwed this feature up really badly. Instead of the intuitive and "standard" display of a needle against a scale, the "boss" running AWM decided to use colors inside clunky boxes to depict the glideslope. It was an insane decision, tuning something useful into a cheap gimmick. In an attempt to use it as an attention getter to sell more GPS units, they took a useful and unobtrusive feature (the V-ILS) and turned it into something gaudy, intrusive and totally unusable. I complained bitterly but AWM never listened to customers and it's no surprise to anyone who bought their products that AnywhereMap is now out of the aviation GPS business.
I think a V-ILS would be a wonderful safety option to make available in the iFly software, especially once SV is added.
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One added point on this subject is that with normal published LNAV/VNAV approaches, the certificated Garmin, Aspen etc. navigators depict the glideslope using WAAS GPS signals. They don't use (except perhaps as supplementary but I don't think even that) the normal ILS ground transmitters which we've used for many years with our steam guages. I'm open to being corrected on this point since I haven't studied this subject for some time, but that's what I remember . . . which means my inexpensive little ATC was basically doing the same thing and using the same signals, as the expensive equipment.
I've attached a picture of the AWM ATC screen showing the virtual glideslope depicted on the left edge of the screen. I was out doing practice approaches that night in VFR conditions when I took that picture. The ATC has just under a 5 inch screen. This picture is showing the approach environment to runway 27R at KSEE. I was about 6 miles from the runway and the glideslope is showing well above me at that distance. 27R only had a localizer but with the V-ILS option turned on, it also had a glideslope! And it worked beautifully. Until AWM screwed it all up. I'm still mad about that :-)
Mike Stirewalt
P.S. It isn't just AnywhereMap that had this virtual glideslope feature. I've been told some of the early Garmins had it, as well as the Avmap EKP-IV. I've been told by AWM users that the "Pro" version of the AWM software still retains the needle-against-scale display that I valued. AWM had some really nice software while it lasted.