ILS, approaches & navaid stations

Runway aids are bought per runway end, so a single runway can have an ILS approach to one end and nothing but PAPI on the other. Select a runway and look for Approach & landing aids on its property card.

Those are examples, not flat prices. Both options scale with runway deck area: a short, narrow runway is far cheaper to equip, while a 4,000 × 60 m runway costs ₳24,000 per PAPI end or ₳120,000 per ILS end. The property card always shows the live price for the runway you selected.

All the placement engineering is automatic and follows real-world siting standards: the localizer antenna sits past the far end of the runway, the glideslope antenna abeam your touchdown zone, and the beam width is tailored to your runway length. Move, stretch, or re-point the runway and the whole installation re-sites itself on the next build.

Once installed, the property card lets you tune the frequency (pick any free channel), the Morse identifier(an "I" plus 2-3 letters or digits of your choice), the glideslope angle (2.5°-4.0°; 3.0° is the worldwide standard, steeper suits short fields and terrain), and which side of the runway the PAPI bar and the glideslope antenna stand on - handy when the default left side would put them on a taxiway or in the water. The PAPI on an ILS end always matches the glideslope angle, so lights and needles never disagree. The card also shows the exact magnetic final approach course (e.g. 229°M), not just the two-digit runway number.

The checkboxes stay disabled (with the reason shown) until the runway qualifies. Since an L1 Airstrip caps runways at 800 m, an ILS effectively needs at least an L2 Airfield buildable area - see Buildable area. If you later try to shrink or repave an equipped runway below the requirements, the save is blocked until you remove its aids.

Aids bill once on save, like decor: the cost joins your cart total and you'll see it itemised before confirming. They're equipment rather than scenery, so they use no object slots. Removing an aid banks the unit for free re-use on another runway end; unused units refund at 50% like other equipment - see Spending.

Every ILS gets its own channel in the real ILS band (108.10-111.95 MHz, 40 channels) plus a Morse identifier, allocated when you buy it and persisted - though you can re-pick both from the property card any time. You'll find the frequency in three places: the runway's property card in the builder, your airport's public page, and the runway details in the MSFS World Map. Opposite ends always get different frequencies.

Channels are protected against interference: the picker greys out any frequency already used within 150 km, whether by a real-world stationin the sim's nav database or by another builder's airportnearby. That matters because MSFS tunes the nearest station on a shared frequency - without the guard, a pilot on a long final could capture someone else's localizer before yours takes over. The same registry guards VOR and NDB channels, against all 12,000+ real stations the sim knows.

The object catalogue has a dedicated top-level shelf, Navaid Stations, selling working radio stations. The building IS the station: it activates the moment you place it, with a frequency auto-picked from the right band and a Morse ident you can edit on its card.

Stations may stand anywhere on your claim - they are the one building category exempt from the blue building area, because real VORs and NDBs are radio sites, not airport furniture. Put the mast across the creek or at the far fence line: the station broadcasts from exactly where the building stands, and every approach and chart anchored on it follows it there automatically. Moving the building moves the station.

Stations broadcast with a full-height service volume out to 80 NM, so the DME keeps reading at any altitude you can reach - tested to the flight levels. Frequencies are conflict-guarded exactly like the ILS: nothing within 150 km, real or player, can share your channel, and the VOR band (108-118 MHz), ILS channels and the NDB kHz band can never collide with each other by construction.

An activated station unlocks free radio approaches on every qualifying runway end - tick the checkbox on the runway's property card and the procedure publishes with your next save and build.

VOR/DME approaches anchor on your nearest VOR/DME station: the final course rides its radials, every fix carries a DME distance, and two classic DME-arc transitions let pilots join the arc from either side and roll out onto final. The chart draws the whole ring with the arc DME labelled.

NDB approaches are the classic ADF procedure, and the entire thing flies on the ADF alone: home to the beacon, reverse course in the published 1-minute hold at the entry fix, track the final by needle and stopwatch - the chart carries a groundspeed/time table because the beacon has no DME - and if you miss, the missed approach returns you to the beacon itself for the hold. No GPS required anywhere in the procedure.

A VOR/DME station or an NDB beacon can also publish the classic circling approach- toggle it on the station's card. Instead of lining up with a runway, the final approach course comes in deliberately offset (the letter name, VOR-A, means it serves no runway): fly the final down to the circling minimums, break off, and circle visually to whichever runway the wind favours. The missed approach point is the station itself, with a LEFT-turn hold back at it.

The procedure follows real TERPS design rules: a course reversal (the bold 1-minute racetrack at the entry fix on the chart), circle-to-land minimums published by aircraft category (CAT A/B/C, with category D not authorised), and minimums that round up, never down.

The letter names the procedure because it serves no runway, and the prefix names the anchor: a VOR/DME publishes VOR-A, a beacon publishes NDB-A (flown entirely on the ADF, with the final timed rather than measured). A field with both gets VOR-A and NDB-B - the letters never repeat. This is the one approach with no runway-length minimum, since you circle and land visually, which makes it the natural procedure for a short strip where nothing lines up.

Everything terrain-critical is yours to set on the station card: point the final approach course down whichever valley is actually flyable (the default is 45° off your longest runway), drag the platform and missed-approach altitudes above the ridge lines, and raise the circling MDA as high as the rocks demand. Safety floors hold in one direction only - you can always make a procedure safer, never less safe than the category minimums.

Every equipped runway end carries one shared vertical profile: an initial fix (IAF), a level platform altitude, and a final approach fix (FAF) where the glidepath intercepts it. The defaults (FAF 5 NM out, IAF at 10 NM, platform on the glidepath) work everywhere, but the profile editor on the property card lets you drag the FAF or type either number - platform altitude and FAF distance are one linked fact, recalculated through your glideslope angle. If an end has an ILS, RNAV, and VOR approach stacked, they all share the same profile, so a triple-equipped end shows one editor and the procedures can never disagree with each other. Circling approaches get their own copy of the same editor on the station card.

Every published procedure gets a real instrument approach chart, drawn like the plates pilots brief from: header and briefing strip, missed-approach text, a north-up plan view with the procedure track, holds and fixes, a descent profile, minimums tables, and - on VOR and NDB plates - the groundspeed/timing table. Charts publish at your airport's public page under Instrument procedures (an EFB-style viewer you can flip through) and each opens as its own printable page.

The chart and the sim can never disagree: both are generated from the same saved design, so the frequency, course, fixes, altitudes and minimums a pilot briefs are exactly what the compiled procedure flies. Chart links in the builder stay locked until you save - a chart only exists once the design it documents does.

In the sim it works like any real ILS. Tune the frequency on NAV1, line up on final about 10 nm out at 2,500-3,000 ft above the field, and the localizer needle comes alive; intercept the glideslope from below and either hand-fly the needles or arm APRon the autopilot to couple the approach. The DME reads your distance to the touchdown zone, the MALSR strobes lead you to the threshold at night, and the PAPI confirms the same glidepath visually: two white, two red, you're right on profile.

Radio-navaid procedures fly the classic way: tune the VOR on NAV1 for radials and DME, or the NDB on the ADF and follow the needle. The published procedures also appear on GPS/FMS PROCpages in aircraft that read the sim's navigation database, so you can load the approach, arcs, holds and all.