Morse ident?
 

Hi guys,

A couple of questions regarding morse-idents:

1) If an ILS is u/s (LOC & GS), would you still be able to hear an morse ident?

2) If only one part of the ILS is u/s (LOC or GS), would one still be able to receive the full ident?

Thanks for the info!

Cheers,
S.

HERE

7 Maintenance.

7.1 When an ILS is undergoing maintenance, or is radiating for test purposes only, the identification coding will either be removed completely or replaced by a continuous tone.

7.2 Under these conditions no attempt should be made to use the ILS as erroneous indications may be received.

7.3 In the event of an unserviceable Glide Path, the ILS Localiser may be radiating for Localiser only approaches. In which case the identification coding will be radiating. However, it is possible that the Glide Path may also be radiating for setting-up purposes or for flight inspection; it may be subject to interruptions and alterations without warning and may give erroneous indications. In this case ATC will warn all users of this fact and no attempt should be made to use the Glide Path.

There are no guarantees - especially in aviation
 

Sjakie,

The scenario that forget describes is the one you'll be most likely to come across operationally. However, untill a fault is detected by ATC on either LOC or GS, you may very well recieve a correct ident.

The ident goes with the LOC only (and DME if paired) - so even though you have correctly identified the facility, you have no guarantee that the GS signal is valid. That is but one of the many reasons we do a GS check after capture.

The GS gives very intuitive guidance, and it's very easy to rely on it completely. Try doing a search for "NZ60" and see what comes up. The video reconstruction gives a quick lesson in airmanship, both how it can fail, but also how it's used to break the error chain. Lore has it that it was ultimately a GPWS warning that saved the day, but that - as most things here - is merely speculation and rumour ;). Either way, all lived to tell the tale, and we're all wiser for it.

Oh, run a quick serach on "Murphy" whil you're at it :O