What is wrong with the ILS approaches at LOWI?

Question

The ILS is crazy at Innsbruck Airport. It looks off on X-Plane's charts and even when I'm lined up with the runway the needles are never centered.

Answer 1

Nothing!  LOWI (Innsbruck, Austria) was the default start-up airport for X-Plane 9.  It is a beautiful location in a deep valley, but it has very unusual real-world instrument approaches procedures (IAPs) that can confuse the unwary.  LOWI has LOC-DME approaches from the East and West:

•  The LOWI LOC-DME from the East is offset 5 degrees from the runway heading and includes an "advisory" glideslope (hence it is not referred to as an "ILS").

• The LOWI LOC-DME from the West (illustrated to the right) is even more unusual - the localizer is positioned a few miles east of LOWI, and the approach calls for overflying the field to the MDA, and then if visual, performing a course reversal to the south in the valley and landing on either runway visually (which might require yet another course reversal for a circling approach to runway 06).  Although this looks very odd on X-Plane's charts, I believe that the nav-aids properly positioned.

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