Flight Simulator Navigation
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Flight Simulator Navigation Flight Simulator Navigation What a beautiful sight—a DC-3 coming in for a landing. Welcome to this navigation tutorial devoted to Flight Simulator enthusiasts. This opening picture attests to my not-well-hidden love affair with the DC-3. You'll see more DC-3 pictures as you progress through this site, but not exclusively. Navigation is quite easy to learn and understand. Thousands of aviation students throughout the world are doing that right now either in aviation ground schools, at home with video-taped lessons, or with self-study books. Understanding and using basic navigation concepts is important to fully enjoy flight simulators, too. But, darn, I found no single site on the web for flight-sim enthusiasts that addresses everything from basic navigation, to low frequency navigation using the NDB (Non Directional Beacon), to VOR navigation, and the full range of instrument approaches. So this is my attempt to fill that void. And we're very proud to have received CompuFlight's Select Site Award. You'll do plenty of flying as you venture through the various subjects that follow, plus have the dubious honor of meeting the irrepressible Mr. Benjamin Counter. Counter, a captain of industry, is your best charter customer. There's never a dull moment when he schedules your services. He is, of course, a totally fictitious character. That's good because he gets into more situations than any mortal I've ever met. His Modus Operandi is "I need to fly now." He arrives in the "Plot a Course" section. I've also included some historical notes on early navigation systems. You'll discover how far we've come and what pioneers the early pilots were. This tutorial contains so many graphics that you may have to click your browser's reload button to bring up all of the images the first time that you visit each page. As a minimum, you must be patient while they load. Didn't want to cheat you out of the details. To the best of my knowledge and ability, the stuff posted on these pages is accurate. Here follows the regrettable legal mumbo jumbo that we car- and home-owners feel obliged to post on websites these days. http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/index.htm (1 of 2) [18-Nov-01 12:09:38 PM] Flight Simulator Navigation For any wounded souls who may have imagined that this website in any way degraded them or their computer, understand that, like life itself, there are no warranties expressed or implied. This website is for entertainment only. Also, in no way is it meant to substitute for a full-fledged ground school course if you are a candidate for a "real" pilot's license. Enjoy and learn ... it will enhance your flight simming experience. And finally, the talented efforts of many people are liberally sprinkled throughout these webpages. To the last they were generous in granting permission to use their designs or photographs or artwork and descriptions. Please click on the credits button below to learn of their contributions. And then get Navigating! Charles Wood Click here to comment. Site best viewed at 600 × 800 resolution. © 1999, 2000, Charles Wood. This page last updated undefined http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/index.htm (2 of 2) [18-Nov-01 12:09:38 PM] Basic Navigation-General Some Basics Wallace over there by the white- board really got carried away when he overheard the word "Basics." I think we'll risk skipping his first lecture. We all intuitively know what Aviation Navigation means—it means knowing where you are, where you want to go, and having a good idea of how much time and fuel it will take to get there. Navigation means finding your way. The two most fundamental methods of finding your way in an airplane are pilotage—the identification of present position and direction of flight by seeing features on the ground, and Dead Reckoning. Dead Reckoning—an intriguing title. I was once told that the name stems from "You're Dead if you don't Reckon properly," but I think they were pulling my leg. Dead reckoning is the navigation procedure to plot and fly (in this case) a course based solely on mathematical calculations. UPDATE! UPDATE! Many Flight Simmers took pity on my pathetic lack of knowledge and patiently explained to me the origins of "Dead Reckoning." Here is one: "I have spent many (more than I care to count) years navigating sailboats all over the place. In the books that I learned from, it was referred to as 'ded. reckoning,' which stands for deduced reckoning as opposed to using true fixes."... thanks, dg. Dead Reckoning and Pilotage are so interdependent, though, that they are essentially one method. Ask a pilot how he intends to navigate to his destination, and if he says "by Dead Reckoning," one knows that he also intends to look out the window at the ground features to check his progress. No assistance from electronic aids to navigation here, thank you very much. If the weather is good, and it's daytime, and you can see the ground at all times, DR can be very satisfactory. After all, both Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart soloed across the Atlantic navigating in this manner. But change any one of those variables and the excitement level can quickly escalate beyond what a mortal cares to handle. http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/basic-nav-general.htm (1 of 11) [18-Nov-01 12:10:09 PM] Basic Navigation-General Three properly-performed actions are necessary for dead reckoning navigation to get you to your destination, at the estimated time of arrival: 1. The pilot must properly calculate the course and fuel consumption. 2. The pilot must accurately fly the aircraft 3. The weather service must correctly predict the winds-aloft. Omitted is "Put enough fuel in the tanks for the journey, and then some." That slight oversight has ruined more than one perfectly-navigated flight. Few will argue that if the aircraft is running low on fuel, the fuel indicator becomes the most fascinating gauge on the panel. Yes, indeed, it does. The first two items in the list are under the pilot's control and most pilots have the good sense to do them right. The third criteria is the one that notches up the interest level. Winds-aloft predictions are seldom accurate, and may never be. Sometimes the miss is huge. No big deal, though, if you can see the ground, have chart in hand, and it is properly oriented to follow your flight. You simply adjust for the wind based on landmarks spotted below. Assume that your estimated course was to take you directly over the power company with its 100-ft. tall smoke stacks. But there it is a mile or so to your left, its plume of white smoke laying down horizontally blowing towards you. Obviously, you must turn left some few degrees to get back on course plus make a heading correction once back on course to accommodate those strong winds. After returning to course you check the next landmark to see how good your heading correction was, and so on for each landmark, until you reach your destination. Very simple in theory. There is nothing inherently inaccurate about dead reckoning; it is limited only by the information provided. Dead reckoning is, in fact, the basis of all navigation. Longitude and Latitude http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/basic-nav-general.htm (2 of 11) [18-Nov-01 12:10:09 PM] Basic Navigation-General The equator is an imaginary circle equidistant from the poles of the earth. Circles parallel to the equator (lines running east and west) are parallels of latitude. They are used to measure degrees of latitude north or south of the equator. The angular distance from the equator to the pole is one-fourth of a circle, or 90°. Thus latitude would run from 90° North to 90° South of the equator. Meridians of longitude are drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole and are at right angles to the equator. The "Prime Meridian" which passes through Greenwich, England, is used as the zero line from which measurements are made in degrees east and west to 180°. Any specific geographical point can thus be located by reference to its longitude and latitude. From the earliest days, determining latitude was relatively simple; measure the height of the sun with a sextant. Longitude was a different matter. Greenwich Observatory was set up by King Charles II in 1675 to study means of fixing longitude, and the observatory became the acknowledged world authority on the subject. The telescopes and other instruments there determined the exact position of the meridian, and in 1884 an international conference in Washington agreed that Greenwich should be sited at zero longitude By using meridians, direction from one point to another can be measured in degrees, in a clockwise direction from true north. Draw a course line on a chart and measure the angle which this line forms with a meridian. When moving north or south by one degree of latitude, the distance remains approximately the same whether the observer is at the equator or in London, New York, Tokyo, or Sydney. That number would be unchanged vs. latitude if the earth were a perfect sphere, which it isn't. The earth is somewhat flattened at the poles. The distance situation is quite different when moving east or west. Note the convergence of the meridian lines at the poles. Thus moving east one degree at the equator is a greater distance in feet or meters than moving one degree east in London, New York, Tokyo, or Sydney.