Flight Simulator Navigation
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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. 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 Site best viewed at 600 × 800 resolution or higher. Entire website © 1999 – 2003, Charles Wood. This page last updated undefined Aircraft Welcome to the C182 Nav Trainer! This tutorial is setup for users of Microsoft's Flight Simulator, versions FS98, FS2000, FS2002 or FS2004. To be compatible with these three flight simulators, as well as future versions, I chose the default Cessna 182S for the practice flights, however with modifications. Cessna 182 Nav Trainer, N911, landing at Provincetown, Massachusetts. A new panel was the most significant change. Not only is this panel more suitable than the default for navigation training but it increases the view out that Cessna windshield by nearly fifty percent. Another notable change was replacing the constant-speed propeller with a fixed pitch prop which removes the distraction of fiddling with a prop control. Although a fixed- pitch prop decreases aircraft performance, the C182 Nav Trainer is still faster than the 172, which was not available before FS2002 in any event. Plan on a 110 knot cruise speed for your C182 Nav Trainer. Most of the panel gauges already reside in your Gauge folder which greatly reduces the size of the file to download. In memory of the disaster in New York City, the C182 Nav Trainer carries the designation N911. How to install the C182 Nav Trainer Installing the C182 Nav Trainer is simplicity itself. Here is how you do it: 1. First, download the main file, either from the links below, or from the download page. Please choose the correct version to match your Flight Simulator! Download the FS2004 C182 Nav Trainer Download the FS2002 C182 Nav Trainer Download the FS2000 C182 Nav Trainer Download the FS98 C182 Nav Trainer 2. Create a temporary folder with any name. 3. Extract the files from the ZIP file that you just downloaded into the temporary folder ... There are two files ... Readme.txt and 182_nav_trainer_xx.exe. The "xx" will be one of the folowing: 2k4 or 2k2 or 2k or 98. This will be your last chance to verify that you have downloaded the correct trainer version. 4. Double-click on the 182_nav_trainer filename and the C182 Nav Trainer will automatically self install. 5. Note ... If you installed Flight Simulator to a different directory than the default directory specified by Microsoft, you must name that correct path while self- extracting the files. If you performed the "Normal" Flight Simulator install, everything will be fine and you need not fret about this at all. Just click "Extract" when the program stops and displays the directory information. 6. That's all there is to it. You're finished! 7. "C182 Nav Trainer" is the Manufacturer for this aircraft in the Flight-Simulator Aircraft listing ... NOT CESSNA! Don't have WinZip, or want the latest version? Link to WinZip's homepage to download a free evaluation copy, www.winzip.com. Approaching Elizabeth Field, Fishers Island, N.Y. Click image to see panel full size. A few Notes about the Panel The first thing you'll notice once you climb into the cockpit of this trainer is the digital readouts. Standard aircraft instruments are 3.5 inches in diameter (about 9 cm) and because of their size, easy to read. However, unless you have a 32 inch monitor, these flight-sim gauges will be smaller than real life. I added the digital readouts to overcome that liability. Thanks to Ike Slack for creating them for us. These are the various digital readouts: The digital readouts for the VORs display the OBS Settings. Here we are on an ILS Approach to Boston Logan's Runway 22L. VOR 1 is set to 215° as a reminder of the approach heading and VOR 2 is set to the radial to BOS VOR on the field. The digital readout for the Directional Gyro displays the Magnetic Heading of the aircraft. With no wind, our heading during the ILS Approach to Boston's Rwy 22L is 215°. The digital readout for the RMI, Radio Magnetic Indicator, displays the Magnetic Bearing to the NDB. The Digital RMI Readout requires redesign to function with FS2004. When that design is complete it will be available to put on your existing FS2004 panel. Here the RMI shows that the Locater, Outer Marker, LOM, is still in front of us as we approach Boston's Rwy 22L. A Digital Tachometer is located at the lower right of the panel. This Tach is from the Extra-300 aircraft panel. I repainted the digits white to improve readibility. A digital Tach allows you to consistently set the engine RPMs for the different aircraft flight conditions. Digital Elevator Trim ... The Digital Elevator Trim is a useful pitch control. With it you can establish the correct trim for various flight conditions, such as climb, cruise, descend, approach, and slow flight, etc. Then on future flights you will know and be able to set the proper trim for each of these flight situations. The range of this instrument is +512 to -512. Digital Timer ... This Digital Timer is a great instrument and should be on every aircraft panel. No handbook is needed to learn how to use it or to figure out the meaning of the digits. The Start/Stop button is on the right side; the Reset button is to the left. It times flights up to 1:59:59; or 1 hour, 59 min; 59 seconds .... definitely past the time I will spend on a single flight. The 29 min., 49 sec., shown here was the time from New Bedford, Massachussetts to Fishers Island ... your first practice flight. Hidden Panels Three "panels" are not normally visible. Here are the key strokes to access those panels: Shift-2 ... The Radio Stack Shift-3 ... Switch Panel for Lights, Pitot Heat, and Fuel Pump Shift-4 ... Magnetic Compass Note:The FS98 aircraft has only the Radio-Stack Icon. Access the Light Switches and Compass with "Shift-3" and "Shift-4." The Radio Stack The Radio Stack was the easiest decision for the Nav Trainer panel. The Bendix-King radios, with their Ugly Red Digits, would NOT be in it! The FS2002 and FS2000 panels use the Boeing 777 radios while the FS98 panel uses the Boeing 737 radios. These radios are easier to set and read than the Bendix-King units. The FS2002 Audio-Switch panel is at the bottom of the stack. FS2000 and FS98 don't require this. What's NOT on the Panel This panel-aircraft combination was assembled solely to enhance learning the principles of Navigation. It was not designed as a stand-in for other, more complete aircraft and panels.