July 6, 201213 yr Just did a passenger trip to Kake Alaska (PAFE). I got a job to fly to an airport I haven't' been to yet in Alaska (not hard to do at this point) and looked it up in the sectionals and got the DTP charts. Noticed it only had a DME localizer. Well, new experience! Dialed up the frequency and started flying in generally the right direction. Quickly figured out how to maximize the rate of closure to figure out the heading to take. Then I even did a seat-of-the pants estimate for what heading I wanted to approach at and how to figure the offset based on how fast that rate of closure changed. Ended up coming in just where I expected to, and followed the advice in the procedures to check out the runway first (even though I kind of knew it would be OK in MS Flight). Flew over, entered a pattern, and made a perfect approach and landing. Even my passengers seemed impressed! Definite feel-good moment there... As a reward, Flight gave me a clandestine cargo mission and I got to fly through some nice canyons and evaded the fuzz!
July 6, 201213 yr Author Come now, Jeroen. Didn't you just nail that 16 NM arc when approaching Unalakleet?
July 6, 201213 yr Come now, Jeroen. Didn't you just nail that 16 NM arc when approaching Unalakleet? LOL Yes, I did, but that was a VOR/DME. Flying to a DME doesn't sound that easy. I suppose you constantly have to keep an eye on the distance and the speed towards the DME, but you never are really sure if you are flying straight to it, I guess... Seems like an easy thing to miss to me.
July 6, 201213 yr If you maintain a constant heading after maxing your speed, I believe that is going to trace a straight line. I've never tried just using DME and nothing else.
July 6, 201213 yr Well, sounds like a nice thing to try tomorrow! Alaska has quite a few DME's (without VOR) so it might be handy knowing how this works. Does 'DME only navigation' actually exist? Yes, you can do it but I read about VOR nav and NDB nav but I can't find anything (right now) about 'DME navigation'.
July 6, 201213 yr You can find your destination using just DME if you know its distance from the station, by simply circling the station at that distance until you see it, or pinpoint it pretty easily even in low-visibility conditions if you have two known distances to DME stations. That said, its not something you will set out planning to do very often. DME is usually paired with a VOR station or collocated with an NDB.
July 6, 201213 yr What annoys me more than DME only installations are TACANs, because you know the VOR portion is there, but you aren't allowed to use it. That and you have to flip to the channel/frequency lookup table in the AF/D.
July 6, 201213 yr Does 'DME only navigation' actually exist? It's used in conjunction w/ inertial nav in the FMS. i.e. not likely for us to see that kind of equipment in the near future. :Big Grin: I've done this before in FSX trying to find a carrier (bracketing) and somewhat a pain. With two DMEs you can draw two arcs and (normally) be in one of two places. A third DME will get you a good fix... that is if you are willing to draw all those arcs. :Hypnotized: What annoys me more than DME only installations are TACANs, because you know the VOR portion is there, but you aren't allowed to use it. Where did you get this idea? You mean because you don't have the UHF equipment required?
July 6, 201213 yr What annoys me more than DME only installations are TACANs, because you know the VOR portion is there, but you aren't allowed to use it. TACAN is a completely separate system. It looks the same from an operator's point of view, but how it works is very different.
July 6, 201213 yr I'm aware of the differences. I should have said VOR-esque portion. Annoyance still applies. :lol:
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