So I'm using the older Catalina X and there is no GPS. So no handy moving map to show you where you are.

 

I can follow a heading but one can still be miles off course left or right. Not to mention have no way to see how far you are from the airport since its just water...everywhere, you can't see the actual runway. Smaller water airports have no building, dock or anything to stand out and take notice to indicate the water airport is 'here'.

 

I guess my base question is how do you navigate to and find simple basic waterways?

Now you know why it named "Dead reckoning" I'm the wrong person to ask because I would retrofit it with GPS.

I would retrofit it with GPS.

That's actually a very good idea.

As no water airport comes to my mind that has instrument approaches, they are all VFR airports. So the best way to navigate there without any GPS available, is to properly plan your flight, i.e. get some charts (http://skyvector.com/ is a good site for that), take a look at where you start, where you want to go, and then find some landmarks (e.g. valleys, rivers, roads, glaciers, mountain ridges,...) to follow. If that's impossible to do, because you fly over open water, estimate a heading you'd have to fly to arrive at your airport.

 

As an example, let's say you want to go from Sitka to Petersburg (both have water runways), I'd either go for a rough 100deg heading which would bring me somewhere near my destination, or I'd climb out of Sitka along the vally that's located SE of PASI towards Green Lake, until I cross the highest mountains that are in my flight path. I'd then turn left and descent again, to make sure I have the the coastline always in sight. Now that I have the coast line in sight, I'd cross Chatham Strait, and follow the coastline of the islands until I reach Petersburg.

 

A last possibility is, to use VORs or NDB as a directional indicator. On many charts you can actually find the note, that a specific field is located on radial X, DME Y of a VOR, or at a course of xy from an NDB.

To stick to my example from above, skyvector states, that our destination airport is located at LVD LEVEL ISLAND 116.50 343° 21.1 AFE KAKE 114.40 084° 32.6

 

so this might be of help, too. But note, that this is not an IFR approach, it's just to help you locate the airport.

 

Regards,

Flo

Thanks for the reply OE-LAT.

 

I'm guessing most just do it the more modern lazy way like RWF suggested, just edit in a GPS or use G-Plan while you fly. I can also use ShiftZ and fly to the long/lat position I guess but that seems kind of cheating too.

 

I'll definitely need to brush up and learn better how to navigate with charts and things if I'm to do it the 'true' way with the limited instruments the old Catalina provides.

Airport-schmareport!

 

The greatest thing about floatplanes/seaplanes is any body of water big enough to land on (and then take off from) is a runway.

 

regards,

Joe

Don't use an Ipad with iOs 6....