Sure, not always, but sometimes I'll bring up Google Earth on one monitor and fly by that... I always find this kind of navigation very rewarding as it makes you concentrate continually while flying.

Really!!? Don't let the CAA catch you then. They'll have your guts for garters. It is a criminal offence not to be carrying an up to date paper map.(nb NOT electronic least of all Google which is eons out of date). They only allow GPS as a confirmation reference. i.e. to confirm lat longs ONLY!!!

I've tried to do some SFO to Hawaii using the A2A B377 (without looking at the map).

Hm. Actually, you might be able to do that. Start out at 340 degrees and every 45 minutes turn 2 degrees south due to the great circle route and make sure you keep the heading corrected to the magnetic compass. Tune the VOR radios to the stations at Lihue and Hilo at the north and south ends of the island chain and you should pick up one of them. You've got about 7 degrees on either side of Molokai to play with, and as long as you're within that range you should find Hawaii. If you fly 340 degrees the whole way you'll miss the islands to the north.

 

The 340 degrees assumes there will be some wind from the west or northwest. The VOR radios have a range of 195 miles.

 

If you try this, let us know how it turns out.

 

So I bought the A2A B377 and tried it.

 

Note: the pertinent parts are in bold if you're not inclined to read the whole post.

 

First of all, the 340 in the above post was either a typo or a brainfart, the correct initial heading is 240. Also, I'd calculated the legs between turns based on a somewhat higher estimated speed; thought that old bird could fly faster. Turn two degrees south every hour instead.

 

I figured that in 1945 there would be no way to get accurate winds aloft, so I basically went with expected prevailing winds. It's probably good that I did, because the winds were often surprising. Also, I'd intended to fly at 24000 feet, but decided the headwinds were going to be too strong at that altitude and the plane didn't want to climb much about 15000, so I leveled off there. Any extremely careful planning for winds aloft wouldn't have been very useful. After a while at 15000, I encountered some wind shifts which put me at almost 17000 because of a new headwind. Ok, no problem, I leveled off at 16400 and stayed there for quite a while.

 

Then I ran into a problem with my fuel calculation. I'd figured my fuel usage based on flying at 24000 feet, and at 16400 I was using way more fuel than expected for the distance flown. While I wasn't using the map (I zoomed it way in), I did rely on the navigator to tell me how far I'd flown, so I had some good numbers. It looked like I was going to be about 400 nm short. I pushed the plane up to about 20000 feet, and still too short. Much higher and I'd have been in even stronger headwinds, so I stayed there. I experimented with engine settings and finally got a projected flight time that would allow me to make Hawaii. Those of you who have had to fine tune piston engines will appreciate this part.

 

I'd been turning two degrees south every hour, measuring by the on-board clock rather than trying to use a stopwatch. Getting it within 5 minutes instead of exact isn't going to affect my accuracy given how much error there was in all my estimates.

 

I started my descent at 7.5 hours into the flight, before I'd ever picked up the nav stations. This was the time I'd calculated before the flight, and seemed correct based on the distance remaining to fly. The only problem, which showed up later on my flight evaluation, was that I was descending through clouds and expected turbulence, so I turned on the seat belt sign. The descent took an hour, then I was about 80 miles short of my destination, still possibility of turbulence, so I left the seat belt sign on. From the sounds of things, passengers were rioting as they left the plane, and I got a comment that a passenger was upset that he couldn't visit the lounge. Unfortunately I also had to cancel dinner because there wouldn't have been enough time to eat, and I was really hoping to see what the on-board chef had prepared.

 

Ok, my descent was pretty well mis-timed so I'll have to tweak that in my calculation spreadsheet. No biggie.

 

I picked up the Lihue VOR and a minute later the Hilo one. It looked like I was pretty far to the right of where I had intended to be, but when I tuned Honolulu it was only 5 degrees off my current course. All in all, I'd call that pretty darn successful given the wild estimates I'd used in making the flight plan.

 

Oh yes... when I shut off the engines I had 1288 pounds of fuel remaining. Given that low altitude fuel usage is about 3000-4000 pounds per hour, that's cutting it close. Good thing I'd accepted the default fuel load rather than cutting it back to what I'd estimated I'd need.

 

It's been a while since I logged 9.5 hours on a single flight. Without time compression, too.

 

The B377 is an interesting plane, with the Captain of the Ship Accusim update. Was nice having a flight engineer keeping everything running right, as I'm used to doing it all myself. I finally figured out that occasional fluctuations in the pilot's engine instruments were the FE making adjustments. Eventually I'll send him to the lounge and try to do it all myself. Also nice to have Heidi bringing meals and snacks.

 

Hook

I was watching a TV show about the dambuster squadron. They took one of the ex RAF guys who had just left. put him in a dc3 with compass, stopwatch and map, to show him how they navigated in the old days. First thing he discovers is the speed is in MPH not KTS once they had a speed worked out he did pretty well even over a short span of water.The GPS is only accurate while the satelites are in SYNC even a few hundred ms can put you mile off course, but we love our technology. First flight I did in FSX many years ago was in a WW1 Biplane with only compass and heading, Didnt do to bad, pays being an ex cub leader.

Captain Sim has an interesting, dead-reckoning tool in their 707 .. "Doppler Navigation" ..

 

Basically, it's a radar array with a built-in, automatic, constanly adjusting, E6B, that calculates track and ground-speed.

 

The user-panel allows for inputing a virtual course segment (direction and distance),, the pilot (or auto-pilot) uses a CDI-like gauge to tell him where he is, relative to that virtual course line. Also, the input panel is "dual" ( A & B ), so by flipping back and forth you can have the next course segment ready and waiting.

 

I flew the 707 from KLAX to PHNL (Los Angles to Honolulu) by using the FSX flight-planner to see a great-circle course (didn't save or load the plan, just used it for planning).. it gave me a large number of fixes, so I deleted a few to break it down to seven or so,, jotted each one down (direction and distance), along with expected duration (to monitor fuel status)...

 

The very first leg was a VOR radial to a point where I started using the doppler navigation.. dial in direction/distance, "flip" to to make it active... and immediately turn that heading.. the "CDI" gauge can be slaved to the auto-pilot.. so it's just a matter of waiting until there was a mile or so left on the current leg, and the "flipping" to the already dialed in, ensuing leg...

 

My only complain is that it's TOO accurate.. I was deliberately sloppy on my timing, flipping, turning, and STILL ended up picking up a Hawaii VOR, exaclty where I needed to be... plenty of time for a normal descent..

I was watching a TV show about the dambuster squadron. They took one of the ex RAF guys who had just left. put him in a dc3 with compass, stopwatch and map, to show him how they navigated in the old days. First thing he discovers is the speed is in MPH not KTS once they had a speed worked out he did pretty well even over a short span of water.The GPS is only accurate while the satelites are in SYNC even a few hundred ms can put you mile off course, but we love our technology. First flight I did in FSX many years ago was in a WW1 Biplane with only compass and heading, Didnt do to bad, pays being an ex cub leader.

 

With a good aviation GPS (handhelds included), and external entenna.........you can count on picking up at least six satellites. I always at least pick up eight, and eleven much of the time. Combining this with WAAS for North America, you won't be seeing hit & miss sync failures & a mile off course. You'd have to go out of your way to find a test area at the right times. The accuracy, including altitude will just amaze you. I've gone through five aviation Garmins & one Lowrance since 1993. My hobby, so to speak, is checking just how accurate these devices are for real world mountainous flight. They're excellent! And that's something in which the VOR system had limitations, due to being line of sight.

 

Nothing wrong, of course, with the challanges of using older navigation systems for flight simming. It's a history lesson in navigation, and more to do.

 

L.Adamson

You should only use GPS as an aid ie. backup. As is prescribed by the UK CAA. There is too much of a love affair with GPS. As a PPL by law you must have an up to date chart and that plus your mark 1 eyeball is your principal navigation aid. Airliners contrary to common belief do not "Use" GPS to navigate. They use inertial navigation. This is in turn "updated" by triangulation fixes on waypoints with GPS lats and longs.

I don't think anyone's going to argue that we shouldn't have a GPS in the real world cockpit, or that we shouldn't use it. That's not what this exercise is about. This is about "Can I fly using the bare minimum navigation aids if I have to?"

 

I flew the return trip from Honolulu to San Francisco. Started off at 40 degrees magnetic, turned two degrees right every hour. Previous flight assumed a wind component of -40. This flight assumed the wind at +19. Note that I still used the same times and degrees to turn.

 

Oakland, about 15 miles beyond SFO, had a long range 195 mile VOR, while SFO had a 60 mile range. I tuned one radio to Oakland, the other to SFO. When I picked up the Oakland VOR, I only had to change course 12 degrees left to fly straight toward it. Doing the math in my head, that put me less than 40 nm off course at San Francisco after a flight of 2095 nm. Not bad for using so many rules of thumb to determine course. I could possibly have picked up a low range NDB, which has a range of 37.5 miles.

 

All in all, this has been an interesting experience.

 

Hook

I have only occasionally checked in with this interesting topic. Please forgive if I'm intruding but I just read LHookin's post above and came away impressed with his flight. My only comment is just think how people like Lindbergh used dead reckoning. They must have been masters of doing math in their heads indeed. The only DR flights I do are in my A2A Cub and usually for only a hundred miles or so--the Cub is rather slow. Great fun indeed and very rewarding when you hit your destination almost dead on correct.

I have only occasionally checked in with this interesting topic. Please forgive if I'm intruding but I just read LHookin's post above and came away impressed with his flight. My only comment is just think how people like Lindbergh used dead reckoning.

 

First of all, you're not intruding. The reason I made this topic was so people could talk about dead reckoning, as most people seem to use the GPS exclusively. I know, I used to be one of them.

 

I read Lindbergh's "Spirit of Saint Louis" 3 or 4 times when I was younger. He described the process well. I don't remember the details, but every XX minutes he adjusted the heading indicator by YY degrees, the same as I describe in my posts above. Seems he had a special gauge where all he had to do was center the needle, and he could adjust where the needle pointed. From what I remember of the description, it wasn't like anything we've seen in flight simulators. If someone has Century of Flight, I'd love to see a screen shot of his instrument panel. Or a link to a photo of the actual panel.

 

Hook

If I remember correctly, pilots in those days used to have something by which they could view the ocean waves, judge their drift from the observation and correct accordingly. I'm pretty sure Amelia Earhart used one on her final flight. Anyone know what I'm talking about??

pilots in those days used to have something by which they could view the ocean waves, judge their drift from the observation and correct accordingly.

 

Lindbergh had a drift gauge, but didn't describe how it worked. I was always curious.

 

Hook

I'm pretty sure that's it. A quick Google search revealed this. Check underneath the second pic.

You should only use GPS as an aid ie. backup. As is prescribed by the UK CAA. There is too much of a love affair with GPS. As a PPL by law you must have an up to date chart and that plus your mark 1 eyeball is your principal navigation aid. Airliners contrary to common belief do not "Use" GPS to navigate. They use inertial navigation. This is in turn "updated" by triangulation fixes on waypoints with GPS lats and longs.

 

What may still apply in the UK, certainly doesn't apply in the US. They're should be a love affair with the GPS. The accident rate of CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) in Alaska has dropped 40% ...........thanks to the widespread use of moving map GPS. Mountains, line of sight VOR & clouds don't cut it for Alaska.

 

And yes, airliners certainly DO use GPS as the prime navigation system. Two friends of mine fly Boeing 737-800's, in which the GPS is primary, followed by internal navigation, which is updated by the GPS, and then conventional VOR's as third. Many airliners still use inertial navigation as the primary, but you won't see it much in the future. BTW--- Every few years, I ask one of these pilot's, how many years it's been since a GPS failure in the 737-800. We were up to eleven years, earlier this summer. And the "failure", was only of short duration.

 

The point here, is that there is a much better way to navigate, than using older methods. It's been proved over and over. And especially in regards to CFIT, and being able to use more direct routing. I'm a GPS advovate, and for many good reasons, which I've listed before. Note: My responces on this thread are due to incorrect statements regarding the GPS system.

 

L.Adamson

Yes I do it once in a while, it's really fun & keeps my basics intact. Being very familiar with Florida & Miami area & still having those old VFR charts, it sure brings back some fun memories of my time living & doing my ab initio flight training over there.

There is too much of a love affair with GPS.

 

With ADS-B mandates coming soon in most of the world, and most countries' future airspace plans being GPS-based, I find this a hard statement to accept at face value. GPS IS becoming aviation's base technology for aircraft navigation, routing and separation.

 

That's not to say that a pilot shouldn't be well-grounded in the basics, or that pilotage and dead-reckoning aren't interesting in and of themselves.

 

Scott