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bkeske

How to fly to an intersection without the aid of a GPS

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Guest BOPrey

Hi guys,I'm trying to fly by the book here. What I am wondering is how you guys fly to an intersection without the aid of a GPS. I can use lock onto a VOR, and use the DME to help me to fly an intersection; or I can use two ADFs; but those are pain on the neck. Beside, the distance from an intersection to a VOR is usually not printed on the chart. How to you guys do it? Thnx.

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Typically, at least on the DP/STAR charts I've seen, an intersection is defined by the intersection of two VOR radials. So intersection ABCDE might be defined as the intersection of the 010 radial of VOR GHI, and the 140 radial of VOR XYZ. So you set NAV1 to GHI and NAV2 to XYZ, and fly outbound along the 010 radial of GHI. When your instruments show that you're crossing the 140 radial of XYZ, you're at the ABCDE intersection.That's probably oversimplified, but it's how I do it. :)Lewis "Moose" GregoryRichmond, Virginia

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>Hi guys,>>I'm trying to fly by the book here. What I am wondering is how>you guys fly to an intersection without the aid of a GPS. I>can use lock onto a VOR, and use the DME to help me to fly an>intersection; or I can use two ADFs; but those are pain on the>neck. Beside, the distance from an intersection to a VOR is>usually not printed on the chart. How to you guys do it?>Thnx.What Chart are you using? VFR Sectionals or IFR Charts? Distances are there in the IFR charts, which is what you should be using.Yup..its a pain in real world flying too... if you don't have a good GPS. You must be doing it right.:)


Manny

Beta tester for SIMStarter 

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Guest BobLee

Intersections have been around for many, many years and are defined by radials from VOR's. GPS technology has been around in general use for less than a decade and we all got from here to there without it. In fact, I would wager that the majority of the GA piston fleet does not have GPS beyond handhelds, which are illegal for IFR use.

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Any IFR chart will show you at least one method of finding an intersection without a GPS- and that excludes GPS waypoints, which of course need a GPS.If the intersection is made from 2 intersecting VOR radials, then you should see them even on a VFR chart- look for the crossed arrows and they will point in the direction of the radials that they extend from. Yes, finding intersections without a GPS or L-NAV is a pain. It's also a requirement for the instrument rating to be able to do so.Bruce.

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Guest BOPrey

What is interesting is that I downloaded the approach plates for my home airport KFRG, and I also have Jeppesen SIMCharts. On the plates of that airport, there is one ILS approach, and the rest of them are GPS approachs. I was studying the GPS approachs, and found the intersections don't have distance/angles to VORs except a few does have that info to a VOR (in this case DPK). However, they all have the distance/angle to the next intersection. Am I supposed to trianglate for each intersection to that VOR or there is something simpler that I can do? I do want to fly those GPS approachs without a GPS.

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Guest BOPrey

Are you saying that you have to have a GPS for GPS waypoints? If that's the case, you can't really do much with my home airport (KFRG).

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GPS waypoints are such as those included in a GPS approach. Now, unless you have a GPS, you can't make one of these legally.Bruce.

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"I do want to fly those GPS approachs without a GPS. "Have a think about what you just wrote. This is like wanting to shoot an ILS without a nav receiver.Many airports prior to GPS had only one or no approaches at all. GPSopened up a lot of approaches for smaller airports, but you need the tool to show you where they are.Bruce.

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Hmmmm... I didn't realize you were talking about GPS approaches. Yup. I concur with Bruce. You can't do a GPS approach without an IFR rated GPS and with an updated database and with a REIM check.You are left with flying the ILS RWY 14 approach and then at 560' doing a circuling to land at all other runways.Manny


Manny

Beta tester for SIMStarter 

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Guest BOPrey

I see. Thank you all for your responds. I just thought that there must be an approach for each runway when they were built, and some airports are supposed to be very old.

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Many airports here in the US originally never had a single instrument approach, especially if a nearby airport had one that could suffice for landing in IMC if required. GPS has changed all that, but you need a GPS too to make them happen. Bruce.

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I've been doing allot of sim flying in Alaska, and it is amazing how many airports have GPS approaches 'up there'...and these are airports that for years only had an NBD approach...so in this respect, GPS has probably made flying in places like Alaska safer because of this 'new' navigation tool.It's intersting what this is doing in the industry...I have a client that is a pilot for Southwest, and he indiated that more and more the traditional 'high' altitude routes (typically VOR to VOR) are not being used as much anymore. Many times aircraft are simply going 'direct to' a destination airport, or that waypoints are even being created 'on the fly' and do not really 'exist' except for your particular route.Most of us know that NBD's are being phased out by the FAA, but he also indicated that it really won't be way to far into the distant future when we will see less VOR use as well. The day will eventually come when all navagation will be via GPS info....just 'virtual' lon/lat 'points in space', or actual physical points on the ground without radio signals.I remember my father telling me he lost some nav equipment in his plane (when he was in the airforce, I believe around Goose Bay) and he found his 'way back home' by tuning the ADF frequancy to a known local radio station near the airbase. That was in the late 50's. Lots has changed since then ;)

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>I've been doing allot of sim flying in Alaska, and it is>amazing how many airports have GPS approaches 'up there'...and>these are airports that for years only had an NBD>approach...so in this respect, GPS has probably made flying in>places like Alaska safer because of this 'new' navigation>tool.>>It's intersting what this is doing in the industry...I have a>client that is a pilot for Southwest, and he indiated that>more and more the traditional 'high' altitude routes>(typically VOR to VOR) are not being used as much anymore.>Many times aircraft are simply going 'direct to' a destination>airport, or that waypoints are even being created 'on the fly'>and do not really 'exist' except for your particular route.>>Most of us know that NBD's are being phased out by the FAA,>but he also indicated that it really won't be way to far into>the distant future when we will see less VOR use as well. The>day will eventually come when all navagation will be via GPS>info....just 'virtual' lon/lat 'points in space', or actual>physical points on the ground without radio signals.>>I remember my father telling me he lost some nav equipment in>his plane (when he was in the airforce, I believe around Goose>Bay) and he found his 'way back home' by tuning the ADF>frequancy to a known local radio station near the airbase.>That was in the late 50's. Lots has changed since then ;)When I did pilot training at Honolulu International in the early 90s, we'd use a popular AM radio station, AM 590, with the ADF to help us gauge the boundary of a VFR flyway to the east. So, just as you'd listen to morse code to verify the station, the style of that station let me know that I was tuned correctly.J-


Jeff Bea

I am an avid globetrotter with my trusty Lufthansa B777F, Polar Air Cargo B744F, and Atlas Air B748F.

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Hi,The way my instructor showed me was to simply pick a "best guess" heading (pretty easy using a chart), fly it, tune both radials, and wait. Once intersecting one radial, join it, until intersecting the other. Assuming the intersection isn't that far you should be able to get to it pretty easy without doglegging much. Didn't do this but maybe 2 or 3 times in actual IFR training. If you wanted better precision you could of course traingulate your exact position on the chart, plot the heading and apply the WCA using your flight computer. Could be a bit much to handle in a real IMC situtation and in the end you might not be any more precise...Best,


Damian Clark
HiFi  Simulation Technologies

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