Hello Avsimmers!

I apologise if this is the wrong place, but I wanted to post this where I knew there was knowledge.

Lately I have been flying the BEAUTIFUL FSLabs a320 around Europe, however into airport with long runways on 20 mile finals.... which can get boring.

So I found some great freeware airports, (Paphos, Zakynthos and Kefallonia) but they all have VOR/DME LOC/DME and RNAV approaches. I watched a Blackbox711 video on these, yet this was very confusing for me as I didn't fully understand all the terminology he was using (e.g. Radial, Outbound Course, Inbound Course) I was wondering whether someone could explain (very basically) the difference between these and the meaning of relevant info e.g. Course, Radial, etc. 

Also, if you could explain how some A320 functions are used in these situations that would be helpful.

Thanks!

Canine 

A course is essentially a heading to fly.

Radials radiate out from a VOR. Theyre reciprocals of headings. In other words if you're flying on the 270 radial outbound from a VOR, your heading would be 090.

Outbound and inbound courses are just that. If there is a course reversal on an approach, in other words, if you have to get turned around and heading back towards the airport) you will be given an outbound heading to fly (away from a VOR) and an inbound heading back towards it. 

These are all basic concepts of instrument flight. Not nitpicking or criticizing, but I personally don't see a lot of point or value in flying an a320 around Europe without having a cursory understanding of these things. And anyway, ATC basically always gives you vectors (headings and altitudes) to line you up on final. What you're experiencing is pretty realistic in terms of heavy iron instrument flight. 

Start looking into the basics of VOR and GPS navigation and find tutorials on reading approach charts. That would be my initial suggestion. 

First, to answer your request for definitions:

Radial - A radial is simply a defined course to or from a VOR station. If I'm tracking the 040 radial to a VOR, I'm flying a course of 040 towards it. If I'm flying the 040 radial from a VOR, I'm flying a course of 040 away from it. These radial directions for most stations approximate magnetic north (a handful were set at true north). As magnetic north continues to drift eastward, the radials end up being more off from what your compass heading would read on a zero-wind day. That said, they do occasionally shut down a VOR and rearrange the arrays to realign them over the years so if you’re using real-world charts, I would encourage you to check out aero.sors.fr for his navdata updates.

Outbound Course – If you are flying an approach that requires a procedure turn, you’ll initially overfly the VOR on a course away from the airport.

Inbound Course – Once you’ve completed the procedure turn (if one was required) you are now on the inbound course for the rest of the approach.

Procedure Turn – A course reversal designed to keep you above aircraft that may be on the inbound course for landing while also turning you 180 degrees back on course.

DME – Distance Measuring Equipment is another set of associated signals that lets the aircraft know how far it is away from the station. This information is direct line, not over the ground, so it gets less accurate the closer you are to the station and the higher your altitude. If you pass the station at 10,000 feet AGL it will read that you’re about 2 miles away even though you are directly over it. Think of it as the distance of a string between your aircraft and the antenna on the ground.

As for specifics in the aircraft, I’m not 100% familiar with Airbus cockpit designs, but you should have an MCP panel on the glareshield for setting your autopilot/flight director’s headings, speeds, altitudes and the like. There should be two knobs marked “course”: one for the pilot, and one for the co-pilot. These are used to set the specific radial as defined on your enroute or approach charts. You’ll set the frequency of the VOR in your NAV 1 and/or NAV2 radio.

As a real world practice, after setting the VOR station in your nav radio you would press the NAV1 or NAV2 selector on your audio panel to listen for the morse code identifier to make sure it matches the one listed on your chart.

8 minutes ago, mtr75 said:

A course is essentially a heading to fly.

Radials radiate out from a VOR. Theyre reciprocals of headings. In other words if you're flying on the 270 radial outbound from a VOR, your heading would be 090.

Outbound and inbound courses are just that. If there is a course reversal on an approach, in other words, if you have to get turned around and heading back towards the airport) you will be given an outbound heading to fly (away from a VOR) and an inbound heading back towards it. 

These are all basic concepts of instrument flight. Not nitpicking or criticizing, but I personally don't see a lot of point or value in flying an a320 around Europe without having a cursory understanding of these things. And anyway, ATC basically always gives you vectors (headings and altitudes) to line you up on final. What you're experiencing is pretty realistic in terms of heavy iron instrument flight. 

Start looking into the basics of VOR and GPS navigation and find tutorials on reading approach charts. That would be my initial suggestion. 

Course and heading are two distinct definitions. In a no-wind situation they are the same, but heading is the direction the aircraft is pointed, course is the intended path over the ground and rarely matches the heading required to stay on course.

Even on a no-wind day, radials rarely match headings as VORs have their own north reference that once was set to magnetic north (though a few are set to true north) but over years of magnetic drift have a variation.

2 minutes ago, AlaskanFlyboy said:

Course and heading are two distinct definitions. In a no-wind situation they are the same, but heading is the direction the aircraft is pointed, course is the intended path over the ground and rarely matches the heading required to stay on course.

Even on a no-wind day, radials rarely match headings as VORs have their own north reference that once was set to magnetic north (though a few are set to true north) but over years of magnetic drift have a variation.

All true. Kind of hurried through it. I didn't want to get into procedure turns and things like that, which I don't think would be enlightening for the OP at this point. 

Edited March 15, 20206 yr by mtr75

Some great info posted above 👍.  Charles Woods offers some nice tutorials on aviation navigation.

Greg

1 hour ago, mtr75 said:

  In other words if you're flying on the 270 radial outbound from a VOR, your heading would be 090.

This above has a typo and is incorrect.  If you are on the 270 degree radial flying outbound (away) from the VOR, your heading is 270 (assuming no wind). If you are on the 270 degree radial flying inbound (towards) the VOR, your heading is 090 (again assuming no wind).

It might be helpful to think of radials as spokes of a wheel with the VOR at the wheel's hub. Radials 'radiate' outward from the VOR (from the hub) and are labeled with the outward magnetic direction in which they are 'radiating'.

Al

Edited March 15, 20206 yr by ark

I realize I didn't address the other two approach types you mentioned in the thread title. LOC/DME is a localizer with distance measuring equipment. These are similar to a ILS approach which has a localizer for lateral guidance and a glideslope for vertical guidance. Take out the glideslope and you have a localizer approach. Unlike a VOR, localizers have only one course and are created by the overlap of two directional signals. Setting the course knob to the correct course is more a formality to get the course needle pointed the right direction to eliminate confusion to the pilots or flight computers.

RNAV is Area Navigation and these approaches are done using the FMC to follow a set of waypoints on approach, or in lighter aircraft using GPS.

If you're going to start learning these more technical approaches, I would suggest beginning with a light aircraft such as a Cessna 172. The concepts and techniques will be the same as in the A320, but without the added complexity and flight speeds you can concentrate on the approach procedures themselves. Landing gear, additional flaps setting, take away focus on the approach and the higher speed makes things come up much faster. You'll have a less stressful time learning in something slow and simple.

Hi All,

 

Thanks for your replies, this is really helpful. I'll go and get some flight hours now! 😋

40 minutes ago, ark said:

This above has a typo and is incorrect.  If you are on the 270 degree radial flying outbound (away) from the VOR, your heading is 270 (assuming no wind). If you are on the 270 degree radial flying inbound (towards) the VOR, your heading is 090 (again assuming no wind).

It might be helpful to think of radials as spokes of a wheel with the VOR at the wheel's hub. Radials 'radiate' outward from the VOR (from the hub) and are labeled with the outward magnetic direction in which they are 'radiating'.

Al

Canine Crew, basically listen to Ark and AlaskanFlyboy, because I got a lot of it wrong! lol

47 minutes ago, Canine Crew said:

Hi All,

 

Thanks for your replies, this is really helpful. I'll go and get some flight hours now! 😋

If you need any further clarification, don't be afraid to ask. Boldmethod has some great resources as well if you're looking for more information.