Stuck at home thanks to the Corona virus I started a series of blog posts and videos about flightsim navigation with NDB, VOR, DME, GPS, which might be of interested to those who like to start flying IFR, on the instruments. The first posts are online, more to follow.

Flight Sim Navigation 01: Intro, NDB, VOR, ILS, GPS
 

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Edited July 7, 20205 yr by w6kd
Link removed by admin

Nice idea! Thanks a lot.

I find the term "bearing" to be used little unclear in your videos. Don't get me wrong, I envy your skills in both video editing and calm, informative voice. But it is important to convey the correct nomenclature.

During flight training, much emphasis is placed on "bearing / relative bearing" and if bearing is True North or Magnetic north oriented. For example in your nice picture, the green line would actually be True or Magnetic bearing  (since you are using  a True North oriented map w. conformal cylindrical projection, True Bearing is used for now on)

Lets put this into practical terms with your aircraft in the image.

True Bearing approx. 075 degrees 

True Heading approx. 105 degrees

Relative Bearing: 075 degrees - 105 degrees = 330 degrees  (this is the clockwise angular difference between heading datum and the NDB)

Keep up the good work, I will subscribe 🙂

Edited April 5, 20206 yr by SAS443

Thanks for the feedback SAS4443, it's appreciated.

Flightsim Navigation 05 Wind Correction Angle

The next video is online. It's about how to find the Wind Correction Angle when we have side wind and we need to change our heading to stay on course.

Link to Flightsim Navigation 05 Wind Correction Angle

 

 

Slight correction. The correct term for 'side wind' is crosswind. 

Lol, yes, I knew there was something strange about side wind, I just couldn't get the correct word in my mind. Will update the blog post, the video stays as is.

Edited April 7, 20206 yr by RudyB24
typo

Flightsim Navigation 06 NDB Tracking, Bracketing

The next video is online. It's about tracking, bracketing, towards an NDB with a crosswind that blows us off course while we don't know the wind speed and direction.

Link to the video
Flightsim Navigation 06 NDB Tracking, Bracketing

 

Flightsim Navigation 07 NDB Outbound Tracking and Intercepting

Video 7 is online. It's about NDB outbound tracking and intercepting a QDR, an outbound course.

Link to the video.

Link to Flightsim Navigation 07 NDB Outbound Tracking and Intercepting

Flight Sim Navigation 08 Tune NDB and show ADF on Garmin G1000 Glass Cockpit

This video + blog post is about how an NDB frequency can be tuned in a Garmin G1000 anw the ADF can be shown on the display.

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

I often find it is fun to abandon the FMC or GTN and fly in the 'old fashioned' way using just VOR/DME and NDB. It makes for a little more of a challenge and also keeps you occupied more during a flight compared to programming the FMC on the ground and then sitting back doing very little while the AP/FMC does the flying.

Hopefully this nice series of videos will encourage more simmers to get back to basics and learn a little more about flying using these instruments.

Bill

I just installed the PMDG DC-6. This will be a great refresher course for navigating old school in it.

Thanks,

Ted

This is very nice, reminds very much of this classic website:

http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/index.htm

It's old, but so very well written and engaging that you can't help but feel drawn in

Flight Sim Navigation 09 A Flight with NDB Navigation only.

In this video & blog post we first create a flight plan based on NDB navigation only, then we fly it. All challenges of the previous videos are covered: track an NDB inbound and outbound, cross wind bracketing and intercept a bearing. Despite an i7 processor the video has some stutter, I definitely need to get myself a new rig, even more with MSFS2020 coming!

Link to the video.

Link to the blog post.

Edited April 18, 20206 yr by RudyB24
Added a line.

Around 12:20 in the video you seem to confuse the indicated airspeed and your originally planned speed in Skyvector 🙂

I think this is mostly to your error in planning with SKyVector. 

1) You never submitted the correct crz altitude of 1.500ft (instead it was 8.000ft)

2) at 1.500ft, a planned speed of 120 (this is TAS, remember that) is too fast for economic cruise. I would settle for 105 TAS / %65 percent power setting. You can use the TAS indicator on your ASI for reference, just match OAT with pressure alt.

3) you must not use the mini-navlog (upper right corner) for timing purposes. That mini-navlog does not take the winds into account (so your speed over the ground is not calculated correctly, making the leg timings incorrect aswell). Use the regular navlog (bottom right corner) in order to receive computed corrections to your heading, groundspeed etc.

Thanks for this series in NDB navigation!