Hi,

I think DME is an essential part of the Navigation. In the MSFS classic C172 there is no DME Gauge. I read that that is not unusual because pilots use the GPS-devices  to get the distance to a VOR Station.

Does anybody know how th do that?
 

I use the GPS for flying a planned Flightplan. But the second small GPS is not independent from the 530 large one - so I cannot dial in a „Direct to“ a VOR.

Is there a way to navigate properly or is the default equipment not appropriate for that?

Thanks.

Edited August 30, 20205 yr by PTI139

You use the GPS for DME. That’s how it’s done in the real world. DME in small planes is ancient technology and not common at this point and that 172 is based on an early 2000s model. We had one just like it when I was in CAP. No DME.

Edited August 30, 20205 yr by bonchie

7 minutes ago, bonchie said:

You use the GPS for DME. That’s how it’s done in the real world. DME in small planes is ancient technology and not common at this point and that 172 is based on an early 2000s model. We had one just like it when I was in CAP. No DME.

That's actually a question I had when I was going old-school VOR-VOR with the 152 recently. How much are VORs and NDB even used in real-life flying these days?

14 minutes ago, bonchie said:

You use the GPS for DME. That’s how it’s done in the real world. DME in small planes is ancient technology and not common at this point and that 172 is based on an early 2000s model. We had one just like it when I was in CAP. No DME.

Yes - no doubt - GPS is used for DME.

My question was: How is it done? If you use the GPS for DME - perhaps you can help me?

I can choose the VOR from the list of nearest Navaid - but after having done that there are several Informations about the VOR but no permanently updated distance.

In real life, needing to use DME when you’ve are on a GPS flight plan is almost non-existent. Everything has an RNAV these days.

But if you just had to, you enter direct to the VOR with the GPS and read the distance. This will stop your flight plan and you’ll have to re-enter it after (in real life you can save it and easily bring it back) but that’s just one of the quirks you deal with. 

29 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

That's actually a question I had when I was going old-school VOR-VOR with the 152 recently. How much are VORs and NDB even used in real-life flying these days?

NDBs are basically dead. I don’t know of any in the US that aren’t covered with RNAV at this point. Maybe in some third world areas they still get used? 

VORs still exist in large numbers but are used much more rarely in practice. Most GA are using the magenta line on the GPS and airliners are using RNAV. I haven’t done a VOR approach outside of training ever. Never had to. Everything has an RNAV approach these days.

Edited August 30, 20205 yr by bonchie

10 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

How much are VORs and NDB even used in real-life flying these days?

In a world where literally everyone has a GPS in their pocket in the form of their mobile phone, and when even cars have a sat nav system, older radio systems might not be meticulously tuned in to triangulate your position on a daily basis, yet ironically, radios are still of use for aerial navigation, both actively and passively.

When an airliner's INS spins up its ring laser gyros, and when it is being used in the background or triangulating your position for RNP, the aeroplane's systems also check the position by triangulating radio beacon signals, as these can improve the integrity of the positional data the thing has and speed up the INS spin up, particularly when in areas with GPS signal degradation, or latitudes where the Earth's rotation will otherwise mean a long INS spin up time, potentially of up to fifteen minutes.

It is worth noting that sometimes GPS signals are deliberately disabled too; this is done on an occasional basis over the North Sea, east of the mainland UK for example, as part of NATO exercises. The theory being that the Russian Tu-95 Bears which conduct probing missions in that area all the time, will have their mission capability degraded, but in doing this, friendly forces will have to practice dealing with its implications too. When this happens, a NOTAM for the area affected is issued. In these circumstances, you'd be in trouble with no radio-based means of determining your position, so the NOTAM cautions pilots to ensure they have alternatives to GPS for their navigation.

All of this stuff is a bit belt and braces, but that's not a bad thing. Anyone who has ever waved their phone around trying to pick up a signal, or found their car's GPS dropping out in a remote area owing to losing suitable satellite signals, will know that it can and does happen. Recently, sunspot AR2770 has been affecting GPS signals on Earth, and this could of course affect radio signals too, but if you have more than one system, you're potentially in a better position to perhaps avoid disruption to navigational signal integrity.

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

[...] Tons of interesting stuff

Wow, thanks for that detailed overview! 😊

I really miss the old days of FS4-style VOR navigation, where you had to rely on these things because the ground was just flat green everywhere. Truly felt like navigating back then, not just following the magenta line like we do nowadays.

One interesting thing on my recent C152 VOR-VOR flight I first noticed in MSFS, that I never had in previous sims: You can actually spot the VOR stations on the ground when you fly over them. Makes these last few miles much easier, when the needle becomes hard to track.

30 minutes ago, PTI139 said:

Yes - no doubt - GPS is used for DME.

My question was: How is it done? If you use the GPS for DME - perhaps you can help me?

I can choose the VOR from the list of nearest Navaid - but after having done that there are several Informations about the VOR but no permanently updated distance.

Back to your intial question, on 6-pack aircraft, you would use the popular Bendix DME device.

An alternative if your aircraft isn't equiped with a DME receiver is to get your respective radials from 2 VORs.

If you want to use a Garmin GPS for the DME, you can go to the "Nearest" page and choose the VOR (after "Airports" and before "waypoint" if memory serves).

The details of VOR navigation (both with 6-pack and GPS) can be found in the Instrument Flying Handbook (chapter 9):

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/FAA-H-8083-15B.pdf

25 minutes ago, bonchie said:

Maybe in some third world areas they still get used? 

🤣 I think that the rest of the world start stopping using the term "third-world countries" from the mid 90s. Incidently, DME are stillused on FAA IFR checkrides.

10 minutes ago, Chock said:

Cool stuff

Thanks Chock for this insight! 🙂

22 minutes ago, Victoroos said:

Thanks Chock for this insight! 🙂

As a film nerd aside to this, for those of you who like to ruin movies with facts, in the movie Independence Day, the plot sees Jeff Golblum's character David, as an engineer who is familiar with communications satellites. He determines that the invading aliens are using the Earth's own GPS satellites to aid in the coordination of their assault.

Leaving aside the deus ex machina plot device whereby spaceships in the movie apparently have an operating system which allows Apple's OS7 to connect with them wirelessly, a wider plot problem is that in a scenario where countries are under threat, one of the first things military organisations do, is jam satellite navigation systems over their own territory so they cannot be used to aid an enemy attack. 🤣

Interesting to note that one thing they do get right in that movie given all this, is that with normal comms down, they start contacting one another using morse code on traditional radios.

Edited August 30, 20205 yr by Chock

1 hour ago, GearUp180 said:

🤣 I think that the rest of the world start stopping using the term "third-world countries" from the mid 90s. Incidently, DME are stillused on FAA IFR checkrides.

You think no one says third world country anymore? Gonna highly disagree and leave it at that.

DME is not required for an IFR check-ride. GPS is a legal substitute for DME and has been for a long time because so few DME units still exist in the modern GA fleet. I’ve flown dozens of different planes from single to multi. Two of them that I can remember had DME. 

That DME unit you pictured came out in 1982. Any still left are legacy. The moment they break, people rip them out. 

Anyway, back to the OP, the reason the MSFS 172 doesn't have DME is because it's not in the plane it's based on in real life. GPS will do the same thing to measure distance if you want some old school VOR flying. That's the solution here. 

Edited August 30, 20205 yr by bonchie

It's a GPS world and that's great... until a belligerent jams or destroys the GPS satellites.

4 minutes ago, stans said:

It's a GPS world and that's great... until a belligerent jams or destroys the GPS satellites.

A VOR is much more likely to be down for maintenance or a DME is much more likely to fail than someone is to jam enough GPS satellites to cause a widespread outage. And we have WAAS now, which is so reliable that the FAA doesn't even require a backup system to it like they did with regular GPS. 

Everything is a trade-off I suppose. In modern aviation, glass is far more reliable than steam and GPS is far more reliable than radio. But nothing will ever be full-proof.

Totally agree, I’m a fan of traditional IFR navigation and would really love a DME in the Cessnas.Personally  I don’t even like having those GPS units in the 172 at all even though I only use them to dial in frequencies, I’d much prefer a traditional radio stack, I use navstax in `P3D when available.

DME is alive and well in commercial jet flying throughout the world including the US, the fixes on ILS approaches are all defined by DME for example.

The Caribbean relies on DME distance reporting a lot to provide separation outside of radar coverage. It should be noted that DME distance, due to slant range, will differ from GPS and RNAV Distance, not by much but enough that if you’re being asked your DME for separation then that is what  you need to give, not RNAV distance. 
 

As chock notes a lot of RNAV systems use DME-DME updating to refine their positions.

I remember in the years before the big jets were retrofitted with GPS we would get into range of DME stations coming off the North Atlantic tracks and the aircraft would update its IRS derived position and realise it wasn’t quite where it thought it was and veer off to regain its correct track.
 

So no, outside of GA and fancy touch screen avionics DME is still alive and well.

Its a shame as the zoomed in instrument view in the 172 gives one of the best IFR practice simulations I’ve ever seen, so I’m hopeful they’ll stick a DME in there at some point.

While I’m on the IFR subject though I’m a little disappointed the VOR & NDB needle movement seems not to have been updated and has the same clunky movement as FSX, rather than the smooth fluid movement as seen in XP, which is a shame.