Planning flight with Vors and NDBs only.

[andrew222 2]

Hi.

I'm trying to get my head around flight planning in msfs 2020 and would like to learn navigation with just Vors and Ndbs only. Looking at the UK on Skyvector I can see that some airports have this type of info available but many don't.

Say for example I wanted to depart one airport and arrive at another that's  approx 400 miles away and the arrival airport is only small and has no vor or ndb, how would I get to it? I see i can check the map for Vors and Ndbs close to that direct route and perhaps zig zag to them to get to my destination but what if there weren't any close to that specific direct route? I'd have to do some pretty large zig zags.

In MSFS the obvious choice would be to just to add the departure airport and arrival airport and the gps is set up to follow the direct line but I don't want to use it that way and instead navigate as I mentioned above.

Really enjoying flight simming and love reading online tutorials and videos but seem to get stuck on may things.

Cheers,

Andrew

Forgot to add that my choice of aircraft is the C172 with or without G1000 .

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by andrew222

[C2615 319]

In online planners like http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/  or  http://onlineflightplanner.org/ etc, you can deslectct "RNAV equipped" for aircraft with only standard nav equpment.

But nowadays, the airspace is more and more designed for those who have RNAV or GNSS, so your route might not be optimum, or even can't be found automaticlly.

Edited September 27, 2020 by C2615

[Dead 5]

Use PlanG. It is an amazing Flight planner...

1. In the Quick Plan option, Enter Desired Dept and Arrv Airports.

2. In the Route section simply write DCT

3. Then Add the VORs and NDBs to plan by right clicking on them on the map.

4. Then Go to View>Plan. And here you can even rearrange your waypoints (VOR/NDB).

You can also add ANY point on the map to your plan.

Remember to keep Dept airport at top and Arrv arpt at very bottom.

Harsh Sharma

[Dead 5]

But I still don't know if planG has started to support FS200 of not!

[Dead 5]

*FS2020

[LesOReilly 176]

This is why RNAV came about......

Early RNAV "computers" would calculate a route based on Radials and DME .... so using multiple Radios and VORs you could calculate a direct route based on the distances from each of the VORs and the RADIALS ....

Then GPS came along....

If you are not equipped with GPS then you will have to fly the "zig zag" which is designed to keep you safe.  With regards to getting to the airport.  Well you would fly too the designated Radio Aid and then from it you would fly outbound on the radial.... to the airport and that is why many VOR/DME or NDB approaches have such high minimums.

Also why with an NDB you have to do the Tear Drops to get yourself on the desired heading as you cross over the NDB outbound so that you can make sure that you stay with the pointer on your tail....hence why a VOR with a RADIAL is so much easier to fly :)...

If you want to go old school get out the maps and draw your track lines and drifts lines....

[NormH3 20]

I've noticed that onlineflightplanner.org is considered an unsecure site and there is really no information concerning who runs/owns it. I like the fact that there is the ability to choose an airac cycle to compensate for older addons. Are there other planners out there that allow a vpilot to choose from different airac cyles?

[Dead 5]

10 hours ago, NormH3 said:

I've noticed that onlineflightplanner.org is considered an unsecure site and there is really no information concerning who runs/owns it. I like the fact that there is the ability to choose an airac cycle to compensate for older addons. Are there other planners out there that allow a vpilot to choose from different airac cyles?

onlineflightplanner.org basically uses RouteFinder. So you can directly visit RouteFinder (http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/). It has the AIRAC cycle option.

But that site too is shown as Not Secure...

Although until you dont enter personal data, I dont think there is any harm visiting unsecure sites... I have been using onlineflightplanner.or for an year, and no issues yet. Its still your descision 😉.

Tip: Do you know Simple PLN Maker? An amazing flight planner! It has very updated Flight planning data incl RNAV wpts... Completely free.

[NormH3 20]

Appreciate the info. 

[KevyKevTPA 46]

I'm a HUGE fan of Navigraph, but they are like so many other options, both free and paid, geared more towards turboprops and above on Hi-Altitude flight plans.  They can do lo-alt stuff, but it's "meh" at best. 

My workflow for turboprops and above is to do my basic planning on simbrief, supplemental and charts with Navigraph, and final tweaking and ATC with pilot2ATC.  But pilot2ATC hasn't seemed to have quite caught up to the new FS2020 world just yet, and I've been experiencing a lot of issues recently, especially with dive-bomber type descents (to the point that it becomes impossible to safely do, so I just descend at a safe rate and then call for a missed approach and turn around and do it again).  They are also not good at ALL when handling GA flights and taxiing to appropriate parking at destination fields, frequently ignoring me completely so I just taxi to where I want to be "at pilot's discretion". 

I'm hoping the new Airac cycle due out tomorrow will help possibly alleviate some of those issues, and hopefully an update specifically addressing the new needs and requirements of FS2020.  I also think Asobo needs to do some tweaking, too.  And being able to specify desired parking before even taking off would be awesome.

[emko 15]

Hi, I don't know how old the navigation aid database in MSFS2020 is. I use P3Dv4 with updated, current data. In nowadays Europe you navigate using RNAV. The navigation points are no longer tied to VORs or NDBs, they are just a random set of coordinates. NDBs and VORs are being decommissioned at a crazy pace all over Europe. In many cases, DMEs are kept because big aircraft use them for calculating their positions.

UK has a huge help for planning a route - Standard Route Document: http://www.nats-uk.ead-it.com/public/index.php%3Foption=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=186&Itemid=258.html

It's a spreadsheet where you look up a pair of ORIGIN/DESTINATION airport and it shows you a preferred route by ATC.