Magnetic Variation

[Guest]

Hi, Can anyone do me a huge favour and tell me what the magnetic variations are between KJFK and KDEN?CheersRic

[Guest nycflyer]

JFK is 14W and Den is 11EWhat are you trying to do?-----------------------Scott CannizzaroPPASEL-KTEB

[Guest]

I am studying some PPL books and navigating properly! Basicly you take the heading that you want to fly to a waypoint a write that down as 'TRACK' (ie 142) then take into account wind direction and velocity (ie 28/13)to get the drift which is in this case 2.5. This gives you 'Track Made Good' which you write down, so in this case it would be 140. Then take into account the magnetic variation to give the heading that you fly magnetic. In my example the variation was 4.5 so the heading would be 145. I worked out the drift using a flight computer (the CRP somthing or other). I decided to see if I could fly the Navajo from KJFK to KDEN (which its maximum range when taking into account reserves) it should take 9 hours @ 190 Kts and 24000ft. The problem is I don't have any sectionals so I don't know the magnetic variation between the two airports, I don't suppose you know what the variations are between the two?Anyway, thats what I am trying to do.And yes, I do have too much time on my hands and thats why I decided to try and do the above, I hate sitting around doing nothing!!!Thanks :-)ric

[Guest jrewing]

Hi Ric,One way to estimate the magnetic variation at various points along your proposed route would be to identify a nearby airport. Then go to http://www.airnav.com/airport. For each airport, the magnetic variation should be listed following the lat/long coordinates.Flying in real life at FL240, you'd be on an IFR flight plan and you'd probably be navigating from VOR to VOR on jetways. VOR radials and bearings are magnetic. Your compass is magnetic and your heading indicator (which you set to your compass, applying any compass deviations) is magnetic. Since you don't have anything in your plane that readily tells true heading or true course, you could choose to work with magnetic headings and courses and convert the winds aloft directions to magnetic. To convert a true wind direction to a magnetic direction, just add any easterly variation or subtract any westerly variation for the forecast area.Based on my tests, FlyII doesn't apply the magnetic variation to the true wind directions contained in surface weather obeservations when you import METAR data. If I import a METAR observation for KOAK (magnetic variation of about 16 degrees east) into FlyII and then listen to the ATIS, the wind direction reported is the same as the METAR observation instead of being 10 to 20 degrees less than the METAR wind. If the METAR winds are 310 at 20 knots, the ATIS should report 290 or 300 (wind directions are rounded up or down to the nearest 10 degrees). I suspect that winds aloft in FlyII are handled in the same manner.Hope that helps ...John