For VFR flights I use a combination of visual navigation (recognizable mountains, rivers, roads, landmarks/buildings, airports, cities, etc) and looking at an external mapping tool like ForeFlight on my iPad, just as I would if I were flying a real plane with no built-in GPS.
(Disclaimer: do not (yet) fly real planes. But researching doing a sport pilot license, and trying to make my simulator experience realistic!)
That’s how you should do it. Theoretically it’s not even legal to follow a GPS in a VFR flight. It may only be used as an aid, not a primary flight instrument.
Honestly, flying up and down the US west coast my primary visual reference is Interstate 5.
Seriously though – roads and rivers are GREAT nav aids when they line up with your route. And roads are lit at night, making them easier to see if you wanna do night flights – whereas rivers are kinda … not lit.
Well… VFR night is kind of an extreme sport. Requires good preparation and planning. In a lot of countries it’s not allowed at all. It’s impossible to do in areas without any light sources, like roads, towns or cities.
I follow visual markers, currently the i80, but do occasionally use the built in vfr map (v I think in the keyboard).
I’ll be looking at some of the tutorials posted in this thread to get a better at it. I need to work out a way of understanding how wind is drifting me off course when following a heading with nothing visual to guide me.
Also worth learning some rules of thumb, such as the 1 in 60 Rule:
If you travel 60 nm, then an error in track of 1nm is approximately a 1 degree error in heading.
60 is a very important number in aviation (it really helps if you are good at multiplying and dividing by 6). Some general knowledge (some of these will seem obvious, but think about them in a wider context):
there are 60 minutes in an hour
at 60kts you will cover 60nm in 1 hour. You will also cover 1nm in 1 minute
at 120kts, you’ll cover 120nm and 2nm in 1 minute
So supposing I’m flying at 5000ft, and need to descend to 2000ft for the pattern altitude. I want to know when to start my descent. If I descend at 500ft/minute (typical for a small aircraft), it’ll take me 6 minutes ((5000-2000) / 500). If my groundspeed is 90kts, I’ll travel 1.5nm in a minute, so in 6 minutes I’ll travel 9 nm. I need to start my descent 9nm from the airport (or better, from the pattern entry point).
If you have an android phone or tablet, I like to use this EFB. I use it for real flying too. It’s free, but they’d appreciate a small donation to help keep the servers running. They keep the charts up to date.
I wish I could get Avare. It looks like it would be awesome. Unforutnately, it’s blocked by the Google App Store in Canada, as it’s not Transport Canada certified. Even with a VPN, it won’t let me download it. I suppose I could side load it if I find the APK on some sketchy 3rd party store, but I’m always leary about that.
Why does it need to be transport Canada certified? It wouldn’t be legal to fly to use to fly an approach or anything anywhere as it’s not on certified equipment. Seems silly. You might want to check out their forums and see if there are any workarounds.
Long day at work – haven’t been able to read/revisit this topic. Basically, I have Little Navmap connected properly on a laptop to the navconnect app on my PC, which is hooked into the sim. However, I cannot create a flight plan / set destination or arrival from Little Napmap on the laptop. I can see my position on the map. So close!
edit – Nevermind, I can add waypoints which creates a departure/arrival. Now to give this a test!
edit 2 – Holy ■■■■, it looks like it works! Thanks everyone – I am free from this bug and I learned about a really cool piece of software.