I enjoy flying IFR in the DC-6 using the Bendix radios (and other aircraft using NAV radios, too). As such, I’m wanting some input on how to put together a set of instructions for how I maintain my flight plan.
What I mean by this is what is the SOP for navigating/piloting this way such that the navigator/pilot has a printed set of instructions for following their flight plan?
As I peruse the low altitude (FAA) IFR chart, there is a significant amount of data here to keep track of during the course (pun) of the flight. I suppose one way would be to draw on a physical chart and keep track of your need-to-know information that way, but I’d rather something more focused since the charts are so busy.
I know I can come up with something on my own, but I’d love some input on how it is done by people with more experience than myself.
Here’s some of the information I’m thinking I need to keep track of:
Intersections – many of these have an MCA and are “located” via DME from a specific VOR radial. This VOR may or may not be on the route you are flying.
MOCA for an airway, etc.
VOR frequencies and inbound/outbound radials along my route
Victor airway name(s) and compulsory intersections along my route
For example, I take off from KOAK and my first waypoint is SUNOL. I’d need to fly V301 via the OAK outbound radial 093° and the MCA is 6500’ at SUNOL. I’d have to locate SUNOL either by 53 miles DME on SAC 177° or 73 miles DME on PXN 301°.
That’s a fair amount of information for only one of my waypoints and I’m also trying to fly the plane and manage ATC.
I’d love a clean, clear, concise way to organize my flight plan notes for my routes, so I’m turning to you for input on how those of you are doing this.
Honestly, a lot of it these days is simply notating the filed route, the assigned clearance, then following ATC instructions, which oftentimes take you away from the field/assigned clearance anyway. Use CRAFT to write your assigned clearance:
C - The clearance limit (usually an airport)
R - the route - may be “as filed,” but might be completely different or partially amended
A - Altitude - initial and final, with any expected times
F - departure frequency
T - transponder/squawk code
The charted enroute MEAs and MOCAs are more about managing expectations and flight planning, and aren’t really good for real-time navigating in a radar environment because ATC will be telling you what to do the whole time, anyway, and the enroute portion is rarely left at your discretion, outside of filing and requests or lost comms.
Where the charted altitudes do matter is on the published procedures - DP/ODPs, STARs, and of course instrument approaches.
As far as lateral navigation - you have it right. Dial the radial in and fly it, not much else to it. Stay ahead of things by keeping track of where you are briefing your next turn a few minutes before you get there. For VOR changeover points, they’re either charted or you just switch over when you’re halfway between the VORs.
Outside of CRAFT, there isn’t a magic bullet format. I’ve seen a lot of people go to extremely great lengths to plan and rehearse every action of an IFR flight, with big spreadsheets, etc, but reality is ATC can quickly put an end to that plan and then you’re in trouble. And there are so many other things involved with the regulatory/procedural aspect of IFR that a set-plan isn’t really feasible. You have to learn how to interpret and adapt the plan on the fly, while still aviating, navigating, and communicating.
So in that sense, the magic bullet is IFR training, practice, and proficiency with experience.
I do use Navigraph and I have Navigraph Charts, but I’m trying to be analog about this and avoid using their fancy digital SimConnect way of following my flight like a GPS.
I hear you. In that case, when we have to do “own nav” in the sim, unless you’re pretty experienced with the kinds of things ATC will normally do and give yourself mock instructions, yeah, you can just follow the charted altitudes. It just becomes “IFR-ish” in that sense and there isn’t an accurate one-size fits all answer to how to do that correctly.
If you can’t mock your way through ATC stuff, my best advice for realism would be to follow lost-comm procedures throughout, which kind of sounds like what you’re doing. Just remember, IR pilots are used to doing all this stuff on the fly, so there‘s not a modern, real-world answer outside of all the things you’d learn in combination in training.
There might be better answers from folks who routinely fly in non-radar environments or flew way back in the day before modem equipment and practices.
As a humorous aside, the sim is the only place where I’m given a “proceed direct to (destination airport)” clearance and I reject it, opting to request to stick with my filed victor route clearance (for practice/posterity/funsies). If I’m given a direct clearance in the real world I’m like “heck yeah!”
Well, my theoretical situation outlined in my OP is bust anyhow – the sim’s PXN VOR isn’t powerful enough to even be picked up at SUNOL, even though the IFR Low chart has SUNOL referenced from PXN at the distance and radial I specified above.
Oh well, time to stick to the way I’d been doing this thus far – direct VOR-to-VOR Victor airways or radials of my choosing. I was trying to branch out here and do more complex navigating via intersections requiring some cross checking of VOR/DME data.
Bummer.
EDIT: aaaaaand ATC has gone silent. Argh, I love reading the ATC window…
That’s the other problem. There are a few other threads where I’ve delved into that, but the sim reads standard service volumes (SSV) of navaids as absolute, which is not the case in the real world, in either a electronic or procedural sense.
In the real-world, as long as you are meeting the altitude requirements on a published route, you can legally use the navaid and it has been certified to be useable throughout (as long as there aren’t any other limitations). The SSVs are only meant to apply to off-route use, which is a different ballgame. Still, they can often be received well beyond/outside the published volume irl, even off-route, but they’re not protected there and not useable in a legal sense.
Instead the sim treats it as if the signal completely disappears at 40.1nm, which isn’t realistic at all.
I guess we just have to make due. The sim does so many things right. I’m sitting here flying a DC-6 and navigating over CA that I can completely recognize visually. It’s hard to bring myself to complain too hard!
Also @NixonRedgrave, do you use a navlog?
If you’re doing rigid, non-ATC IFR navigation, plus the added bonus of dead reckoning when you can’t receive a VOR, a navlog is probably the best way to organize your route, waypoint by waypoint.
Yeah, you could use one for IFR as easily as VFR, especially if you don’t expect any changes. Heck, in the day I would use them for radio-nav legs on VFR flights, which is essentially what you’re doing.
Have you ever tried to fly elsewhere? I don’t limit myself on where I fly. I’ve been using VATSIM for around 15 years and currently have a year sub of PilotEdge which covers roughly half the US. I never want to go back to flying with default ATC.
I have really not. I don’t want to fly in Europe at night and, to be honest, I’m just too much of a Californian to the core to not want to fly here frequently.
I know you’ve been a major proponent of VATSIM, and your promotion of it is a major reason I signed on and completed all my preliminaries, but I just don’t see enough activity here during the times when I’m doing 95% of my flights. I want to be all-in or not at all.
It’s such a drag, I look at SimAware and am dumbfounded by the amount of VATSIM activity in Europe. I wish the popularity was at that level here.
Unfortunately, here in California where I fly, the NDBs are nearly all gone. We have one close to my home airport, but it’s over a military base with little else going on around it.
I know of one other near the SF Bay Area at KLVK, but it isn’t used for any procedures.
Frankly neither of those NDB even appear on the FAA’s charts. That just how marginalized they have become here.
