I believe that the reason is because GPS is easier. You can use a tool to create a flight plan and have it uploaded to the GPS.
However if you want to learn about real navigation then the ‘tool’ you need is in your head. You need to learn something. However let me say that the moment you do get to grips with VOR/DME and RADIALS and VOR FRQUENCIES suddenly flying can become a lot more interesting.
There is absolutely no doubt that GPS systems have made flying cheaper and more importantly safer in the real world.
But this is a Simulator. Safety and fuel cost aren’t a real issue.
There really is a tremendous lot of fun in flying to an airport and setting your instruments correctly and land correctly because of your piloting skills, not because the GPS does it for you.
Nothing wrong with GPS flying but VOR navigation is truly worth trying. It isnt that difficult.
But I echo what has been written. VOR navigation still very much exists.
It most certainly is. But it’s also arguably better and safer in many cases. There’s far less chance of human error with navigation. It lessens the pilot’s workload significantly.
I’m all for the human doing the navigation. As I stated in one of my earlier posts, I do VOR navigation and fly manual coupled approaches for fun quite regularly. It’s a different skillset and is far more engaging. And I like to have that base, underlying understanding of navigation. I’m sure there’s a lot that I don’t know and could learn, but I do enjoy doing it. Even on longer GPS plans, I’ll often hand fly some or all of the flight. Often I’ll hand fly the plane to cruise alt, engage the AP, then hand fly the descent and approach. It just keeps me busy with the sim vs surfing the forum while my plane flies itself. And it’s also fun to fly the basic planes like the 152 without any fancy stuff because it forces you to “be the pilot”.
But that’s in the sim. Given the option in real life to buy any plane I wanted (I’m not a pilot, btw), I’d choose one equipped with the latest, greatest glass cockpit and every workload-lightening automated bell and whistle known to mankind. The combination of safety, increased situational awareness, and overall convenience would take front seat to anything else.
I really don’t get why you seem convinced that anyone who uses a GPS unit doesn’t know about VOR navigation. The phrase “you need to learn something” tells me where you are coming from. It’s sad really because I like VOR and NDB navigation quite a bit and I find the GPS units to be quite complicated and so I tend to prefer what I consider easier which is VOR to VOR and then ILS approaches or localizers or maybe just an NDB or a VOR nearby. I have to watch all kinds of videos to teach me about the workings of the Nxi for example. GPS is more complicated to me – but it has tons of useful information and guidance.
I found the G1000 very easy to pick up. I obviously needed a few videos to understand the basics, as I was coming into this dry. I’m not a pilot, and had never been a serious simmer in any way in the past. Much of the terminology was foreign to me. So the initial learning curve was a bit steep.
But once I got the basics, everything else was logical and fell into place very quickly. Even moving to the G3000, it was just a matter of familiarizing myself with the different navigation of the UI. Same when I started using the TDS GTNXi. Despite being “the real thing” (it runs the Garmin GTNXi Trainer), it was quick and easy to learn. It’s really more of a matter of interface familiarization.
I learned VOR / NDB navigation after learning to use a GPS - also from watching videos and finding other training material online. It makes sense and works really well. I like using it because I find it challenging and engaging. But if I had to rank the difficulty level of using VOR navigation and learning to use a GPS on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being hardest), VOR / NDB would get an 8, and GPS is a 2.
Certainly. But that plane would still be capable of radio navigation, and there are still times when you would use it because it was the correct tool for the job. Just like you’d still need to click off the automation and hand fly sometimes, when that’s what the situation requires.
Because there are still times to do those things, it’s wise to make a habit of doing them often when appropriate, to maintain proficiency.
This isn’t aimed at you of course, but speaking generally: We’re already seeing a concerning level of over-dependence on automation and technology in aviation; it’s a main reason I do what I do at my side gig, teaching in old taildraggers and teaching aerobatics. It’s concerning to think where this mentality might go in subsequent generations without a conscious effort to curb it. Proficiency simply must be maintained in the basics; technology and automation won’t get you out of every situation. Sometimes, they’ll be what put you in it.
This is an odd statement to me, seeing as GPS navigation is a much more complex system. Also, excepting the single case of flying directly to the station, most of what you do with a GPS actually mimics radio navigation.
GPS nav is more complex, but that complexity is hidden behind the computer that is the flight management system, whatever unit that may be. I guess that being a programmer all my adult life, I gel well with computerized systems. I find learning the different Garmin units was quite easy once I understood the terminology and what it was I needed to do. Even the Collins system in the CJ4 wasn’t that difficult to me. It was just learning a different way to do the same thing.
Yup, agree with all that. Everytime I fly as a passenger I am most certainly grateful that whoever sits up front has all the new safety equipment available to them keeping us safe.
but as you say, that is real life. For example many young pilots these days now fly with their feet flat on the floor instead of on the pedals.
A sin in the past, acceptable now.
What constitutes “real navigation” in your opinion? Pilotage with a VFR chart? Dead reckoning with compass and stop watch? Flying along victor airways using ground-based radio navaids? Taking star fixes with a sextant?
Almost every real pilot flying these days – regardless if they’re an airline flight crew member in a B787 or a military fighter jock in a F/A-18 Super Hornet or a low-hour GA pilot in a Cessna 172 – uses GPS as their primary method of navigation. Using a GPS is no less “real navigation” than using a VOR.
Not odd, if you consider that the whole object of creating these systems is to make it as easy for the pilot as possible. Thats the point of these systems. Get the system to do it for you including uploading a flight plan into it remotely.
In the real world this is good, very good. In the Sim some find this boring even if it resembles reallity.
You dont know me or anything about me so I assume you base your comment about ‘knowing where I come from’ on that one line you quoted from a previous post.
But if you read through this thread, it cant have excaped your attention that there is quite some misunderstanding and seemingly lack of knowledge about VOR Navigation, ranging from misinterpreting the instruments involved, thinking that when a plane has a GPS you cant do VOR flying to not understanding the term VOR Navigation at all.
So my post was aimed at those who fly GPS but have no knowledge about VOR.
IF I am ‘coming’ from anywhere it is trying to encourage those who havent tried VOR Navigation, to try it.
Clearly that would not seem to include you.
So I fear you have quoted me out of context.
But sorry I made you sad.
I think it’s less about making it easier per se than it is to lessen the workload all around. A pilot can then focus on more important stuff while the minutia is taken care of by the automated systems.
When you think about it, large airliners used to be a 4 man crew back in the day. With new systems and automation, they knocked that down to 3, and eventually 2. Even business jets that used to be a mandatory 2 person crew can now be flown by a single pilot. It’s not necessarily that it’s easier. It’s just a much lighter workload on the pilot.
In any case, what’s in the sim reflects reality. Modern planes come with modern avionics. You can’t even get a new Cessna 172 without glass any more from what I understand. Much like you can’t really get a mainstream car without power windows, locks, steering and brakes and fuel injection.
Luckily for those who like their aircraft of the more vintage variety, nearly every MS-released add-on plane so far has been of the steam gauge variety. As far as I know, the only Carenado plane to have a full glass cockpit is the C182, although most of them give the option of adding some glass. By comparison, there are relatively few add-on planes that are all modern glass.
Oh that very much depends on the plane. There are still many aircraft flying in which that is a cardinal sin. It is, however, self-correcting. 
The thing is, it doesn’t really resemble reality the the way many sim pilots are doing it: uploading a flight plan created beforehand, and then just flying that plan with no modification. That works great if you’re the only plane in the world ;). But in reality, there are many times that an on-the-fly route mod is easier to accomplish with radio nav - at least as a starting point.
I’ve been flying for about 30 years now, everything from WWII biplanes to modern airliners. Using radio nav in reality is not as rare as some here (not you, I know) seem to think.
For most flying with default ATC, this is what you get. Even with better “fake” ATC like Pilot2ATC, you don’t really get diverted from your actual flight plane. You really need to be on Vatsim or PilotEdge in a busy area in order to experience what would be more real life procedures.
How do I do it?
I’m in the WT CJ4. (or C172 G1000 NXi)
I’m at KJFK.
I want to fly to KEWR.
How do I select the VOR at KEWR and determine which radial that I am on
from that VOR.
And then fly towards that VOR.
A super short flight like that would be better suited for the C172. It’s best to use a planning tool like Plan-G for VOR flight planning. That way you can easily get the correct radial and frequencies.
You set the NAV1 frequency to 115,9 Mhz for the JFK VOR. There is no VOR beacon at Newark, so you need fly an outbound radial of 293° from the JFK beacon.
You set your CDI to that VOR1 course of 293° and keep the navigation instruments in VLOC mode, instead of GPS. Then you use the course needle on the CDI to follow that course until you reach your destination. You can either use DME equipment or dead reckoning to know how far you’ve come (calculate your position by measuring your time en route while taking your airspeed and wind drift into account). Could be a bit hectic on an 18 nm trip.
You can also dial in the Newark NDB frequency in your ADF. That’s 379. That beacon is on the airport premises, which should lead you right to the airport.
Of course all that stuff doesn’t help much, when you need to navigate a dense airspace. I’d tell you to follow the ATC instructions, but that might spell doom anywhere outside of VATSIM or similar networks. 
Thanks.
There’s not much in the glass cockpit to help with VOR navigation.
Sure there is… you can tune a VOR and select any radial to fly to or from it, same as you can with a GPS waypoint. Often when ATC gives you a clearance you weren’t expecting to intercept an airway, it’s faster and easier to get the VOR tuned to do so, and then once you’re headed in the right direction and already have course guidance available to guarantee you won’t miss the intercept, you can worry about getting it into the GPS.
I can’t see it.
When I tune the radio in the WTCJ4 or C172 G1000 NXi to a VOR,
there is no way to select a radial. The VOR1 display points to
North, 360 degrees (green arrow).
If I’m at KJFK and want to go to KTEB, Teterboro, I don’t want to fly north.
What am I missing?