I keep reading that utilities like Navigraph are essential for getting approach routes and the like. But I don’t have any experience reading Jeppsesen charts or any aviation charts for that matter. How does one get started? Is there a book or video series on the topic? Thanks.
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YouTube and Google are your friend. You’ll find many tutorials on the topic.
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Yeah I saw the Jeppesen manual. But it seems complicated at first glance. Is there a book that people start with for reading aviation charts?
I’d start with YouTube then. There are more basic tutourioals.
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YouTube is good, but if you like reading better, there’s a library provided by the FAA here, always up-to-date.
The first third of the manual is a great glossary of terms and a legend of the the symbols that are used. The actual manual starts with the Introduction about page 60.
Great source of info!
I’ll take a look. There is a FAA aviation chart user’s guide that seems more basic. The knowledge learned from it should be transferable to Jeppesen charts, right?
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Jeppesen and FAA charts have mostly the same information, just presented better. Jeppesen is world-wide. FAA is USA. For larger airports Jeppesen has more detailed information for parking gates and taxiways. Generally Jeppesen is oriented to commercial and airline pilots. FAA charts are suitable for everyone including military.
Hi,
‘Notam’ does a great YouTube series on reading these charts specifically with regard to using Navigraph. Well worth taking a look even if you don’t want to use Navigraph.
Start with ‘I need to know this’ and look it up. Otherwise you can get information oversaturated.
Start with what there is to know about ILS, then VOR, then DME anything that is have-to-know information for an IFR trip. And simply study a random or near to home useful airport and read every map available on that (start with ILS 
) and look up what every number stands for, there is a lot of them.
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You can learn more about Jeppesen charts here:
http://ww1.jeppesen.com/documents/aviation/business/ifr-paper-services/intro-USA.pdf
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That’s a few chapters cut out from Jeppesen’s full guide. I guess I’ll start with the FAA guide first. And maybe check out that video series.
You don’t need to understand every single part of every single chart, particularly the FAA ones. They hold a lot of data that simply doesn’t apply when it comes to sims. Even Navigraph’s Jeppesen charts are a subset of the real world charts that remove the extra data that isn’t required. THat’s why their charts are labelled as being for sim use only and NOT for real world navigation.
What you really need to understand is the 10-9, SID, STAR and Approach charts. Approach charts and the 10-9 aren’t very complicated. There are a ton of videos by different sim YouTubers that show charts and demonstrate what parts of if you need to use. Ditto for SID and STAR charts. They’re a little more complicated as they have extra info, but it doesn’t take long to get the jist of them.
Once again, as with most of your questions of this nature, I will point you to look at P Gatacomb’s videos on YouTube. You really should subscribe to his channel and watch his stuff, as well as many other simmers out there. There’s no better way to learn this stuff than to see it being used with an explanation.
I’m far from an expert, but I’ve developed a reasonable proficiency with much sim stuff now, and I owe that all to YouTubers. I literally knew nothing about any of this when I got the sim at launch. With all the quality content on YouTube, it didn’t take me more than a couple of weeks to learn to use planes’ systems, use Garmins, and learn how to read the pertinent info in charts. And with practice over the ensuing months, I got much better. Like I said, I’m no expert, but there’s no mystery for me now with most of the data presented in the various charts.
IMHO, YouTube should be your first stop when you have a question.
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This Introducxtion Manual is a great valuable resource to anyone who wants to get familiar with aviation and reading charts and all associated terminalogy…Thank you for sharing the .pdf above…
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Thank you for sharing this…
The airspace information gets me really confused. There are so many different types of lines and colors. But I don’t think they use them too much on approach charts. I read some of the FAA manual but it is a lot of information overload. But I think the Jeppesen manual would be harder to read if I didn’t start with the FAA one.
Just thought I would add.
FAA Instrument Procedures handbook
FAA Aeronautical Chart Users’ Guide - For VFR charts.
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Seems like you’re talking about sectional charts here, not airport charts.
Is this what you’re referring to?
L[quote=“Crunchmeister71, post:19, topic:375249, full:true”]
Is this what you’re referring to?
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Yes I started with sectionals since that was the first type described in the FAA chart manual. But I think the main ones I will be interested in are the approach charts. It seems they are useful for getting a heading to the airport and the ILS frequency. In flight sims, is there a lot more to it? The FAA manual builds on previous chapters so I am reading it in order. I’ve been flying a lot of missions lately (more in FSX than in msfs 2020 lately), so I am basically told the approach and which Nav1 frequency to set. But I want to learn how to do it myself.