Now the default G1000 includes Track/North Up, which, in the default MSFS GPS’s, do you prefer & why?
North up is only useable for planning IMO.
IR on some aircraft there’s just the option between track up or heading up.
My flight instructor always forced me to use north up. He even told me i should put my Navigation-System in the car like that to get used to it. LOL
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Interesting. My instructor always insisted on track up. Of course, in my day navigation systems were called maps and the track was drawn in chinagraph pencil… That way you can identify and orientate navigation features to check where you really are. I guess a moving map display that always knows where you are is a different thing altogether 
I’ve always preferred ‘track up’ because that’s how I learned to navigate. Old habits and old dogs etc. etc.
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Personally, I have always favored North Up
Its easier to maintain directional awareness, as the “Map” is not always being rotated.
However, if you are always flying on the Magenta Line, I can see some advantage in Track up – but I still choose to stick with North Up for GA flying.
Rotating the map can lead to incorrect navigation – ie
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Can’t imagine any biz jet or airliner flying North up.
(Don’t kow if this option is even available on any airliner)
Would be pretty confusing on the ND.
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Really interesting discussion!
As a kid, I’d learned to navigate (in the car) using ‘North up’ and developed a good sense of translating the orientation. Even as a youngster acting as navigator for my buddy in amateur rally driving - same thing.
But my flying instructor was pretty adamant. His argument was that if the map isn’t orientated to the direction you’re flying, it was too easy to misread visual references to be what you expected and not what you’re actually looking at. Made sense to me; and while flying GA - always followed that practice. Map upside down like that … but only when flying south!
Interesting to hear other people’s experience. Looks like we’re pretty evenly split here at the moment. Don’t suppose there’s really a right / wrong way … just depends what you’re used to.
Only if you have not developed the skill-set of looking at a North-Up map, and then being able to reference that back to what you are seeing outside, knowing your current heading.
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When I was a flight instructor we always taught to keep the (VFR) paper chart north-up, primary argument was for the student to develop spatial orientation, having to rotate the picture in your head. Its a cognitive exercise, when things really get complex we sometimes switched the chart track-up momentarily.
On the Garmin (we used 430s and 530s) I’ve always taught students to use track up as this is how all nav displays in commercial aircraft are orientated (either heading or track up). I have never flown any aircraft even having the option to use north-up, other than PLAN mode, but you can’t fly and navigate using that.
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Thanks guys - really interesting differences in the way things have been done. I’ve always been blessed with really good spatial awareness and personally had no problem navigating either way. I wonder if this is an age thing - I learned to fly in the 1980’s when GPS wasn’t something we had any expectation of seeing in the (GA) cockpit. My instructor was RAF flight crew on Canberras in the '50’s and early '60’s … so a whole generation earlier.
This has nothing to do with skills.
It simply complicates matters, especially when you need to do something you don’t need when driving a car…applying a drift correction.
It takes already quite some time to get used to track up if you are used to heading up and vice versa.
I’d say mostly personal preference. I like North Up on the MFD when in the cruise / enroute phase, especially if looking at radar or winds overlaid on the map. Then down in the lower terminal environment track up is most common. Nice thing with modern avionics is you can have multiple maps with different orientations.
My preference in MSFS is Track Up if I have a WT mod and North Up for default. In my opinion, the WT version of the G1000 does Track Up better than default.
We are only allowed to use maps for navigation in flightschool. Im also not a fan of gps/g1000. Maps are way cooler 
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Because in MSFS we can fly anywhere in the world, we would need a big heap of maps to cover the planet .
Maps are absolutely awesome. I used to collect maps - almost as a kind of fetish everywhere I went (certainly friends and family saw it that way). I may have gotten over that now.
Historically, maps were drawn east up … towards the Holy land (orient) hence the term ‘orientation’. The early navigators back in the 16th century started to wrestle with the challenge of depicting a spherical surface on a flat piece of paper in a way that was accurate an meaningful. I think Mercator was the one who ‘popularised’ North up (and for good technical reasons) in his maps. The whole topic is fascinating and one of the lasting pleasures I got from the academic side of learning to fly.
Sorry folks - just having a moment. There’s nothing wrong with a big heap of maps!
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