TCA HINTS & TIPS: CHARTS & NAVIGATION ~-~--~---~----~-----~----~---~--~-~-~--~---~----~-----~----~---~--~-~ December 2004 There has been a modification to the end of: LONG DISTANCE FLIGHTS OVER WATER - GREAT CIRCLE ROUTES - NAVIGATING WITHOUT GPS, see July 2002 section below. Brian === October 2004 FRENCH AIP CHARTS FOR FRENCH WEST INDIES (AND PACIFIC) Was able (at loooooong last) to track down the French AIP charts for the French West Indies (and Pacific). These are dual language publications (English-French) and can be found at: http://www.drac-ag.aviation- civile.gouv.fr/pages/version_angl/quisommes.html Also of interest might be: http://www.caribbeansitedirectory.com/links/aviation.html which lists the home pages of a number of smaller Caribbean operators. Enjoy. Dorian === March 2004 CHARTS FROM THE DAFIF SITE - MILITARY AND CIVIL USE In case it get's cut in the email proces, go here for a short URL: https://164.214.2.62/products/digitalaero/terminals/ And navigate your way thru the world...do select the latest set of plates..! V0403 is current now... Han --- Parent site is: http://164.214.2.62/products/digitalaero/index.html Question... this great site seems to be at least partly military oriented... are the plates and charts you find here intended for military pilots, and if so are there any differences between what they show and plates that civil pilots use? Brian --- They are both really, and sometimes the mil stuff is different and sometimes not. The mil uses High TACAN approaches which are very different and I've never heard of civil aircraft using them, and there are places where a US mil aircraft should not fly as it would be a provocation, but a civil US plane wouldn't be a big deal. Mil guys have to find the right gas too, places that can use their credit cards. But these folks make products for both civil and mil use. Kyle --- (See January 2004 entry below also) === January 2004 CARIBBEAN AND SOUTH AMERICA DAFIF EN ROUTE SUPPLEMENT For those of you who may be interested in the real world of flying and as a strong aid to planning and flying your FS, I recommend the downloading of the latest Caribbean and South America supplement from the DAFIF web site. If you were to buy this doc at any of the various aviation stores, you would have to pay at least $5 for it. The filename is "Csa_Sup.pdf", a "portable document format" doc for which you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader (which can be downloaded free from many different web sites.) The URL (Universal Resource Locator) for the DAFIF files is: https://164.214.2.62/dafif/dafif_0311_ed7/plan/ An additional URL is: https://164.214.2.62/products/digitalaero/ The file is about 8.5 megabytes and was issued on December 25th and is valid until April 15th 2004. It is worth every minute of your download time! Regards, Norm at Plantation, Florida --- Thanks for this substantial information. It's next to me from now on. Jack Vegt === March 2003 WINDS ALOFT WHEN FLYING AROUND THE WORLD - AND A FS LIMITATION > have taken up this challenge of flying around the world flying the > TCA Falcon 50, all has been good while flying in the United states > and Canada but since going into Russia I have been getting reading > as such: Heading 181, 350kt, wind 269/99. I have never encountered > winds at 99 miles an hour! I am using Active Sky which I always > thought was "real" downloaded weather from some server? Im I > correct! If I remember correctly, wind aloft speeds are only real over the US and Canada, and simulated over the rest of the world. Having flown around the world 6-7 times, you will generally find westardly winds throughout your trip. And I hate to break the bad news to you, but FS only shows a maximum of 99kts for windspeeds. The actual speeds may be well above that, 120, or 130. You will need to take this into consideration when planing your fuel usage and range. A 100kt headwind will slow your ground speed by the same amount, and therefore take longer to reach your destination and use more fuel. A sad thing to discover when you are 100nm from the island you planned to land on in the Pacific and are on empty. Joe McK. === CHOOSING BETWEEN FSFLIGHTMAX OR FSGARMIN? Have you notice that on avsim.com you can d/l 5 freeware search on sectional Charts - Category: FS2002 Miscellaneous "While the chart can be used "as is" without any other software, it will develop its full potential if used as moving map with SimSystems FSFlightMax or FSGarmin. " What is your opinion, if I should buy one of the 2 payware whit's one should I buy first ?? --- If you are asking which you should buy - either the FSFlightMax or FSGarmin, I would advise buying the FSGarmin530(version 2.0). I can tell you that the FSGarmin530 and FSGarmin430 are a better choice - especially the 530. It has all that FSFlightMax has and much more - soon it will also have a very good real-time Weather display as well. However, there is a much greater "learning curve" to follow with the Garmins because of all the things it can do, but if you're willing to spend some time reading the manuals, it will be worth it. If you would like me to, I can send some pics of the Garmin530 in use on some of my flights (in Alaska and in the Caribbean). Terry === WHEN ARE APPROACH CHARTS FLOWN IN REAL LIFE (OR IN VATSIM)? An excellent discussion thread on how charts are used in real life: http://ftp.avsim.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=18793&forum=DCForumID8 === February 2003 AIRWAY MAP OF THE WHOLE CARIBBEAN It's large, 10Mb PDF, yet you get a AIRWAY-map of the whole caribbean for free, thx to DOD of the USA. https://164.214.2.62/dafif/enroutechartscur/csa/CSA_T3_01-03-2003.pdf Marcel === FSGARMIN 530 [ The real instrument is an IFR GPS, com, VOR, LOC and glide-slope with color moving map all rolled into one. The FS2002 version emulates this instrument. ] Take a look at it on http://www.fsavionics.com You can try it out for 30 minute sessions (like Fsflightmax) and there Trainer lets you get used to using it without needing to open FS2002. To your benefit also, the Trainer on screen is BIG!! I rarely fly without it these days - primarily for VFR, but ideal for those longer IFR flights. Terry === January 2003 POLAR ROUTES Check out the following links for more info on polor routes in the real world: http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_16/polar_story.html http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_16/polar_nav_by_model.html Polar routes are flown using grid navigation and they can be simulated in Precision simulator...for instance New York - Hong Kong... STefaan === August 2002 PERFORMING SIDS AND STARS IN ON-LINE FLYING, USING SB FMC AND FSNAVIGATOR (FROM BOB DODGE) Bob, I have seen you fly a lot online and I am wondering if you use FS navegator or SB for navegation, if soo how do you manage to perform the SIDS and STARS,it is easy with the FMS of of the dreamfleet 737 and airbus from PSS. or maybe I have to go to the basics and do it manually. --- Hi, Ricardo, [...] I use the FMC (Flight Management Computer) of SquawkBox almost all the time. If there are fixes in the plan I turn off the SB FMC and fly with FSNavigator Flight Management System or the FS2002 GPS. I use the latest version of FSNavigator (the one you have to pay for - but it is well worth the money). FSNavigator serves as a flight planner, flight management system, moving map, visual TCAS of other on line a/c, and also a source of SIDs/STARs. FSNavigator also has the ability to export flight plans to FS2000/FS2002 and Squawkbox. When planning a flight, I get out my Jeppeson Charts for the Origin and Destination. If I don't have charts, I visit the VATSIM ARTCC/FIR sites for either the origin or destination. Go to the Pilot's Info Section there. Most have charts for the airport and SIDs/STARs. And, if they have a preferred routes section I try to find my flight listed and plan my route accordingly. They usually include SIDs/STARs for that trip. I keep up to date with the downloads of SIDs/STARs in FSNavigator. And, when flight planning, I try to find the SID/STAR that I will be using there. FSNavigator seems to have Runway orientation as the basis of SIDs/STARs. It shouldn't be, as SIDs/STARs are used according the the general direction of departure or arrival. If FSNavigator has the SID/STAR that I need, I will drag it into my flight plan and then check my charts. Then I will delete the fixes or waypoints that are not on my chart. This way you are flexible to whatever your approach controllers specifies as your landing runway; it may be ILS, visual, VOR or whatever. If there is no SID/STAR in FSNavigator for my origin or destination, then I enter the waypoints manually using the appropriate SID/STAR chart. You need vertical navigation information for crossing altitudes. That is why I try to always have a chart for my SID/STAR. Then I will fly my crossing points as published unless the controller gives me other directions. BTW, a good general rule on when to start your descent to meet the crossing altitude is 1 minute for every 2,000 ft. For example, if at FL350 and you must cross WOMAC intersection at 10,000 ft and 250 knots, you will have to descend 25,000 ft. Divide by 2 and you need 12 1/2 minutes for the descent. If flying an a/c with a slow descent mandatory, like the Airbus 320 (1300 fpm), I would need about 18 minutes. How do I know how far in minutes I am from my crossing waypoint? Use FSNavigator or the Squawkbox FMC if you have the flight plan loaded, mine always is. Personally, I don't own the Dreamfleet 737 or the PIC 767 or the PSS Airbus. Hear they are really good! However, our TCA fleet has great planes and I use those. Match them with good panels and sounds and you have some of the finest aircraft in FS2002! [...] Bob Dodge PS I hear that the new SB will not have an FMC or TCAS. No problem, I will just use FSNavigator or FS2002 GPS === July 2002 LAT LONG FORMULAE Can somebody please post the formula to convert Lat / Lon e.g.: N17.644994 = N 17 38' 41.98" W63.221651 = W 63 13' 17.94" --- BTW I got the forumla from Katy Pluta a minute ago. It's: Decimal Degrees = Degrees + Minutes/60 + Seconds/3600 Rainer --- Hi Rainer....I use the Groundmaker program. It has a built in converter.... www.groundmaker.org Dave --- Or try this... Kyle http://www.beg.utexas.edu/GIS/tools/DMS_DD.htm --- Is there any standalone [offline] tool to do the conversion? --- If you are wanting to see the decimal readout in fs2k2 for scenery design just add the following to the [MAIN] section of your fs2k2.cfg file. DISPLAY_FRACTIONAL_MINUTES=0 Now when you slew to a spot and write down the coords, they are in the correct format for inputing into Architect. Rob --- > use the windows calculator in scientific > mode. My system is Windows 2000 pro and the scientific > calc has a key called "dms". If you use it converts > the input in the corresponding degrees, minutes, > seconds. To use the opposite you need to check the > "Inv" checkbox and press the dms key again. > > Romulo Thanks a lot. That is the easiest way indeed. Rainer === LONG DISTANCE FLIGHTS OVER WATER - GREAT CIRCLE ROUTES - NAVIGATING WITHOUT GPS [ updated Dec 2004 ] In article , Peter and Kathleen Greenstein writes >I have a flight plan from San Francisco to Honolulu from FSNav. There are a >series of intersections in the Pacific Ocean, like AlCOA, ADISN, etc. >I notice that I am to change heading a little at each of these. I assume >these are corrections to follow a Great Circle path? Yes - see below. > >With no radio beacon sources I'm not sure how accurate I can be in following >this plan. Especially with weather along the way. Before GPS came along, how >in the heck did airliners know where they were? Celestial readings? > I hope that someone who really knows what they're talking about will chip in, but yes, certainly celestial readings, also making adjustment for known wind strength/direction (which is only approximate, of course). You're flying along a leg with your best computed heading, and at intervals you take another reading and correct your heading on the next leg accordingly. From hearing real pilots discuss this I know that it's surprising how accurate you can be doing this. You can get information on great circle routes, and calculate them, using the freeware Pilot's Assistant Toolset, which you'll find at the address at the bottom of this email. Also headings, wind adjustment, calculation of true air speed etc. Try it for yourself in the Flight Sim. Use an existing route plan or calculate a great circle route. Use Shift/Z to get the lat long when your calculation (using the toolset's Wind sheet, for example) tells you that you should be at the next waypoint. (Using Shift/Z to get lat long is the best simulation you can get for the celestial reading.) Use the toolset's lat long sheet to compute magnetic course to the next waypoint. Use the wind sheet to convert this to a corrected magnetic heading and time to run before you get there. You should probably turn off the lat/long display between waypoints. I can tell you that the long, otherwise tedious flight becomes remarkably interesting, especially when you finally pick up that radio beacon at (say) Hawaii. > >pete in Oakland,CA Hope this helps... Brian Tooby Pilot's Assistant Home Page: http://www.tooby.demon.co.uk/P_Assist_Home.html --- >I have a flight plan from San Francisco to Honolulu from FSNav. There are a >series of intersections in the Pacific Ocean, like AlCOA, ADISN, etc. >I notice that I am to change heading a little at each of these. I assume >these are corrections to follow a Great Circle path? Yes, you're flying a track which is a series of rhumb-line tracks (constant direction) which approximate to the great circle path (shortest distance but constantly changing direction/angle between successive meridians) between SFO and HLO. Strictly speaking, you're flying between a series of mandatory reporting points (for communication and safety reasons) which is the nearest approximation to your desired great circle track. >With no radio beacon sources I'm not sure how accurate I can be in following >this plan. Especially with weather along the way. Before GPS came along, how >in the heck did airliners know where they were? Celestial readings? Before GPS we used Inertial Navigation - usually three systems monitoring each other, discarding the 'worst' and taking the average of the other two. Very accurate and reliable and updated as soon as you come within range of VOR/DME. Before INS, we used astro nav., taking half-hourly sun shots by day, and moon/star ones at night. This was accurate up to about four miles and good enough to get you across the ocean until you could receive the long-range VOR/DMEs at each end. I've flown Mclellan AFB Sacramento to Hickam AFB Oahu (and on to Singapore) using this. "vref" --- >I have a flight plan from San Francisco to Honolulu from FSNav. There are a >series of intersections in the Pacific Ocean, like AlCOA, ADISN, etc. >I notice that I am to change heading a little at each of these. I assume >these are corrections to follow a Great Circle path? That is correct it is a great circle. The reason the headings change is because each line of longitude narrows a little as it converges towards each of the poles from the equator. The lattitude lines stay parallel to the equator, so therefore at the equator the angle between the equator and any line of longitude is 90 degrees, this lessens as you proceed north or south. You will also notice, that the distance between 10 degrees of longitude at the equator is greater than at 60 degrees north or south. By how much? by a factor of Cosine Latitude,in this case Cos 60. At the equator 1 degree=60 nautical miles so 10 degrees=600 nm. At 60 degrees North the distance is 600 * cos 60= 600*0.5=300 Nm. > >With no radio beacon sources I'm not sure how accurate I can be in following >this plan. Especially with weather along the way. Before GPS came along, how >in the heck did airliners know where they were? Celestial readings? It is very difficult to simulate dead reckoning over large ocean distances in FS. In the real world before radio navigation became predominant, the airliners carried Navigators who took sextant readings and celestial readings. Also they carried large almanacs giving them the positions of the stars and local time of sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset etc. These also listed mean wind directions observed over the years for certain areas of the world at different times of the year, which could be used for dead reckoning purposes if a fix by other means was not available. You can still buy AIR ALMANACS from certain outlets, do a web search, they are well worth having, they are published every year. Long range radio beacons pulsing certain number of blips per radial were used for long range navigation over the North Atlantic, two of these were obtained to get a fix. Very Low Frequency (VLF) navigation, utilising the vast US Naval submarine communication/navigation network was incoprorated into flight management systems. Other systems such as DECCA used moving map displays. These tended to be a little unreliable at high altitude and in bad weather. Then the Inertial navigation Systems came into being. These by the way are not used just for navigation,but are so sensitive they can detect the rotation of the Earth and therefore the centre of the earth and true north/south. So, they are used to drive the ADI and HSI. Airliners today, navigate in True degrees, the IRS/FMC carry info about magnetic variation to display a magnetic heading. There is one trick for correcting a track (over land) and that is called the 1 in 60 rule: (distance off track/distance gone * 60) + (distance off track/distance to go * 60) gives you the number of degrees correction to get you to your next waypoint. "privateer" --- Get almanacs: For USA and CANADA http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1882629337/inktomi-videoasin-20/104-1179465-3816734 For the UK http://www.nao.rl.ac.uk/nao/publicat/ukaa2002.html Good stuff! Pete --- For years there was a US Coast Guard ship stationed approximately halfway between the California coast and Hawaii. This was a "weather station" ship (my dad was executive officer on the northern Atlantic version of this boat in the late 1950s). This could act as a seaborne radio beacon. [...] Celestial readings were used in the early years, even into the 1950s. AND there was for many years a US Coast Guard Cutter on "ocean station" duty midway between SFO and Honolulu. This acted as a seaborne radio beacon. Craig Meredith, NH USA --- "Brian Tooby" wrote in message news:e3YFyKAmQqJ9EwkO@tooby.demon.co.uk... > >You're flying along a leg with your best computed heading, and > at intervals you take another reading and correct your heading on the > next leg accordingly. From hearing real pilots discuss this I know that > it's surprising how accurate you can be doing this. There were a couple of kids from New Jersey who flew a Piper Cub coast to coast in the summer of 1966 ("Flight of Passage" was written by one of them, and will be turned into a movie). They had NO radio or navigational aids, and made it across the country using this very method. And some of the places they traversed (west Texas, for example) left relatively little room for error... Craig --- > In October 1956, PanAm Boeing 377 Stratocruiser N90943 "Clipper Sovereign > Of The Skies" was forced to ditch at Ocean Station "November" due to engine > troubles. The Coast Guard cutter on duty was the "Pontchartrain", a WW2 > sloop type of naval vessel of 80 metres long, 1500 tonnes and a crew of > about 150. Thanks, Peter. Though you left me in a little suspense there! This tid-bit had me hitting the search engines to find how it turned out. And I found the following, which not only answered my question, but may be of interest to anyone interested in finding out more about the B377: http://www.ovi.ch/b377/lady/index.html Neil Trotter --- See also FS2004 SIMULATED AIRCRAFT BUBBLE SEXTANT in Miscellaneous Goodies tips file, December 2004 Brian === April 2002 GET OUT OF DATE AERONAUTICAL CHARTS AT HIGHLY DISCOUNTED RATE *** Quote: AeroPlanner, the folk who provide the digital charts for FSFlightMax and other applications have now provided a special "Sim Pack" of charts. These charts are at greatly reduced prices (about $1.00 per chart) and are available now. Here is some summary information from the "Sim Pack" page at AeroPlanner: The AeroPlanner Sim ChartPack offers out-of-date aeronautical charts at a highly discounted rate. This product is targeted towards the Sim pilot where chart currency is not as important as chart price. The Sim ChartPack gets you 50 charts for $49.95 (about $1 per chart). Sim ChartPacks are customizable groups of electronic aeronautical charts that can be purchased and downloaded immediately from AeroPlanner.com. Available charts include Sectionals, WACs, High IRF, Low IFR, TACs, ONCs, and GNCs. The charts can be used in a variety of aeronautical navigation software packages including, FSFlightMax, Destination Direct 4.0, Fugawi, OziExplorer, Memory-Map Navigator Memory-Map Pocket Navigator, and more. After you've bought a ChartPack, the next time you elect to download a Sim Chart it will simply be subtracted from your available chart credits. You save some money by buying the charts in bulk You don't have to go through the purchase process every time you want ot download a new chart We don't have to mess with nearly as many order records ..everybody wins The direct link to this page is http://www.aeroplanner.com/tools/dlsimcharts.cfm *** I can promise you, flying with a honest to goodness real chart in the FMS is considerably better than the basic "Ground Shapes". If you want to see what it looks like, I'll put a Pic up in the PIC section of the Yahoo page. Terry === Mar 2002 ST MAARTEN > Im looking for a "city" map...I mean, a map where I can see the city. > Bacause Im trying to know St Maarten, and Id like to know some VFR > notifications points. Just a couple of links out my bookmarks: http://www.experiencestmaarten.com/islandfacts/stmartinmap.htm this one is a map made in flash, rightclick on it and you can zoom in, move etc... Official St. Maarten site: http://www.st-maarten.com/ And the St. Maarten paper online: http://www.thedailyherald.com/ Han Tilroe === Dec 2001 *** CHARTS Jeppesen Charts for PC Pilots are really nice and, yes, for most places, there are approach and departure procedures (STARS and SIDs). I bought Latin America (Includes Caribbean), Europe, South America, and all the US (Three areas are East, Central, and West excluding Hawaii and Alaska) . The areas are on a CD and come with a little program to access them and print them. Plug in the ICAO/Name of the airport and select what you want - Airport Diagram, Arrival Procedures, Departure Procedures, Noise Abatement, Approach Plates, etc. The chart you want is displayed and then you just print out the chart. Very well done by Jeppesen and these are for the PC user only in that they are real but not kept up to date. BTW, they are also integrated into Flight Simulator, on the menu, and can be used directly from there while flying. Well worth the money! http://www.jeppesenpcpilot.com/ Bob Dodge === LEARNING NDB AND VOR NAVIGATION >BTW, for those learning the NDB and VOR instruments, here is a java applet >that is quite cool and very easy: > >http://www.visi.com/~mim/nav/ Kyle, This is the neatest java script applet I have seen for aviation. Thanks for posting it. Mike ===