ForeFlight - North up or Track up

RalphInCA

RalphInCA

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RalphInCA
For those of you who fly with FF, do you use the North Up or Track Up setting on the moving map? If track up, Centered or forward?
 
In USAF nav school we were taught to always use track up.

We were taught that people think they can fly south on a north up chart and keep everything straight, but really nobody can do that in the presence of any sort of distraction or excitement.
 
Personally, I prefer North Up. It's the way I read all maps. Now, if they added vector graphics like Garmin Pilot, I could see using Track Up since items with text would be oriented correctly for reading.
 
I can fly ether way, I just need EVERYTHING in the cockpit to be the same.

Normally I default to N up.
 
LDJones said:
Personally, I prefer North Up. It's the way I read all maps. Now, if they added vector graphics like Garmin Pilot, I could see using Track Up since items with text would be oriented correctly for reading.
Click to expand...

Same here. The name overlay that WX and GP is one feature FF really needs to add someday.
 
LDJones said:
Personally, I prefer North Up. It's the way I read all maps. Now, if they added vector graphics like Garmin Pilot, I could see using Track Up since items with text would be oriented correctly for reading.
Click to expand...

Not Foreflight, but Avare, and I use North up for the same reason. Navigation may be more intuitive with track up, but I can't read the chart if everything is upside down.
 
My panel mounted GPS is track up but I prefer FF with North up. I find this arrangement ideal.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
JimNtexas said:
In USAF nav school we were taught to always use track up.

We were taught that people think they can fly south on a north up chart and keep everything straight, but really nobody can do that in the presence of any sort of distraction or excitement.
Click to expand...

My high altitude charts were north up, low level was track up just because it fit the chart pages better n the low level ok format. I kept my radar on north up, all the photos and predictions for radar fix points were north up. (B-1B)

For FF, I alternate, but mostly north up.
 
North up. Same with my car GPS. Seems to drive everyone batty, but I've been doing it long enough I get confused with track up.
 
JimNtexas said:
We were taught that people think they can fly south on a north up chart and keep everything straight, but really nobody can do that in the presence of any sort of distraction or excitement.
Click to expand...

I swear I was practically flying around in circles the first time I tried to do this.
 
North up.

Centered. I keep my zoom level so that all airports within my glide range are visible. I have real time winds aloft on my EFIS, surface winds on FF along with smoke drifting from stacks or forest fires. I take these into account to decide if we can make the glide or not.
 
JimNtexas said:
In USAF nav school we were taught to always use track up.

We were taught that people think they can fly south on a north up chart and keep everything straight, but really nobody can do that in the presence of any sort of distraction or excitement.
Click to expand...

Ditto at Army Pathfinder school. The eyes and map should be aligned. Track up.
 
Going back to teaching with paper sectionals, I became aware that people are different in their cognitive preferences and abilities.

I absolutely prefer track up. I would even turn sectionals to be in that mode.

If I see an airport ahead and to the right on the chart, I know it's ahead and to the right out the window. Easy Peasey.

In fact, if forced to look at a North Up presentation, I actually will sometimes tilt my head to help me relate to the relative position of things.

But it became clear to me early on that others manage just fine with a North Up display. I really do think it points to a fundamental difference in the way people process visual information.

And "Forward" makes more logical sense to me, since I'm usually more interested in where I'm going over where I've been.

But all this is highly individual, and as long as it's working for any given pilot, I would not recommend changing.
 
North up. Anything else, at least for me, could be confusing during times of high workload.
 
Here's another thing I found. If you are not the greatest when it comes to reletive direction to a waypoint or airport, north-up will help you immensely. You can look at the map and clearly see you're northwest of the airport. With track up, that's not possible.

So when the tower asks you to say position, and you say "I'm 8 miles ummmmmmmmm norrrrr--- eass-- no west-- south west 8 miles south west", north-up orientation will probably help you notice very quickly where you are in relation to anything. But you should also work on maintaining and knowing your orientation. I can say all this cause that's me!
 
Looks like it's a preference issue.....


Track up makes the most sense because it's point of view. Otherwise your brain has to try and decide which way you are going and just like reversed sensing on a VOR, it's just plain more brain power to figure out.

Track up is the logical CRM use for map orientation.
 
Track up on my Garmin Aera and GTN, but north up on ForeFlight, until I learn how to read the text on the sectionals upside down and sideways.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
If you are not the greatest when it comes to reletive direction to a waypoint or airport, north-up will help you immensely. You can look at the map and clearly see you're northwest of the airport. With track up, that's not possible.
Click to expand...

Very good point.

I'm not the strongest in that department.

My "cheat" is to just glance at the tail end of the needle on my vertical card compass to say the direction from which I am coming.

CompRose1.jpg


For instance, one glance here and I can report "From the NW"

Works for me!
 
Maps and FF are North-Up. Everything on the panel is track-up

During initial training in C150s I used track-up but I REALLY learned pilotage doing glider cross countries. Track-up means zip when circling and when the fastest path from A to B is almost never a straight line.

As our Contest Director explained to the investigating Navy Officer, "that couldn't have been a glider over Camp David on Wednesday, our task was in the opposite direction". And no, it was just a pee bag.

Bill "Four Eyes" Watson
 
I use north up, but for no logical reason other than it is what felt natural to me once I started using moving map devices in airplanes. However, when I'm driving in my car, and following a navigational path of left and right turns on my phone, I need to use track up and that feels natural. :dunno:
 
FastEddieB said:
Very good point.

I'm not the strongest in that department.

My "cheat" is to just glance at the tail end of the needle on my vertical card compass to say the direction from which I am coming.

CompRose1.jpg


For instance, one glance here and I can report "From the NW"

Works for me!
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I do too! Although use the HI instead. To give location position reports and also to figure out runway headings relative to my location, I need to look at the HI. My airplane has a vertical card compass too, but I spent so many years flying planes with traditional compasses that I got in the habit of using the HI instead.
 
North up for cross-country. Track-up for approaches.
 
Mine is set to North up when I zoom out.

When I zoom in to like 1n.m. it will go to track up with compass arc on top.

This is Garmin Pilot, not FF.
 
Regardless of app, if it supports it - always track up - that's just the way my instructor drilled into me.
 
I go track up with my GPS's and although that is the way to do it for steering, you have to be aware that you need situational awareness somehow (look at a chart, set it to north up or something), so you know the lay of the land. Otherwise I just end up thinking everything is straight in front of me.
 
Charts and on the ground -- North Up
Airborne (GPS) -- Track Up
Line-of-Position for VOR radials on Sectionals -- sight along the radial toward the VOR
 
Scrabo said:
Regardless of app, if it supports it - always track up - that's just the way my instructor drilled into me.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting thought to me. When a lot of us on here were getting instruction, there were no GPSs. There were no procedures drilled in. We have been left to wing it. I never even considered that there might be a right way, or wrong way to use a moving map.
 
Dav8or said:
That's an interesting thought to me. When a lot of us on here were getting instruction, there were no GPSs. There were no procedures drilled in. We have been left to wing it. I never even considered that there might be a right way, or wrong way to use a moving map.
Click to expand...

I believe the "right" way is the way the PIC feels most comfortable with. I go back and forth on what I prefer. I like my 430 to be track up, but bounce back and forth on the iPad...I'm starting to think for me, north up on the iPad coupled with track up on the 430 aids me in situational awareness...next week my approach might change :)
 
Dav8or said:
That's an interesting thought to me. When a lot of us on here were getting instruction, there were no GPSs. There were no procedures drilled in. We have been left to wing it. I never even considered that there might be a right way, or wrong way to use a moving map.
Click to expand...

Even without GPS you can have Track Up/North Up.

I trained 100% paper, and on my first cross country my instructor tried to make me put the map track up.
I hated it but I assumed it was better.

Then I stopped doing it, I would keep it North Up, and he gave up saying something like "I usually like to line up the sectional to where I'm heading, but you seem to do fine like that".

Seems like there is no right or wrong way.
 
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