GPS, VOR, Pilotage, Dead Reckoning?

John Baker

John Baker

Final Approach
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Oct 4, 2008
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Display name:
John Baker
Back when I first started flying, an old guy came into the FBO. Everyone seemed to know him, and obviously liked him as well. Apparently, he had only had his ticket a few years, and had recently returned from a long flying trip all over northern and southern California. His mission had been to fly t as many airports as he could, using nothing but pilotage, dead reckoning and VOR. The navigation he learned while learning.

I purchased a Garmin hand held touch screen about a year ago. It has never seen the inside of my plane. For some reason, perhaps I'm remembering that old guy and his adventure, I'm in no hurry to start using it.

So I'm wondering, how many of you guys take full advantage of GPS on your assorted flying adventures, or do you just use pilotage, dead reckoning, and VOR for most of your flying?

I'm thinking that possibly sticking with the basics might make me a safer and better pilot. Or perhaps by ignoring GPS, I'm not using the tools available to me, thereby making me a less than safe pilot?

John
 
i always prefer to use the best form of navigation available. so if I do something insane like fly Matt's Flybaby 300 miles for lunch then I guess its Pilotage/DR. But if I have a Garmin 430 with WAAS i'm using it.
 
I still don't have any GPS, installed or handheld.
 
I hardly ever fly VOR to VOR. If I am up flying to no where in particular or to a place I know well then pilotage or ded reckoning are used. But if I am doing any XC then I use the GPS.
 
Use the best system/technology available and a GPS with moving map is currently the thing. HOWEVER, practice constantly with VORs and Time/Compass. You never know when the GPS will die. It has happened to me twice while IMC in busy airspace, and yes my backup GPS died as well because the failure was the GNS530 antenna which became a very effective locallized jammer of GPS signals.

When the weather is nice turn off the GPS screen and see how you do with the VOR or compass; it can be fun and it provides entertainment on boring cross countries.

Ditto for the autopilot; routinely fly legs by hand to stay proficient. Gets old quick.

I just finished a 2-day Multi-Engine Instrument course at SIMCOM. The Baron simulator does not have a GPS with moving map. THus, the entire training was VOR/ILS with no visual "map" to keep your bearings. Had to scrape off more then a few barnacles to fly a single engine hold into a backcourse localizer IMC and then for fun have the artificial horizon fail so your now on partial panel. Lots of fun.
 
I have a 430 and 396 with weather. I NEVER fly more than 100 miles without having a VOR direct route plotted (with printed nav log) that roughly parallels the planned direct route. I track each VOR (distance and radial) throughout the flight. Maybe I'm a belt and suspender type, but I'd argue I'm just a favorite among equals with my crazy Uncle Murphy.

Before the 396, I had an iPaq with battery pack mounted GPS. Fluke event was I lost both the 430 antenna and the iPaq broke a GPS pin on the same long cross country (a 7 hour flight from IN to FL). Being able to just swing the plane to the tracked radial and revert to the VOR direct route made life a lot more comfortable and probably only added a smidge of time to the flight.

Before this, I was a partner in a 172N - really nice plane. It had an old PITA GPS and a KNS-80 RNAV. What a WONDERFUL piece of technology that KNS-80. Aeroplanner has a "Direct Routing for RNAV" feature that would plot all the VORs with offset and radial. I could fly a 7 hour cross country with COMPLETE redundancy. Just LOVED it. New plane has the 430 + Collins 350 and King DME. The DME is nice, but I REALLY miss the KNS-80.

I would actually like to fly VOR direct more often, but it never really is direct ... is it? There is something strikingly rewarding about seeing the DME click 0.5NM before the VOR needle starts to swing. There is also something fun about watching the DME drop its signal, then watching the VOR get flagged and KNOWING you're still on track. Again, just plain fun to watch the next station VOR pick up and the needle not swing more than a dot.

I feel pretty strongly about using the best available technology, but at heart am a bit of a Luddite and simply can't stomach the thought that we are actually going to become completely dependent on GPS in the near future. I don't care weather it is Loran, VOR or ADF, but for goodness sake we should keep some ground based alternative.

Jeff
 
I use a combination. I carry a 296 with me along with the iPad w ForeFlightHD now. Still like to draw lines on a sectional though and look out the windows for checkpoints. I also will dial in VOR's and crosscheck my position.
 
iflyforfun said:
Before this, I was a partner in a 172N - really nice plane. It had an old PITA GPS and a KNS-80 RNAV. What a WONDERFUL piece of technology that KNS-80. Aeroplanner has a "Direct Routing for RNAV" feature that would plot all the VORs with offset and radial. I could fly a 7 hour cross country with COMPLETE redundancy. Just LOVED it. New plane has the 430 + Collins 350 and King DME. The DME is nice, but I REALLY miss the KNS-80.
Click to expand...

DUATS has something simliar to what you are describing. If you do a flight plan and select "Direct (with fixes)", it will give you VOR/Radial/Distance for VORs along your direct route. It even gives you the morse identifier for each VOR.
 

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CJones said:
DUATS has something simliar to what you are describing. If you do a flight plan and select "Direct (with fixes)", it will give you VOR/Radial/Distance for VORs along your direct route. It even gives you the morse identifier for each VOR.
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I still have the KNS-80 above my Garmim GPS for a DME. good unit
 
Do you use a calculator, or do the arithmetic in your head? Do you ever use the spell checker when you type messages? Do you prefer to read raw METARs? The big question, can you get from point A to B safely with the tools you choose to use?
 
deltafox said:
Do you use a calculator, or do the arithmetic in your head? Do you ever use the spell checker when you type messages? Do you prefer to read raw METARs? The big question, can you get from point A to B safely with the tools you choose to use?
Click to expand...

Some in my head or E-6B while flying, calculator on the ground.

I always use spell checker, however I am noticing that I am having fewer and fewer corrections as time goes by. Perhaps spell checker is also a training aid.

I prefer raw METARS. Yes, I have no problem finding B.

John
 
I use GPS almost exclusively, but I still tune the NAVs whenever I'm flying an airway route. At least once a year I take a VFR X/C strictly with ded reckoning and pilotage.
 
iflyforfun said:
I have a 430 and 396 with weather. I NEVER fly more than 100 miles without having a VOR direct route plotted (with printed nav log) that roughly parallels the planned direct route. I track each VOR (distance and radial) throughout the flight. Maybe I'm a belt and suspender type, but I'd argue I'm just a favorite among equals with my crazy Uncle Murphy.

Before the 396, I had an iPaq with battery pack mounted GPS. Fluke event was I lost both the 430 antenna and the iPaq broke a GPS pin on the same long cross country (a 7 hour flight from IN to FL). Being able to just swing the plane to the tracked radial and revert to the VOR direct route made life a lot more comfortable and probably only added a smidge of time to the flight.

Before this, I was a partner in a 172N - really nice plane. It had an old PITA GPS and a KNS-80 RNAV. What a WONDERFUL piece of technology that KNS-80. Aeroplanner has a "Direct Routing for RNAV" feature that would plot all the VORs with offset and radial. I could fly a 7 hour cross country with COMPLETE redundancy. Just LOVED it. New plane has the 430 + Collins 350 and King DME. The DME is nice, but I REALLY miss the KNS-80.

I would actually like to fly VOR direct more often, but it never really is direct ... is it? There is something strikingly rewarding about seeing the DME click 0.5NM before the VOR needle starts to swing. There is also something fun about watching the DME drop its signal, then watching the VOR get flagged and KNOWING you're still on track. Again, just plain fun to watch the next station VOR pick up and the needle not swing more than a dot.

I feel pretty strongly about using the best available technology, but at heart am a bit of a Luddite and simply can't stomach the thought that we are actually going to become completely dependent on GPS in the near future. I don't care weather it is Loran, VOR or ADF, but for goodness sake we should keep some ground based alternative.

Jeff
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I'm with you on that one! I hope they keep the VOR/ILS systems running strong. As noted above, GPS can fail for many reasons. One satellite can take the whole GPS network down for a large corner of the country, where a failure of a single VOR or ILS is not a big deal.

I too will 1st plot my flight using Victor Airways. Then straighten out the big zigs with Directs between VORs/Intersections. This flight plan is saved. I'll then plot a Direct course, the time difference between the two is usually only a few minutes so I'll file and fly the VOR-VOR route and supplement the GPS nav using my trusty VHF VOR/DME. As noted above, it is comforting to see the GPS and the CDI/DME both reading the same bearing, speed and distance to the fix. If/when the GPS fails it is a non-event to continue on using the CDI.
 
Baron2PG said:
I'm with you on that one! I hope they keep the VOR/ILS systems running strong. As noted above, GPS can fail for many reasons. One satellite can take the whole GPS network down for a large corner of the country, where a failure of a single VOR or ILS is not a big deal.
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Never heard of it happening, but it could. Gets one armchair flying the scenario.

No GPS, you're a /A airplane. You check NOTAMS for your VOR-VOR route, long X/C, low IFR. No outages. You depart. A VOR downstream of your route goes down.

Would ATC notify you of the outage, if you were in radio contact? Certainly they would if they knew about the outage, and it was on your flight plan.

But imagine you just suddenly find yourself not able to identify the VOR when you tuned it. Imagine you discovered this at the changeover point on a long airway. What's your next steps?
 
Baron2PG said:
I too will 1st plot my flight using Victor Airways. Then straighten out the big zigs with Directs between VORs/Intersections. This flight plan is saved. I'll then plot a Direct course, the time difference between the two is usually only a few minutes so I'll file and fly the VOR-VOR route and supplement the GPS nav using my trusty VHF VOR/DME. As noted above, it is comforting to see the GPS and the CDI/DME both reading the same bearing, speed and distance to the fix. If/when the GPS fails it is a non-event to continue on using the CDI.
Click to expand...

As a renter I often expect the GPS db to be out of date. Obviously my IFR flying is done with best navs available. Assuming a VFR flight (usually clear & 20+sm vis out here) I start with the great circle then adjust for airspace and terrain then navigate via pilotage & DR. I typically use VOR & GPS to give ATC or CTAF the most accurate positions I can. Or when weather makes it prudent.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Never heard of it happening, but it could. Gets one armchair flying the scenario.

No GPS, you're a /A airplane. You check NOTAMS for your VOR-VOR route, long X/C, low IFR. No outages. You depart. A VOR downstream of your route goes down.

Would ATC notify you of the outage, if you were in radio contact? Certainly they would if they knew about the outage, and it was on your flight plan.

But imagine you just suddenly find yourself not able to identify the VOR when you tuned it. Imagine you discovered this at the changeover point on a long airway. What's your next steps?
Click to expand...

You're now talking about a two-point failure; which has a very low probability. 1st the GPS would have to be down then Murphy bites you with a VOR on your route being fubar; extremely unlikely. However, it is not a big deal at all. You simply use Bearing/DME from other VORs creating an intersection where the original VOR is now dead and continue on or ask for a slight course change to fly on radials to/from another VOR and bypass the dead VOR. You may have to climb to a higher altitude to pickup the VORs. Before GPS pilots did this as part of their routine navigation or they had fancy RNAV units that would do the calculations for them.

What is troublesome is the proposed new ATC system that is all about GPS and the VORs are taken off line. Now what do you do if a) your GPS fails or b) a GPS satellite goes down. It could leave 1/2 the country grounded. I hope the FAA isn't that stupid....but it is the government.:fcross:
 
I have crossed the North Pacific with intermittent electrical and an astrolabe. INS doesn't work so good when 400V isn't present. I've had the navigator's butt in the back of my head for seemingly endless minutes...when I got impatient with him, we'd switch me and I'd be up in the bubble.

Always keep a DR track, it can save your butt. We found Dutch Harbor amazingly closely by just keeping track.

You need to be able to use ALL the tools, and if you don't keep pilotage and DR sharp, you lose it. But you also need to get good with your Garmin.
 
You're never less safe by having more tools available. You're always less safe when you don't know how to use all your available tools.
 
I use GPS-assisted pilotage. Flights planned going from airport to airport, and use them as visual fixes. I fly via pilotage, and use my two GPSs (GX55 and Ipad with Foreflight) to help me stay oriented and make sure I put eyeballs on airport I'm passing over.

At any point, you could turn all the electricals off, and I'm still flying on pilotage. Last year, coming back from OSH, the alternator kicked off. I shut down the master switch and diverted to the nearest airport using pilotage (no Ipad GPS then). No biggie.
 
I use pilotage, dead reckoning and VORs. Never used a GPS.
Recently someone gave me a Garmin 195. After playing around with it at home, I'm afraid I'd wreck the plane trying to figure out the darned thing in the air. Easier for me to just look at the chart in my lap and "away we go".
 
Ron Levy said:
You're never less safe by having more tools available. You're always less safe when you don't know how to use all your available tools.
Click to expand...
That's a perfect summary :yesnod:

I don't fly in IMC for long distances without at least some kind of RNAV equipment - GPS, portable GPS, LORAN (not anymore), VOR-RNAV. But in any case, portable GPSs are so cheap now that it's a god idea to always have one with you (and to know how to use it) just in case there's some sort of failure. It's a great backup tool and it has no downside.

-Felix
 
Ron Levy said:
You're never less safe by having more tools available. You're always less safe when you don't know how to use all your available tools.
Click to expand...

Amen! I am still learning the process of amending routings in the 430 which I find to be a not too easy task! If the panel craps out, the 510 is hard wired into the system and carries the flight plan loaded into the 430 and gives me at least an hour of battery backup, and an independent resource.

I use all the tools available in the plane, backup the settings on the GPS with VOR's and the DME along the route. It's kinda fun to see how close the GPS routing is compared to the needles (I get a good lesson in wind drift and correction) I love flying the GPS approaches compared to the non-GPS, but practice both. Sometimes I will 'fail' the gps by covering the screen and see how proficient I am at converting over to other navigation systems, or back to the sectional, the E6B and the clock.
 
Because of plane avionics I always plan XC VOR to VOR. With the EFB and the 196 I have the addition of dual GPS's giving a moving map and lots of information while in flight.

One of the main VOR to VOR reasons is I always log the times at each checkpoint and generally compare my calculated to GPS reports on how I got here, what I'm doing and what that all means for getting to the destination. VOR's are easier than developing my own VFR set of checkpoints and ETA's and make popup IFR clearances easier. Plus if I need to I can still find them from above or in the clouds.

I've practiced flying approaches with the EFB, the 196 and the hand held radio. They may not be legal but sure beat nothing in a pinch and I want to know how to use them if the time ever comes.
 
After getting my ticket only about three months ago, Through out my training I was thought to use everything at my disposal.

I always fly with the GPS tuned to my destination (set to my home airport if I'm on a local sight seeing trip), VOR set (if where I'm going has a VOR), and I always keep the Sectional in my lap.

If all else fails I use Pilotage, and I keep my handheld NAV/COM radio near by, in the event of a NAV/COM failure.
 
I took off a couple years ago for some practice IFR in actual (about 300' ceilings) and got the following clearance:
" Seymour Johnson Primary and Secondary radars are both out of service, proceed on the 270 radial to Kinston VOR, intercept the 20 DME arc, turn south to the 173 radial, proceed inbound until you intercept the localizer for the ILS 5 to Kinston. Let me know when you are 12 miles out."

Glad I had my trusty KX155 and knew how to do all that old stuff.

The clearance back was equally interesting, but I was on the ground when I got it.

I made the comment to the controller that he was giving me a real workout. His reply was that I wasn't the only one and he was feeling a trifle overwhelmed as well.

The 430 was still useful, but that clearance would have been hard to figure out in solid IMC at the time. I now know how to handle that situation on the 430, but it requires some thought.

Ron is right, know how to use what you have and how to use it properly.
 
Was able to fly to Windwood today (WV62) from home base of KWAY.

The usual exercise in the Chief is to combine Ded Reckoning with pilotage.

Key to not getting too lost is to establish rails (right and left limits) and gates (things you pass or won't pass).

Worked pretty good today, and I even had to do about 5 minutes of looking around to get oreinted.

Hard to find WV62 without a GPS.
 
I use what is available, but like Reagan said, "trust but verify."
 
Avoiding GPS because it's fancy and new and Lindbergh didn't use it is, well, I'm going to say it, stupid.

Every once in a blue moon I do the pilotage thing for fun. If I had a slower plane I'd probably do it more often. One more reason to push the missus on getting a TopCub. Not bloody likely, but boy is that pure flying fun -- it should be illegal. I love flying above the fields and trees with the whole right side of the aircraft opened to the world. Needle, ball, airspeed. Good times.

Still want a GPS to keep me out of all the B,C,D and restricted airspace in these here parts though.
 
John Baker said:
using nothing but pilotage, dead reckoning and VOR.
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What is so special about that?

John Baker said:
I'm thinking that possibly sticking with the basics might make me a safer and better pilot. Or perhaps by ignoring GPS, I'm not using the tools available to me, thereby making me a less than safe pilot?
Click to expand...

The important thing is you know where you are. It doesn't matter what method you use. I think GPS for VFR flight can decrease safety by causing distraction and or complacency**. GPS for IFR flight could increase safety by providing a backup source of information in case of a failure, terrain information, etc. In either case it still needs to be used properly to have any benefit.

**Case in point, while overflying Stafford Airport I heard a Mooney pilot doing touch and goes. "Stafford traffic, Mooney 123, downwind runway 26, touch and go," he would say. The only problem was Stafford doesn't have a runway 26. After four or five of these, the FBO finally got on the radio and informed the pilot about the incongruity. It turned out the pilot was not at Stafford at all but at a completely different airport nearby (with a much shorter runway, oriented in a completely different direction, I might add), transmitting on the wrong CTAF, with the wrong airport name. "But my GPS says I'm at Stafford", he said. :rolleyes2:
 
I use all the equipment available in the airplane. If the GPS is functioning you can count on me using it. Silly not to. The more I can relieve my workload the more I can pay attention to other details.

There is a big difference between using and being dependent on.
 
I typically fly two or more 3 to 4 hour trips a week. I almost always file an instrument plan because, even on nice days, it's hard to remain VMC on 400+NM trips. I always file GPS direct.

But I still pick waypoints spaced out about every 30 minutes or so and print out a flight plan. Also the appropriate sectional chart is always clipped to the co-pilot's yoke and is referenced frequently. Keeping track of time, speed, & location "the old fashioned way" gives me something to do once my nose has been adequately cleaned.

And, like some others have mentioned, at least a couple of times a year, I fly with all the avionics off and use nothing but a chart and flight plan. Flying by Ded reckoning and pilotage is great practice.

Conversely, I must admit that it's been years since I've manually calculated a flight plan, the elapsed times and wind corrections.
 
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Baron2PG said:
One satellite can take the whole GPS network down for a large corner of the country, where a failure of a single VOR or ILS is not a big deal.
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I'm not aware of any GPS SV failure modes that can take out a significant portion of anything. Could you please share what you know about a single satellite taking out "a large corner of the country"?

Here's the way I look at it. Each GPS signal is independent from the others. There is information coded in the navigation messages about the other satellites, but that is only used to aid in acquiring a lock (as in get a lock faster). Those messages are neither necessary to get a lock on a satellite nor can they cause a lock you already have to drop. Your receiver tracks each SV signal independently. It then merges the measurements to create a position solution.

To calculate a valid 3D position you need 4 valid SV signals. Right now the constellation is set up so that most of the time you have about 8 SVs in view. If one of those drops offline then your receiver just doesn't track it anymore, no big deal as long as you still have at least 4 to track.

Receivers with RAIM will need at least 5 signals to track. RAIM will throw out an anomalous signal reading and still provide a valid solution.

Also, the Air Force ground station is continuously monitoring the satellite signals. If they go bad the ground station immediately sets the signal to unhealthy, which will cause your Rx to stop tracking it.

And there's WAAS. Which is the FAA monitoring of GPS and it provides integrity flags for each signal as well. In the case of WAAS there are only 2 satellites, so if one drops offline then there could be a WAAS outage over part of the country. However, that's only a WAAS outage, not a navigation outage.
 
I fall in the "Use Everything You've Got" category. Why wouldn't you use it all.

I guess some folks are suggesting that not using the GPS will keep your skills sharper. I just use all the skills to cross check.

Example:
GPS says I'm over Podunkville heading Southwest..
Hmmm, I'm on the 148deg radial from Megopolis VOR, which goes right through Podunkville.
And, I'm on the 307deg bearing from Podunkville NDB, which also goes right through town.
So far so good.
Looking out the window, I can see a set of runways that matches the layout at Podunkville Muni. I can see the highway running through town from North to South. And finally I read the water tower. It says "Weenieburg".......just kidding it says "Podunkville" 'cause of my awesome navigational skillz.
A quick look at the DG and the compass verifies the heading as Southwest.

I know where I am and where I'm going. I used all the available resources. And I don't feel inferior to someone who says they don't use GPS for navigation, because I keep my dead reckoning, pilotage and radio nav skills sharp.
 
dmccormack said:
If you don't have it all, you only use what you've got.
Click to expand...
Then what you've got counts as "all".

dmccormack said:
But human nature is like mother nature -- the easiest course will be the one we take unless we're forced (internally or externally) to go the harder course.
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In some cases using a VOR can be easier than using a GPS. A specific example is when you a cleared to intercept a radial off a VOR. To me it's much easier and less time consuming to use the actual VOR receiver for that rather than trying to program it into a GPS.
 
I was reminded of the importance of maintaining awareness of situation and location independent of the GPS (or any other electronic assistant) when I had to shut down the electrics in the club 177RG (smoke and pre-fire for electrical issues). Once it was clear that I did not have to put the plane on the ground right now-now (which I was ready to do, but the smoke cleared instantly), I was in, "Now where am I exactly?" mode.

Amazing how I thought I knew, but had to do a little huntin' - south Texas, just north of Houston, is not all-et-up with prominent geographic features, so I turned toward a heading to take me to the nearest big one (a lake) which also happened to have the nearest appropriate field for landing and repair, and once I saw the lake, I found the field, and announced on my hand-held radio (glad I had *that*), and all was well.

The VOR function on the hand-held was useless - not nearly enough stability of resolution on the radial readout to navigate by. Maybe would have been better with an external antenna?

I now fly with a 396, and it has a good battery, so that's an improvement, anyway.
 
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