Realistic sim for student navex practice

[ariel]

Hi all

I have a student who is a few lessons into the navigation part of the syllabus. However, due to weather recently, and his other commitments, we appear to have arrived at a (I hope), temporary halt.

He has been asking if there is any way for him to practice 'at home' in the interim, using a flight similator, & if so which one/what to use.

Although I've played with sims a bit, I wouldn't know what to suggest for this purpose. Has anybody got any experience with using sims to practice nav, (which won't break the bank), and if so, what software and hardware to use for a realistic navex?

It has to be something for home use.

Thanks

[RedBullGaveMeWings]

Well, the one that has a realistic flight model, physics and aerodynamic is X-Plane, hands down! Instrument procedures can be simulated. X-Plane is also certified by the FAA.
If he wants to just practice the instrument part, he can give a look at Rant XL 4, which is not a full simulator, but the standard in the industry to simulate radio aids navigation.

[ariel]

Thanks for reply Redbull sorry, I should have said that it's strictly for VFR only, not instruments

[Big Pistons Forever]

Not worth it IMO. The best Nav "practice" IMO is planning. Give him/her a bunch of routes and have them prepare the PLOG's. Then give them a couple of random positions and have them work through the diversion procedure.

[Armchairflyer]

YMMV, but the good old MSFS and a scenery pack certainly have increased my confidence and proficiency in VFR navigation. There are apparently several scenery packs for the UK, too, e.g. VFR Photographic Scenery Volume 1 Southern England & South Wales for FSX - Playsims Publishing (http://www.playsimspublishing.com/titles/v1fsx.html) .

[localflighteast]

A little confidence boosting trick my hubby used for me was to load up a YouTube video of the flight between the airports ( it's a fairly standard xc route in this neck of the woods)

He'd pause the video at a random point , shove the chart in front of me and ask me to figure out where the plane was

I'm still waiting out the ice storm here to do my xc but using a combo of YouTube and google earth is helping to keep up my familiarity with the route

[RedBullGaveMeWings]

If he wants to 'play' X-Plane 10 is still the best option also for sceneries. Haven't played a sim for a long time, but if I am not mistaken enthusiasts prefer X-Plane for VFR flights.

[BEagle]

'Learning the route' is pointless; flight simulator programs are simply nice toys and of no real value for visual navigation training.

Draw some routes on a map, then calculate heading and time.

Using a normal timepiece, start a leg at a specific time having previously noted elapsed time at visual fix points. You don't need many; if you have too many you will tend to track crawl rather than fly accurately using pre-calculated heading and time for navigation.

Complete your 'post-HAAT' check.

Work out the ETA for the first fix. Then imagine you pass abeam a little off track and not quite at the planned time (or get someone else to say e.g "OK - it's 09:10 and you find yourself here."). Practise mentally working out the corrections you will need to your heading and update the ETA at the next turning point.

When you've completed the correction (hopefully these days back to your pre-planned track rather than direct to the turning point..), allow time to have completed a 'FREDAL' check at a low activity point.

Give yourself another fix/time/position correction problem.

Practise the necessary radio calls and research with whom you should communicate. Only use the radio for a specific purpose (e.g. a MATZ crossing or clearance to enter a Class D CTR), not just because you can!

When you're confident with amending headings and ETAs, move on to practising visual diversions using MDR.

You don't need a computer and flight simulator game; just an old map, pencil and paper and a clock. Plan using either an electronic calculator, old-style whizz-wheel or flight planning software, then mentally cross-check your plan for gross errors using MDR.

Navigation cannot be difficult if navigators can do it! As well as planning accurately and flying accurately, the most important thing is probably organisation so that you have a mental plan of what you should be doing at any time. But aim to use the minimum time looking at the map / ground and the maximum time lOOking out for other traffic.

[Whopity]

Agree with Beagle 100%. There is not a simulator in existance that can do this job. Learn the method, practice it then put it into practice in an aeroplane.

[dubbleyew eight]

I agree with beagle.

what I can't understand is what the current crop of newbie students actually think a cross country navigation exercise is actually all about.

[localflighteast]

well speaking as a member of "the current crop of newbie students"

I think that the aim of the XC exercise is to get yourself and the plane from A to B to C safely

Believe it or not this exercise can cause some of us a high level of anxiety and ANYTHING that help banish that anxiety and instill some confidence is a worthwhile exercise.

I know some of you experts may find this difficult to believe but some of us actually have issues map reading and find relating what is visually in front of us in terms of what is printed on the chart problematic.

So I'm going to disagree, there are skills that can be learned on the ground, using the methods I've mentioned above. You can train yourself to see exactly what that size highway looks like from the air, the fact that those powerlines can be Id from the gaps cut in the trees even if you can't see the lines themselves.

I envy those of you who think that nav is easy.

[flarepilot]

he should read books on flying

he (or she) can acknowledge bad wx and circumstance means you can't fly...that is a good lesson in and of itself


looking at a paper chart and knowing what everything means, after studying the legend is very important.

[Whopity]

some of us actually have issues map reading There lies the problem, there is far too much map reading and very little navigation. The art of Navigation is to get from A to B by flying a series of headings; the map is merely there to verify that you are where you think you are, and to give you a pictorial presentation of those places where you should not be.

[dubbleyew eight]

well if you break down the cross country nav tasks into their components there are just two.
one you do on the ground and one you do in the air.

STOP being anxious about the flying part!!!

ok the ground part.

in australia you are asked an exam question like...
you are flying from airport A to B then to C then to D then back to A.
the wind is blah knots from blah direction. how much will fuel will the aircraft use if it consumes blah litres per hour.

to solve the question you need to do a flight plan. find A, B, C, and D on the maps. plot out the tracks between each. work out the distances and the bearings to be flown. bearings are measured from the centre of the track line and take into account the magnetic variation described on the map legend.
use your whiz wheel ( the E6B it is a wonderful piece of history) to work out the track adjustments for wind and the effect on your time in the air for each leg. (the exam usually assumes that you have enough fuel on board to answer the question. in real life you need to work out when to refuel if necessary)
so now you know how long each leg will take to fly.
add the times together and divide by the fuel consumption to get the amount of fuel needed.
that isnt hard and when you are proficient you should be able to front up for the flight all prepared, have the instructor change the route and recalculate the entire thing in probably no more than 5 minutes.

to get to that point in your undestanding you do not need a sim. as beagle says just the maps, a weather report pencil and paper and the E6B.

now it is evident to me that you guys are approaching the cross country flights with totally the wrong attitude.
you are not being examined on any of the flights except the final licence test flight.
you will know that the final flight is your test because that is what you are preparing for.
each of your cross country flights is to give you guided experience in the air so you can pick up the skills AS YOU FLY THE EXERCISE.
Map reading is a learned skill that comes from actual flying experience. You are not expected to actually know how to do any of it when you start training.
guess what that is why your bloody instructor is there flying with you.

when you come to the time for your licence test you will be at a stage where you are safe. you will not become an accomplished pilot until you have chalked up a lot more flying.

has the penny dropped yet?

when you arent flying practise your pre flight planning calcs.

now here is a tip to help you. go and photocopy the map scale on the map.
cut it out and tape it along the side of each of the pencils you have in your flight kit.
that way when you need to estimate a distance while you are flying you just poke the pencil between your position and the target and read off the distance. it saves a lot of fumble time and makes the flying easier.

half your problem is that you are approaching the flying all wrong.
you think every flight is an exam and it isn't.

btw whopity's point is quite a valid one.

[alcockell]

This is where joining VATSIM may help the OP.

[dubbleyew eight]

you cannot simulate the learning.
you can only use a sim to practise something that has already been learnt.

I have a friend who is a pilot entranced by microsoft flight sim. 'I haven't flown more than five hours in the last year but I have flown over a thousand hours in the sim' was a claim he made once.
well what is quite observable is that he has gradually lost his flying skills to the point that he is quite dangerous to fly with. subtly over time his flying memory has been replaced with a sim handling memory.
in a cherokee 140 one day he needed to do a crosswind landing and made the entire approach without touching the rudders. even in the flare and touchdown his passenger said he never used rudder. the effect was that he nearly lost the aircraft off the end of the runway in what should have been an easy landing.
his flight sim didn't have rudder pedals.

you can pretend all you like that you can learn flying in a sim but encounter some real adverse weather, some real challenges and you'll be stuffed.
you need to learn it in the real environment.

it isnt hard. it is actually very satisfying fun.

[dubbleyew eight]

do you students who are so afraid of getting lost realise that on one of your cross country exercises your instructor will actually mercilessly work to get you lost? as lost as he can possibly get you.

you see there is a definite technique for getting yourself unlost.
you will only be fully receptive to learning it though if you are first actually lost. one of those things that once taught in the right environment is never forgotten.

it is one of the lessons that your flying instructor needs to try to teach you before your final exam. :E

[BEagle]

The art of Navigation is to get from A to B by flying a series of headings; the map is merely there to verify that you are where you think you are, and to give you a pictorial presentation of those places where you should not be.

Absolutely so!

Back in flying training days on the Jet Provost, one student wouldn't stop trying to read his map all the time. So his instructor gave him a map for the next navex which had a blank sheet of paper stuck over hthe route, with holes cut out of it so that only the topography within a 4 mile radius of fix points and turning points could be seen. "That'll stop you map reading!", the instructor told him, "Fly your heading and time until you're within a minute of the fix and you'll see it works!".

And lo! - it did.

[Armchairflyer]

subtly over time his flying memory has been replaced with a sim handling memory.Agreed that practising airplane handling with a PC sim (as much fun as simming is) is nowhere near a substitute for the real thing, even if you have a good joystick/yoke and rudder pedals. And any differences in "realism" between MSFS (with good add-on aircraft) and X-Plane (or Rise of Flight for WWI airplanes :8) are IMHO completely irrelevant.

But for practising dead reckoning, flying headings, identifying landmarks (provided you have a realistic scenery) and getting to know how the landscape in your neck of the woods roughly looks from above, I maintain that besides being fun and a cheap alternative to the real thing, PC flight sims (ideally combined with a watch, a map and nav preparation as if going for a real flight) have their value.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I disagree with earlier postings that minimize the importance of map reading. Today's reality is that any sensible pilot uses GPS as the primary nav aid.

However I think that makes pure map orientation skills even more important. After I teach the student how to pass the flight test nav ex I teach them how to navigate in the real world.

That involves how to sensibly use of a GPS and what I want to see is a folded map on their knee and the ability to point out where they are on it. The map now becomes the TLAR (That Looks About Right) check sum that guards against going in the wrong direction due to a data entry error, the way to keep big picture situational awareness and the fail safe in the event of a GPS failure.

[Whopity]

postings that minimize the importance of map readingNothing to do with minimising, its alll to do with prioritising. Map reading is an essential skill but not to the exclusion of the other essential skills. Quite often a student who can fly a route drawn on a sheet of white paper has trouble to fly the same route with a map in their hand because they throw everything out of the window and stare at the map.

[Ty-Fry-Typhoon]

When I did my PPL I used Microsoft FS2004 to see my calculations on the whizz wheel or max drift worked, I could never get the hang of flying the planes in the game so just used the auto pilot. I used airfields as navigation points as they seemed to show up in the right time & place… if I worked it out correctly!




Other than that the only other time I used it was practice for my IR renewal, (again using the auto pilot) drawback though is that it doesn’t reproduce the dip error which I believe RANT does.

[fireflybob]

Using a normal timepiece

Beagle, am so pleased you said this. I see more and more instructors/students using stopwatches for visual nav (including one recently who used his mobile phone stopwatch, in airplane mode, - try flying and resetting same with one hand and then where do you put it?!").

A simple analogue timepiece is all that is required and makes additions for eta much easier to calculate.

The same people that use stopwatches when passing "eta" to ATC say "estimating XXX in Y minutes" which is incorrect and sounds unprofessional.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The same people that use stopwatches when passing "eta" to ATC say "estimating XXX in Y minutes" which is incorrect and sounds unprofessional.

I haven't passed an ETA to enroute ATC in many years as they will almost always have you on Radar so they know where you are and when you are going to get to the next point.

However when I am talking to an airport advisory service or tower I always give my time to an airport as "Y" minutes, never the time. An estimate in minutes of time rather than an hour/minute report is much more useful to ATC and other aircraft on the frequency than the time of my ETA.

[BEagle]

Well, I always passed position reports in the standard manner - whether to en-route IFR controllers, Little Piddle-on-the-Gusset aerodrome or anyone else....

Which included ETAs.

An estimate in minutes of time rather than an hour/minute report is much more useful to ATC and other aircraft on the frequency than the time of my ETA.

How on earth can that be true? I hope you don't teach your students such non-standard nonsense.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The purpose of the radio is to communicate useful information in the clearest and most useful way possible.

"ABC over head XXX airport in Y minutes" ; is clear and concise and doesn't require any further processing by anyone hearing it.

However I realize that answer won't satisfy the UK radio pedants but I don't care. It is the way things are done in North America, home to 50 % of the worlds GA aircraft and with the lowest accident rate per GA 100,000 hrs of any jurisdiction.

[BEagle]

Whilst that nonsense might be good enough for people on the ground at XXX airport, every other pilot is immediately going to think "OK, so that's 6 min from now, which means 16:26".

Or, at 16:23 are they supposed to remember that the original call said 6 min, but when was that call made?

I do hope you teach your students to pass position reports in the correct manner, whether or not that's 'pedantic' to the world's sloppiest RT users....:rolleyes:

[Whopity]

I always give my time to an airport as "Y" minutes, never the time.Well, you are wrong!
ICAO Doc 94322.5 TRANSMISSION OF TIME
2.5.1 When transmitting time, only the minutes of the hour are normally required. However, the hour should
be included if there is any possibility of confusion. Nowhere is there a case for ET Elapsed Time.
Listen to the RT in this Accident (http://www.aopa.org/AOPA-Live.aspx?watch={384817B3-70C4-4147-9C4C-2A5517FD5DEE}), its worse than the Flintstones!

Examiners are required to check that a candidate can accurately pass the time (ETA not ET) to ATC.

[Heston]

Since when did North America pay any attention to ICAO? No point quoting ICAO rules to them, they are just for the rest of the world

[Parson]

I would agree with BPF.

Flight sims don't really prepare you for actual diversions in a GA aircraft, single pilot while having to fly S&L, speak to ATC, keep a good lookout and maintain situational awareness.

I would take a map and put some routes on then pick random diversions. Work out required tracks, distances and estimates. Being able to estimate angles and distances reasonably accurately using just your eye and thumb (mine is 9nm) can greatly reduce the stress in the cockpit.