Teroc,
Flying the arc to +/- 0.1nm is fine if that is all you have to do. But it will mean that you are fixating to the detriment of other things. It is actually more practical to fly straighter legs and let the DME go to say +/- 1nm and use the extra time to maintain your general situational awareness.
For those of you who recommend 10 degrees ahead and behind the abeam, that is fine in nil wind. In real world terms, that may become 5 degrees ahead to 15 degrees behind or whatever, ie a straight segment that covers about 20 degrees of arc biassed into wind to cater for drift. Similarly, your turn radii need to be adjusted for wind as well as the time it takes to achieve a steady state turn.
In all of this, you need to be careful not to "chop wood with a scalpel", ie have some broad rules of thumb and a clear picture of the adjustments necessary to achieve the desired results. For example, turning on to the arc at 250KIAS with 25 kt of tailwind, start at about 2.2 miles and aim to roll out at 100 degrees from your inbound track. At about 45 degrees of turn to go, look at the DME and decide what your actual roll-out heading is going to be.
In many cases you will not be on the arc for very long, so don't let the exercise distract you from anticipating configuration changes and lead-in points. if you are like me, being inside the arc at the lead-in point just means you have even less time to correct your other mistakes.
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Stay Alive,
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[This message has been edited by 4dogs (edited 19 February 2001).]