Track Crawling/Feature Crawling is picking features on the ground and relating them to positions on your chart, and flying via them, rather than flying a heading for a certain length of time.
Ah...pilotage. The most basic navigational skill, and a very important one.
Do you remember one B747 being shot down by the Russians for not cross-checking the INS
KAL 007...and that's one version, depending on which you believe, of course.
O.K...not including typing into the FMS which uses INS../..RNS.../..GPS .../ VOR's etc. what do you use to determine your exact position over the ocean?
Exactly what I said I used in my previous post. Three individual INS units, each with their own separate GPS updating systems. A individual GPS unit, stand alone with approach capability. Two FMS units which take input from two INS units, as well as other sensor inputs when available, including two additional GPS units, for starters. However, plotting is still done on a Jeppesen plotting chart using a pencil, plotter and handheld E6B computer to verify what's being seen on navigation computers. The required navigational performance on the oceanic tracks is RNP 10, meaning ten miles either side of the track centerline. However, the actual navigational performance turned out by this equipment in conjunction with an autopilot is .1...a tenth of a mile either side of centerline, at least 95% of the time.
While ample instrumentation exists in the cockpit to provide ETA's, fuel burns, and other information relevant to the flight (such as equal time points, times to alternates or diversionary locations, etc), we still calculate it by hand to make sure what we're seeing on the instrumentation is correct. We're required to do so. Being constantly in the loop this way means there's not a lot of extra work to do in the event of a failure of a long range navigation system...and it has happened. It also provides an accurate navigation log on paper when we're done, which goes into the trip kit and gets retained at the company along with all the other paperwork associated with the flight.
It's one thing to go from A to B for hours and make an occasional glance at a FMS readout and a multi function display with a moving map. It's another to be completely in the loop and aware of your position at all times because you're constantly following along on the map, recaculating your distances and speeds, and ensuring that you're really where the airplane thinks you are.