NDB approach aid monitoring

[downwind]

Dear all,

What is the technical reason behind turning on the ADF audio ident when flying the NDB approach?

[galaxy flyer]

There is no OFF flag on an RMI or fixed card ADF, so you can only tell if the station goes off the air by listening to the ident.

GF

[DC-ATE]

Just be glad there aren't any more Range Approaches any more. [At least I don't know of any.] Then you not only had the station ident but the constant 'A' or 'N' or on course SOLID tone ALL the time! I think that's when I started losing my hearing! But I guess I'm dating myself now.

[hoover1]

you also listen to the ident to make sure it is the right station. just like yo do for the vor as well, right?

[Loose rivets]

It was not just the ident that was significant, the 'appropriate pilot' :} would also monitor the quality of the received transmission. A lot could be gleaned from the difference between a crisp signal and a mushy one.

Kids of today! Don't know they're born. We dreamed of NDBs while we were doing VDF approaches.

EDIT to say, it's strange thinking back, just how comforting that repetitive Morse was while descending for several crucial minutes into inky blackness. A sort of connection with home.

[BelArgUSA]

Correct - identify the station - NDB, VOR or ILS is most important.
The ADF is monitored throughout an NDB approach for reasons stated above.
VOR/ILS/DME requires initial identification, thereafter, no need to monitor.
If they fail, a flag will appear.
xxx
One thing is - I used to train pilots to this procedure.
PF to PNF command should be i.e. "tune and identify the 24L ILS" -
That should be the wording during your approach briefing.
Your mistake as PF might be "set 113.1" and... the proper frequency might be 111.3.
A notorious "killer" in everyday operations and a bust... for a check flight.
xxx
:8
Happy contrails

[Light Westerly]

Luxury!

I remember having to follow bonfires at night across the plains. Radio navigational aids, bah!
Remind me to tell you about the times I had to spin through the clouds at night to regain ground reference as our mail planes lacked instrumentation.

Just kidding. Loose Rivets, that was beautiful and poetic. I can hear it now.

[Loose rivets]

I was pals with a Col. Carl Crane in the 70s.

Handbook of Texas Online - CRANE, CARL JOSEPH (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fcr56.html)

He'd once tumbled out of the clouds with a Senator's son in the rear seat of his bi-plane, getting upright only when he saw a factory chimney he recognized.

From that time on he promoted instrument flying in one form or another...ending up giving lectures at the Randolph AFB advanced instrument flying school in SanAntonio Tx. Towards the end, it was mostly reminiscing of course.

He hooded pigeons to see what they would do when thrown out of aircraft, and did blind landings with a noise horn and a stethoscope to find the ground. The fact is, he did it time and time again, but the field had to be open grass, as there was no means of aligning with a runway.

I spent some time flying a piece of prototype kit that was one of his patents. It was barometric, but referenced itself at the middle marker. Endless blind landings without a hitch.

He flew until he was 79, when he suffered a stroke.

[Denti]

And nowadays (for the last 20 to 30 years) the avionics identify the station automaticly and display it on a screen. No need to listen to it anymore (and yes, you miss the distinction between crips and mushy). And modern avionics fly the approach without direct reference to the NDB which is just used for monitoring what that piece of automatics is doing.

[avicon]

I have always wondered why they have to use morse codes when a voice identifier saying the name of the station would have been far less ambiguous, more efficient and less distracting for the pilot.

Just like the beepback facility in some of those CTAFS in Australia.

[BelArgUSA]

Morse code ident instead of voice can be accomplished by CW signal.
Voice ident receivers requires, say AM modulation, which might be failed.
I remember ADF units with a selector having CW for reception.
xxx
:8
Happy contrails (with a lot of "static"...!)

[Denti]

I allways wondered about the lack of voice identifiers myself, for all navaids we use often. Kinda like how they use it in frankfurt on the ILSs.

[hawker750]

BELARG
I agree 100% with your point. I bet the families of the G3 going to pick Bush Snr wished the very experienced crews had idented the ILS as they might have noticed the VOR was still tuned. They probably would not have crashed a few miles short of the runway.
On check rides I ask the crew what morse letters they have "just identified" for the approach. 80% of the time they have not got a clue, it is just a jumble of dots and dashes and they think that constitutes identifying the aid. Difficult to fail a guy who has flown beautifully but I sure as hell give them a b......ing at the de-brief.
It would help if authorities made the VOR and ILS idents on the field TOTALLY different. Not "ABC" for the VOR and "IABC" for the ILS!!

[Checkboard]

Voice modulation isn't used, because of the bandwidth requirement. Voice range frequencies for radio purposes start at 20 hertz and extend to 2500 hertz. The, so called, high fidelity range extends to 20,000 hertz but most of the important voice energy required for communications is contained in the region under 3000 hertz. Transmitting voice over the carrier therefore requires a higher bandwidth than CW transmission, and as the frequency range allocated for ADFs is limited, transmitting voice would limit the number of ADFs within any given area.

[mr. small fry]

Is it still a requirement to learn, and be tested on morse as I was?

For the more youthful Ppruners I dare to say that it is hardly necessary nowadays - Jepps have the morse idents printed alonside the station, or otherwise our new fangled TV screens display the idents ( VOR and ILS) automatically - and even tune the damn things in for us without prompting!

I'm just grateful that my hearing is holding up quite well, as reading Jepps or watching TV screens prevents me with more difficuty than remembering the morse I learnt in 19XX.

Absolute necessity though when flying any approach that takes one below MSA. Once reluctantly had to fail a check ride when poor guy flew perfect approach while listening to TST. Neither did he read the NOTAMS which would have told him not to use the facility.

[boofhead]

Back when the NDB approach was more common, I would have pilots in the sim identify the aid, and many would leave the ident on through the approach, in order to detect a failure. Every time I would "fail" the NDB, none of them picked it up. Losing an ident is a passive method of indicating a failure, and even in those days it needed an active indication (failure flag, light, buzzer etc) to alert a person to a failure. So it is a good idea, but in practice I found it to be useless.

[BelArgUSA]

boofhead -
xxx
Listen to the ident was a long learned practice by flight engineers.
Their ears are better than our pilot's ears. Their imporant duty is beep beep...!
And it tells you how superior a crew of three is.
Had the luck to fly my entire career with such a crowd in the cockpit.
It takes one to be PF and the other two for playing cards.
xxx
:}
Happy contrails

[Loose rivets]

Every time I would "fail" the NDB, none of them picked it up. Losing an ident is a passive method of indicating a failure,

I never put that in my boy's book of nasty things to do to pilots. It's a goodun. Failed the NDB but not just the ident.

Used to disable the ILS and see if they could pull something out of the bag. Mostly okay till 15 years ago, now I'm not so sure that young chaps can improvise all that well. they're just a bright, but fearful of not following SOPs, so don't act instinctively.

Once, my call to "Just check the GPS against the *** VOR/DME" (The 'Scottish' radar mask was not tallying with our kit.)

Loooooooongest dumb silence - with eyes focused nowhere relevant. Then, "I suppose I'll have to get one of those protractery things." Oh, My! :ugh:



Off topic, but I once cut the power to the autopilot on a twin turbo-prop when the young F/O was PF. No pax I hasten to add. Sat back and waited...and waited. The darn aircraft flew for TWENTY MINUETS before the PF tried to make a course correction and found out. I gave him full marks for trimming.

[BOAC]

And nowadays (for the last 20 to 30 years) the avionics identify the station automaticly and display it on a screen. - yes, a brilliant piece of kit but not foolproof and potentially dangerous. I have several times sat passive (with my NDB morse identified) while the automaton sat with no screen beacon ident (just frequency) on the selected NDB until asked what exactly was being displayed.:ugh:

Thank the Lord for GPS/INS.......'Old fashioned' Airmanship - nah - the systems look after that................don't need it any more.

[Denti]

Isn't it procedure in your outfit to identify the old fashioned way if the automatics (for whatever reason) do not? Might be that im just still used to it as it was standard to allways identify even on LNAV approaches in our old 737 classics. Mind you, im just a young FO (not even 9 years on a jet) but that was still standard training for us.

On the NG however GPS/LNAV/IAN is primary means of navigation for non precision approaches and it is hardly possible to identify that correctly, still love to know that my old fashioned backup NDB/VOR is identified just in case.

[Tmbstory]

In days gone by we had to learn morse code and pass at a standard of 10 WPM. Most of us learnt by a 78 RPM record from Nancy Bird Walton and then the official DCA test.

A good hard exam which equipped us well to decipher the dots and dashes.

Now it is no longer required, in my opinon, a pity.

Tmb

[Old Smokey]

You're lucky that you did not have to learn to transmit it as well Tmbstory. Now I'm showing my age:bored:

Regards,

--- .-.. -.. ... -- --- -.- . -.--

[BOAC]

Isn't it procedure - of course, but you have to overcome the growing tendency to 'assume' that the wonder machine will do it all for you and NOTICE it is not dipslayed correctly in the first place! Mind you, having been taken through the localiser a couple of times 'cos twitface has not bothered to I/D the ILS and thus not noticed he is still in 'AUTO'.....................

[Denti]

Ah yes, "assuming" is something that can bite you very hard in unpleasant places.

[411A]

Mind you, having been taken through the localiser a couple of times 'cos twitface has not bothered to I/D the ILS and thus not noticed he is still in 'AUTO'.....................

It gets worse, at times.
Occasionally, twitface will dial in the parallel runway ILS frequency, whilst still in AUTO, and not bother to even try to ID...had a young guy try this while under annual line check.
The check Captain just about had a fit, read him the riot act, then sent him back to the 737 (from the tri-motor) for more 'seasoning', and docked him a months pay in the process.:}

[hawker750]

411a
Those were the days ey? Couldn't do it now, it would be against his civil rights to not allowed him to be incompetent

[Big Pistons Forever]

Loose Rivets wrote

"Used to disable the ILS and see if they could pull something out of the bag. Mostly okay till 15 years ago, now I'm not so sure that young chaps can improvise all that well. they're just a bright, but fearful of not following SOPs, so don't act instinctively"

Personaly I don't expect the guys I fly with to "pull something out of the bag".
I think the accident record has many examples of crashes caused by pilots "acting instinctively" in abnormal situations instead of moving the aircraft to a safe place/configuration and then methodically managing the problem.

In 25 years of flying I have only had the ILS fail once. I immediately commenced a missed approach and after making sure that the failure was not a symptom of a bigger electrical/avionics issue, asked for and then rebriefed for the LOC approach.

[stue]

As interesting as this is hearing how it once was done, and I’m not being sarcastic, it genuinely is interesting to know how it was done in times before I was even born! But this thing about not identing the App aid, be it an ILS, VOR or NDB isn’t just a twitface F/O issue. Iv flown with many Captains who don’t ident the app aid because its “in the box” or “the line is there, we are flying it in LNAV, why would you ask such a stupid question?” That’s what I get told when I question it anyway.

Sorry, slight thread drift I know………

[DC-ATE]

stue -

You just keep on questioning the Captain.....IF.....you think something is wrong. A good Captain will not take offense. I always told any new crew member (I had a three-man crew) to ask, question ANYTHING they wanted.

[c100driver]

The point is moot anyway with the speed at which the NDB is being removed from service. Almost 50% of the NDB that were operational in 2000 in New Zealand are now withdrawn, with another 4 to be decomissioned this year.

The only time I have to fly an NDB approach in the last 10 years that I can remember has been to tick a box for the regulator in a simulator.

In a PBN world its time is over!:ok:

[Loose rivets]

Personaly I don't expect the guys I fly with to "pull something out of the bag".
I think the accident record has many examples of crashes caused by pilots "acting instinctively" in abnormal situations instead of .


Well, maybe...but when you said: "moving the aircraft to a safe place/configuration and then methodically managing the problem" would be a good example of an instinctive deployment of resources and skills. What I fear is a mind-set that needs to resort to a rule book in moments of crisis.


To keep on thread, and also combine two arguments into one comment, let's give an example.


The point is moot anyway with the speed at which the NDB is being removed from service.

It'll be a while before they are just a memory, but I know what you mean. That trusty old beacon - like a fire in a clifftop Trinity House iron basket - has served us well for...strewth! more than half a century.

Taking off with an aircraft laden to the gunwales with fuel, passengers and every last bit of freight that the bean-counters can thrust upon us, is fairly straightforward - until we're flying on one engine, or perhaps, covered in ice. On board are the same passengers that expect us to pull 'something out of the bag' if something goes wrong. With hills either side, I would personally like to have a breadcrumb trail of beacons to guide me until I make safe altitude, now that the GPS track-log has become nothing more than a wish-list. That would be a good example of the use of small local beacons. After all, they're cheap, and in the absence of T-storms, pretty reliable. I don't think we should be in a rush to wave them goodbye.

Where I do see frightening departures from logical recovery from emergencies, is when a head, or even heads, go down into the office to instruct a piece of electronics to do the job the crew should 'instinctively' be able to do. At the end of the day, it all comes back to Davis' strongly worded pleas in his later edition of Handling the Big Jets. Also, I earned my living from electronics for years and have a love of modern systems, but it's when the basic flying is submerged in rules, that I get motivated to protest these points.

[Tmbstory]

Old Smokey:

I certainly was lucky not to have been required to transmit morse, a credit to you, when I think back I still recall -.-. -.-- (CY). Was that a sign off that was used in those days.

Regards

Tmb

[BelArgUSA]

Morse code...
xxx
Well yes, as a teenager, I had to learn it to get my "ham" radio licence.
Obviously no longer required today for aviation licences.
However, would urge pilots to learn to decode 3 or 4 letter identification.
No "speed" required... just to be able to identify.
xxx
Pilots learn so many "worthless" things... such as -
Who cares you know that LV is Argentina registry, and memorize 50 others.
And know 200 airport 3 letter/4 letter codes. I only knew a handful.
Morse code is not worthless.
xxx
:ok:
Happy contrails

[Capt Pit Bull]

Your mistake as PF might be "set 113.1" and... the proper frequency might be 111.3.
A notorious "killer" in everyday operations and a bust... for a check flight.

No top of that, even if you've set it correctly doesn't mean its tuned. I've had a control head go 'do lally' on me and indicate the newly selected ILS freq whilst remaining tuned to the previous VOR freq. IIRC the efis was hapily announcing it was in ILS mode and the glide had tuned correctly and was indicating but it is a few years back now, so I might be wrong.

Could have been interesting for those that don't check their idents as the VOR was mile or so off the centreline.

pb