So how do you do it
 

Holes in the chart. or folding fun
Blow the origami its the room and free hands I want :suspect:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...ght=fold+chart
Here is a way I have used in cars
How to slit and fold a map for special use (ArmyStudyGuide.com)

I rarely need a chart unless I forget a particular item. I plan fairly extensively as a means of memorising the detail that is pertinent to my task with useful things like frequencies times etc. jotted on my knee pad. The map with lots of nice lines carefully plotted is usually folded so that the whole of the track can be viewed without re folding and in such a way that I can use only one hand to review. About A4 size suits me. If necessary I use more than one map of the same type to achieve this on longer trudges. I keep my map [s] handy in case needed.

Best Wishes

Copied this down years ago:


The procedure I am about to describe will result in a map book about the size of a Sports Illustrated magazine.

First thing: Make sure you have an equal number of maps to fold. If you do not, get some heavy stock paper the same size of the map sheets to round out the pile of maps. Trim the maps of any excess paper you do not need, but be sure to trim them all to the same size and leave a little extra area in the margins for slop and grid markings

Second: Lay the first map out with North at the top and the printed side up. Bring the East and West edges together so that you have a crease running North/South. Unfold the map and turn it over so the printed side is facing down and North is pointing up. Bring the North and South edges together so that you have an East/West crease and you are looking at the South edge of the map sheet with the printed side upside down. Pull the South edge to the center crease, creating another East/West crease. Do the same with the North edge. When you are done, turn the map over with North at the top and the printed side up. You should see 3 East/West creases and one North/South crease. Repeat this procedure for each map sheet.

Third: Place glue (gluesticks work REALLY well for this) on the back side of each map sheet so that the back sides of the middle panels (North and South of the middle East/West) crease are stuck together. Repeat for each map sheet.

Fourth: Arrange your folded and glued mapsheets so that all of the maps that are North and South of each other are lined up that way. Place glue on the bottom panel of the Northern-most map and the top panel of the next map to the South. Continue this process until you have completed each string of North/South Mapsheets.

Fifth: Take each string and find the middle point where you have a relatively equal number of panels North and South of the East/West crease. Fold each string along the North/South crease. Starting from the Western-most string, place glue so that the right side gets glued to the left side of the next string to the East. When you are finished, pace the whole assembly on a flat surface and put a heavy flat object on top. Let it dry for a few hours.

Sixth: Once the whole thing is dry and any touch-up glueing and trimming is complete, you will probably want to put on a cover. The first thing I have always done is to take some duct tape and create a spine North and South. You don't want to compress the maps too much when you do this or the whole thing will try to stay open after you put the tape on. If every thing dried OK under the heavy flat object, the maps should be at a good thickness to put the tape on.

Next take some relatively flexible and sturdy material, such as posterboard, and cut out two pieces slightly larger than the maps. The idea is to have a slight edge that protects the map. Glue them on. If you saved any thing from the trimmings, such as legends or scales, you can glue these on the outside. Cover the outside with some plastic and you should be good to go!

There is a way to make an even tighter and smaller fold, but you end up with something that is about the same size and shape of a FAR/AIM book. I have never done it. Pictures are worth a thousand words, but I don't have any. I recommend you practice with a few pieces of paper before you start trying this technique on your maps.

Chart? Chart? I don't need no steenking charts!!!

knee pads and maps
 

You mention the use of a knee pad

I find they get in the way - I use an Avery label style A5 label stuck on my trouser leg and it will never jam or interfere with the cyclic.
Just remember to take it off after as I seem to get strange looks - mind you this is probably just me !

With the map I print off memory map and staple them in a pile and flick through them in order - easier than trying to refold in flight.


Richard

Used to use a kneeboard when i started flying helicopters - back when wiping the sweat off my nose was a major challenge. Went through the usual student pilot fads, such as folding the chart as tight as possible so that departure and destination are opposite corners etc... then I got my first commercial job - the kneeboard lasted less than a week.
If I need to look at the chart - i'm ashamed to say I steer with my knees, remove chart from pocket, fold it out and read it like pages of a book.

I had a fight with my PPL insitructor many years ago. He insisted I should read the map "track up", I insisted I would read it "north up"!

I never gave in and continue to do it to this day. Even the moving map display is set to "north up" and I have to change it back whenever my relief pilot has been in the machine.

The "north up" habit comes from my pre-flying days when I used to sit as a navigator in night-time road rallies, where direction changed every couple of hundred yards. Turning the map to face the direction of travel was out of the question in such an environment and was generally frowned upon as the mark of a less skilful navigator in the circumstances.

Possibly getting a little off-thread but still map-use related.

I also need the North up on my maps I simply can not cope with track up.

Does it really matter how you fiddle with the maps....but waiting till you are engaged in a verbal jousting match with your conscience about where it thinks you aren't....can make for an interesting few minutes particularly when flying up wind and low on fuel with the weather clamping....and a keying error stuck into the GPS....which you managed to overlook whilst daydreamng about having a positive balance in your bank account one day.:ooh:

Interesting point on whether to use north up or track up. Having tried both, long ago I settled on north up for charts and moving maps. So much better for general orientation and particularly those instant position estimates for RT - 7 miles NE of X is much more obvious on a north up moving map. Becomes even more important in IMC.

Kneeboard - well that was a slip of the finger you might say. I actually use the 'knee pad' that is sewn to my flight suit. There is no question or incidence of cyclic fouling.

I have always orientated the map - if used - in the direction I travel irrespective of where North might be. Simply because I was taught a long time ago that doing so meant one less mental juggling act to perform.

SASless - a very good point you make and which is why I plan the way I do so that hopefully my memorised plan is sufficient when things start to look as if they are going pear shaped.

Best Wishes

Since all those maps are simply wrong you may want to know a few tricks to fold them and make origami helicopters and stuff for your passengers while trying to figure out where you are. :cool:

If I got in an aircraft as a passenger and saw the pilot spining the chart around so that his/her track was face up - i'd be quite worried!
If someone needs to actually spin a chart around and orientate it in order to read it - can they really read a map at all? Teaching kids to read a map on dartmoor and doing it that way is one thing - but lacking the mental wherewithall to imagine yourself "as a little plane on the map" and yet be able to fly a complicated machine is surprising.
And what does that do for situational awareness?
Also, do you have to unclip your chart and turn it every time you make a turn?!

rudestuff,

That's got to be one of the daftest things that I've recently read on PPRuNe... :oh:

I was taught the first fold should go n/s through you home airfield as you rarely fly due north or south from the field (but I'm sure somebody on here does :rolleyes:)

If the chart doesn't quite line up at the edges trim them off. . :8

You're probably right - I wasn't sure if 'wherewithall' was actually all one word.

I wasn't talking about one word. I was talking about the whole lot (and the sentiment behind it.) :ugh:

North at top /South at bottom, as taught to me when I was at school, must work cos I found my way home, besides I could not read place names upside down!

Peter R=B
Vfr

I am glad SAS said daydreaming about Positive bank balance, how would a helicopter pilot in real life have a + balance,:E
The ways people find their way about never ceases to amaze me, north up is the way I use them, orientating the map also works, but fiddling with maps is another thing to think about.
I also make list of freq, times, major landmarks as a quick aid to memory.

Its only three words, hardly a lot. How about 'where-with-all'?
I didn't know people were so fussy about grammar.