any airline jets without rnav ?
 

Was talking to a Beech 1900 pilot last night. He said there is no autopilot in their planes, 250 pounds that would take up a pax spot ! ;)

Are there any jets without a.p ?

Are any airline jets flying with just VOR / ADF / DME (no GPS, FMS, IRS ... whatever ?)

Mike

We (A major US airline) fly our B737-200 with only VOR/DME ADF. The -200 will be retired within a few years. Our -300 & -500 have Inertial Reference System (IRS) that updates their position from the VOR's. The -700 have GPS that update the IRS.

We have a few 727's that have just VOR's for nav... The crews hate'em... No asking for direct down the road for short-cuts...

Hell, I don't blame 'em... When I used to be a ride along tech, I just wanted it to be over with as quick as possible... But when they, (the crew) are gettin paid by the hour, I guess they shouldn't complain... Me? I was salary.....

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Don't like it? Don't look at it!

Re Autopilots - Not mandatory!

RNav is mandated around europe in the form of BRnav, Above FL100(UK) and something higher around the rest of europe. Twas funny flying direct Costa in a 737-200 from somewhere near Munich (on a guess heading!), but then we got GPS boxes! Then we got rid of them which was even better!

CCCccc.....ough

No Autopilot seems to very fashionable amongst BE1900 operators, "why bother, we pay two pilots anyway".

The Canadair Jet is available without FMS and I think some have been delivered. Doesn't make sense for Europe anymore.

Our Dash 8s only got FMS in a "last-minute" effort before BRNAV regulations took effect. Our old flight operations manager had the opinion that you could fly any direct in our route network with conventional navigation and "rule of thumb" as well, so why take the cost :-) (We used to carry homemade tables with all the directs required, cross-bearings, etc. and it actually worked quite nicely. Some guys carried handheld GPS but it never really worked because of the shielding in the windshields. Having done this for quite some time I really noticed that you lose some situational awareness when you let the FMS do the job, especially on longer flights.

Before you flame, I DON'T advocate a "return to basics" approach, I probably just remember a time when I was younger :-)