ADF and GPS equip %

In article ,
Jose wrote:

It does suprise me how readily U.S. owners appear to chuck out the old
equipment given that doing so does restrict the choice of alternates
in many cases.

Weight and panel space.

In a plane used for training, there's a much more serious reason to tear
out the ADF. If you go for an instrument rating checkride in a plane that
has an ADF in it, the examiner can (and probably will) ask to see an NDB
approach flown. Maybe even partial panel. Which means you need to train
students to fly partial panel NDB approaches (and holds). What a frigging
waste of time and money.

Which means you need to train
students to fly partial panel NDB approaches (and holds). What a frigging
waste of time and money.

I disagree, although NDB approaches are rarer, learning and doing them
requires (and creates) a better sense of positial awareness, and thus a
better IFR pilot.

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message m...
Which means you need to train
students to fly partial panel NDB approaches (and holds). What a frigging
waste of time and money.

I disagree, although NDB approaches are rarer, learning and doing them
requires (and creates) a better sense of positial awareness, and thus a
better IFR pilot.

Jose
--

An RMI presentation, with the ADF pointer on an HSI, not only provides
the positional awareness Jose praises, but it also vaporizes much of
Roy's concern about difficulties in teaching NDB approaches.
The examiner can't demand an NDB approach without the HSI,
and the RMI presentation makes NDB approaches very intuitive.
HSIs are extremely nice instruments, either stand-alone or in PFDs.

On 04/01/06 07:09, Roy Smith wrote:
In article ,
Jose wrote:

It does suprise me how readily U.S. owners appear to chuck out the old
equipment given that doing so does restrict the choice of alternates
in many cases.

Weight and panel space.

In a plane used for training, there's a much more serious reason to tear
out the ADF. If you go for an instrument rating checkride in a plane that
has an ADF in it, the examiner can (and probably will) ask to see an NDB
approach flown. Maybe even partial panel. Which means you need to train
students to fly partial panel NDB approaches (and holds). What a frigging
waste of time and money.

In my experience, each different approach to doing something (like
a hold or an SIAP) provide a firmer foundation for learning how to deal
with difference situations.

I'm very happy that my training included ADF work and NDB approaches.

But ... that's just my opinion ;-)

--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

In a plane used for training, there's a much more serious reason to tear
out the ADF. If you go for an instrument rating checkride in a plane
that
has an ADF in it, the examiner can (and probably will) ask to see an
NDB
approach flown. Maybe even partial panel. Which means you need to
train
students to fly partial panel NDB approaches (and holds). What a
frigging
waste of time and money.

IME, a proficient IFR pilot (even a student) can learn the NDB approach
and hold in an hour or two, max. Partial panel might take another hour
or two (or not) but my experience is that examiners rarely ask for a
P/P NDB approach these days without allowing the use of a VFR GPS for
situational awareness (which is, after all, the norm in today's
cockpit).

There are many reasons that instructors don't see this happens, and IMO
they are not good ones.

There are the students who really don't get the subtle differences
between heading, bearing, course, and track. They haven't really got
the situational awareness thing all down. IMO they're dangerous - not
just when the magic box fails, but in general. They probably represent
most of the private-IFR population, but the private-IFR population has
a pretty crappy record when it comes to handling real IFR - the kind
you can't reasonably scud run.

It's sort of like the taildragger transition. A pilot who understands
what landings are about can just sit down in a simple taildragger with
good visibility like a Champ and fly it, even lacking any tailwheel
experience. One who drives the airplane onto the runway can't - he may
easily need more hours to check out in a taildragger than he needed for
the initial solo.

In addition to the issue of pilot skill, there is the issue of the
equipment. RMI is expensive, but a movable card is dirt cheap, common
- but somehow not universal. Why not? Without it, you're constantly
doing mental math, remembering your heading - it's a pain. It's almost
the equivalent of making the transition into a blind taildragger - yes,
it can be and was done, but these days there's no reason for it.

Finally, the equipment needs to work. That means the heading gyro
needs to have reasonable precession (if you can't set it turning
initial and not worry about it until established in the miss, that's
NOT reasonable - people who routinely fly hard IFR won't tolerate it
unless they've equipped the cockpit with moving maps and no longer care
about the heading) and if the ADF is not equipped with a moveable card,
a heading bug is required equipment. The compass must work properly on
all headings, with no more than a few degrees error on any. If you're
going to do it right, either the DG needs to be a barrel or the compass
needs to be a card - mixing types is a recipe for confusion, but too
common these days. And finally, the ADF must point straight and strong
at the FAF or FAP - meaning that from 5-10 miles away, you need to have
a needle with an error no more than 2/5 of your tolerance - straight or
turning - just like VOR. So if you're shooting for +/-10 degrees, the
ADF can err by no more than 4 degrees in straight flight at any
reasonable correction angle, and it can't lag more than 1.3 degrees in
a standard rate turn.

I have seen an ADF-equipped IFR rental like that. ONCE.

ADF is not cheap. Crappy, barely serviceable ADF that makes students
believe that consistenly shooting one is impossible is cheap. And
unfortunately, too many CFII's don't know the difference.

In this day and age, the typical function of an ADF is to allow the
pilot to use his VFR GPS as an IFR unit, and not have to spring for an
IFR GPS. In theory, he us shooting an NDB approach, using the ADF for
the marker, etc - but in reality it's all VFR GPS. We keep up the
illusion because we don't want to spend the money to maintain these
things, and we don't feel IFR GPS offers good value compared to VFR
GPS.

Michael

On 1 Apr 2006 13:44:46 -0800, "Michael"
wrote:

ADF is not cheap. Crappy, barely serviceable ADF that makes students
believe that consistenly shooting one is impossible is cheap. And
unfortunately, too many CFII's don't know the difference.

Good ADF certainly is not cheap. Mooney's charge for the Becker ADF add-on
option in the Ovation 2GX is $15,500!

But sometimes the problem lies elsewhere. I've got a cheap ADF in my a/c
(it's the King model that has an integrated pointer in the box). It works
fine on the ground with the engine off. But, due to its design, the
voltage regulator puts out so much interference that gets picked up by the
ADF to render it of marginal utility in the air. (I kept it because that's
the only method of receiving the local altimeter setting at my home base).

Oh, and I can't change the voltage regulator type because of STC issues.


Ron (EPM) (N5843Q, Mooney M20E) (CP, ASEL, ASES, IA)

But sometimes the problem lies elsewhere. I've got a cheap ADF in my a/c
(it's the King model that has an integrated pointer in the box). It
works
fine on the ground with the engine off. But, due to its design, the
voltage regulator puts out so much interference that gets picked up by
the
ADF to render it of marginal utility in the air.

But a good ADF installation would not have this problem. I bet the
$15K unit from Becker is immune to this sort of noise. In the old
days, part of the installation process was checking for interference
from external sources and getting rid of it. Nobody will pay for that
anymore,

The real glory of GPS is not how accurate it is (that level of accuracy
is rarely needed) but how immune it is to installation/interference
issues. Hnadheld ADF, anyone?

Michael

On 2 Apr 2006 13:13:51 -0700, "Michael"
wrote:

But sometimes the problem lies elsewhere. I've got a cheap ADF in my a/c
(it's the King model that has an integrated pointer in the box). It
works
fine on the ground with the engine off. But, due to its design, the
voltage regulator puts out so much interference that gets picked up by
the
ADF to render it of marginal utility in the air.

But a good ADF installation would not have this problem. I bet the
$15K unit from Becker is immune to this sort of noise. In the old
days, part of the installation process was checking for interference
from external sources and getting rid of it. Nobody will pay for that
anymore,


That's true. The ADF was in the airplane when I purchased it. At the
time, I rarely flew an NDB approach and, when I did, it was at a higher
frequency and worked OK. It's been the combination of lower freq NDB's
that I'd been using more frequently since moving to this area (260 and
lower) along with the alternator STC that have resulted in the problem
cropping up.

I'd guess that even the more expensive King ADF would be immune to this
sort of problem. It has an "active antenna" which costs more than my ADF
would have cost.


The real glory of GPS is not how accurate it is (that level of accuracy
is rarely needed) but how immune it is to installation/interference
issues. Hnadheld ADF, anyone?


And the immunity is especially surprising considering the weak signals
being detected.


Ron (EPM) (N5843Q, Mooney M20E) (CP, ASEL, ASES, IA)