How do you find the limits of areas on a chart?

Judah writes:

In real life, you don't need to hit buttons to look out the windows.

In a sim, you need to hit buttons to look out the windows.

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Wolfgang Schwanke writes:

Example: Say there's a restricted airspace whose boundary is parallel
to a big road and very close to it. You just stay on the opposite side
of that road at all times and you're done. Why worry about the exact
position of a boundary?

Because sometimes boundaries are very close together, and you have to
fly between them. You can't just stay twenty miles away from one
without being inside the other.

Such narrow airspace definitions aren't very common. It's possible to
avoid them by planning one's route around the area one feels
uncomfortable with.

Unfortunately, if you plan to go from one urban area to another, you
see a lot of them. And out in the western U.S. at least, it seems
like most of the land is covered by restricted areas or MOAs.

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Ron Garret writes:

That depends on whether you are a competent pilot or not. But why do
you think it's necessary to "continually check them all"?

So that you always know where you are.

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Gig 601XL Builder writes:

For this example the restricted airspace is on your right. You know that on
your track the closest you are going to come to a given boundary is at point
X. You would look at the chart and find something or group of somethings at
or near point X and then make sure you fly to the left of them.

If there's something on the chart at that point. Ay, there's the rub.

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TxSrv writes:

This is just getting hilarious. Even w/o an autopilot, it's so
much easier flying a real airplane than stupid MSFS (have every
version since 1.0), it's nice to have something to do.

First someone tells me that a real plane is easier than MSFS, then I'm
told that flying MSFS would not make me able to fly a real plane.
These statements cannot be simultaneously true.

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Ron Garret writes:

There are more landmarks there than you think. Why don't you pick an
example of a boundary that you're having trouble with? Talking about
this in generalities doesn't seem to be productive.

Most of the boundaries are troublesome if I'm not using a moving map
in the cockpit. I review the chart to see what the altitudes are for
the airspaces (this can be checked in MSFS but it requires pausing the
simulation), but I use the moving map to tell me the actual
boundaries, and I steer around them (or into them), as required.

The worry I have is that not all cockpits contain moving maps, or the
real-world equipment might fail. Then I have to depend entirely on a
chart to find the boundaries, and that seems like an extremely
labor-intensive activity. And the times when I'd most need to check
boundaries are also the times when I might well be the most busy in
the cockpit even without taking time to look at charts.

As an exercise I've flown up and down the little VFR corridor above
KSAN. It works easily enough with moving maps to show me the airspace
boundaries. I haven't tried it using a chart exclusively; I guess I
can put that on my list of practice exercises. The last time, ATC
called me on it, but I pointed out that it's on the chart and I was in
the corridor, and I didn't hear from them after that.

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B A R R Y writes:

Most B & C, and lots of D airports have a VORTAC on the field. DME
will tell you the distance from the DME station, which is usually near
the center of the field, and the airspace.. Otherwise, you need to
establish where you are using off-field VOR radials and/or chart denoted
visual landmarks. Easy landmarks include airports, roads (especially
intersections), cities, towers, stacks, power lines, water feature,
etc... I haven't flown with an NDB in a long time, so I can't comment
on using those.

I've noticed that those airspaces are arranged in such a way that one
could find them without too much trouble. The B airspaces usually
seem to be concentric rings, and if you know your radial position and
distance from the center of the rings, you can figure things out.

Unfortunately, some B airspaces seem to be much more complex, and
looking on the chart I can't figure out where they start and end.

For example, look at the terminal chart for KLAX. Some of the class B
boundaries are marked, such as SMO 252° or VNY 220° at the western
extremity. But then there's a northern border that isn't marked at
all. I see water, a building, and Griffith Park observatory nearby,
but that's it. And some of the internal boundaries are even worse. I
suppose that, in time, I could figure out a route to follow based on
the chart. But the problem is that the aircraft is moving while I'm
looking, and it takes more time to figure out where I am than it does
to be somewhere else.

Yes, I could plan carefully in advance. But then, if anything changes
my route, all the planning goes out the window, and I'm back to
looking at the chart.

A moving map solves all this, but I don't like being so dependent on a
moving map to safely navigate among the airspaces. I know it will
never fail in the sim (well, actually it did once, or I did something
wrong, I'm not sure), but I cannot guarantee this in real life.

This is taught, tested, and developed during training, and good pilots
put a lot of effort into location awareness. With practice, it becomes
easy, possibly second nature.

Maybe. I suppose if you can pick and choose your route, you can find
one with lots of landmarks to use. But can you do that when you are
working towards a license?

If I'm flying near, over, or under controlled airspace, I'll at least
monitor the frequency, and call if I'm near.

If you are flying through a VFR corridor that requires no ATC contact
(see the KSAN terminal chart, which has such a corridor and explicitly
says that no contact is required), do you routinely talk to ATC,
anyway? What do you request from them?

If the space is completely restricted, why poke at the beast? You'd
simply give it a reasonable, without-a-doubt cushion while passing by.

If there is space to do that.

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B A R R Y writes:

It's not so bad, so keep it in mind. I can only wallpaper so many walls
with old charts...

Just out of curiosity, how much do new charts cost, and how many do
you regularly replace as they expire?

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flyncatfish writes:

The thing that
concerns me most when I fly X/C vfr is the TFR's that pop up suddenly,
especially around election time. You can get a briefing and 10 minutes
later the Pres. or VP or some Senator decides to change his destination
to yours, and if you're not talking to somebody to let you know what's
going on.., well good luck.

I've noticed that. One more thing to worry about. People are afraid
of their own shadows in the U.S. these days.

I use to fly more vfr X/C's but not anymore.

Because ... ?

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Mxsmanic wrote:
What is a Wizwheel? It sounds almost like a slide rule.
Slide rules are obsolete now, but they were (and remain) extremely
well suited to some of the types of calculations that pilots and
others must do rapidly under less than ideal conditions. Does anyone
still use them for aviation?

Yes, it's usually required by instructors. See this entry (I wrote the
history section) :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E6B

As an aside, I have spent a lot of effort trying to determine if
"wizwheel" or "whizwheel" was the original slang term. I preferred the
former, but I'm finding more evidence for the latter... derived from
"whiz" kids instead of "wizard" users. Not set in stone though.

Kev