Sectional use

What's a "sectional"?

Grumman-581 wrote:
Something that you should update at least once every
century or so...

....or whenever you need new drawer-liner or shelf paper! The old,
outdated ones are great for that.

Jay Honeck wrote:
Seriously, how many here still use them for primary navigation? I
honestly can't say I know anyone who does, anymore.

I use 'em on every cross country. I like following my progress by
identifying stuff on the ground by name. Most of my cross countries
are to places I've driven to or camped in, so it is great fun seeing
all that from above. I also bring other paper maps, with more
details, again to identify stuff by name. I also have gps, but the
screen just doesn't have the simultaneous wide view and detail that I
can get from a paper map.

tom

On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:32:30 -0700, in
,
Xmnushal8y wrote:
...or whenever you need new drawer-liner or shelf paper! The old,
outdated ones are great for that.

Haven't tried them for that... I've used them for wrapping paper before
though... Of course, the ones that are most likely to be relegated to that
are ones that I actually update periodically like the local ones... Some
of the CFIs don't like it when you show up for a BFR with out of date
maps... So, the local ones get updated every 2 years or so...

A current sectional can be a very handy document to have available in
the aircraft.
Most traffic patterns are left hand. In addition to the AFD (Airport
Facilities Directory), the sectional will tell you which runway is RP
(Right Hand Pattern).
I use a Crayola Erasable Highlighter to mark my charts. I feel they
are superior to a pencil because the transparant line is less likely
to cover something up or get confused with information on the chart.
Don't get me wrong, a pencil line is still a good method of marking
your course line on the chart.
Most of my flying is IFR but I still like to have a sectional handy.

If you flew in the mountains, say in the river drainages in Idaho, you'd
have to use your sectional.

Say there is a ceiling, 2000 feet above the rivers. Those clouds would be
obscuring the mountains.

You'd be flying low in the canyons, and going up the wrong one means a dead
end. I don't like anything that contains the word "dead" in aviation.

A GPS won't do you a whole lot of good. You certainly can't go "direct."
Even my 396 doesn't have enough resolution to pick out the river routes up
canyons. Only a good eye on the sectional and excellent pilotage will get
you there. A GPS does help, but only for secondary backup nav.

Maybe in a few years the "terrain feature" of GPS will allow it. But not
now.

Karl



"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
oups.com...
There is a trick for drawing a line from one side of the sectional (one
airport) to the other side (an airport on toe opposite side) whan
planning
a route

What's a "sectional"?

ducking!

Seriously, how many here still use them for primary navigation? I
honestly can't say I know anyone who does, anymore.

Although we always carry current sectionals (we sell them at the inn,
so I have NO excuse not to), I can't remember the last time I opened
one. I think it was to check an AWOS frequency ahead, cuz Mary was
futzing with the 496's XM music screen...

It really is amazing how much flying has changed in the last 12
years... What was "Buck Rogers" stuff when I was training is now
"SOP"...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article ,
"Steve Foley" wrote:

The best part was approaching Moosehear Lake (Maine) at dusk. I pulled out
the flashlight to read the frequency on the chart. My 14 year old asked what
I needed the flashlight for. That was the first indication I had that my
eyes were getting old.

Either that, or you should have taken off the sunglasses. :-)

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

What replaces sectionals?

For backup, nothing beats a sectional. No batteries, and easy to
carry = good!

However, for flight planning (on long trips) we use Aeroplanner.com,
(I can print out sectional "Chart Chunks" straight from that
outstanding website) and for en route navigation and weather avoidance
we use a Lowrance Airmap 2000c on the pilot's yoke, and a Garmin 496
in the panel dock.

Both of these units have all necessary radio frequencies, and the
Garmin even has airport diagrams, hotels and restaurants. And, of
course, XM weather and music.

Between those two little boxes, I've got hundreds -- no, *thousands*
of times more information at my disposal than when I first learned to
fly, "way back" in 1994. Back then, our primary resources were a
sectional map and the AOPA directory, along with VORs.

The last 15 years have been almost scary-cool-remarkable. I can only
guess what/how we'll be flying in another 15!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck writes:

For backup, nothing beats a sectional. No batteries, and easy to
carry = good!

I agree.

However, for flight planning (on long trips) we use Aeroplanner.com,
(I can print out sectional "Chart Chunks" straight from that
outstanding website) and for en route navigation and weather avoidance
we use a Lowrance Airmap 2000c on the pilot's yoke, and a Garmin 496
in the panel dock.

Another pay site. But it looks interesting. I use SkyVector,
although I would not be able to use it for real flight because it
requires real-time access to the Internet. In simulation I can switch
tasks to consult the charts while the flight continues.

Both of these units have all necessary radio frequencies, and the
Garmin even has airport diagrams, hotels and restaurants.

Hotels and restaurants? I hope that's not the beginning of a bad
trend.

Between those two little boxes, I've got hundreds -- no, *thousands*
of times more information at my disposal than when I first learned to
fly, "way back" in 1994.

Too bad that a simple lack of electricity can make it all disappear in
an instant.

Back then, our primary resources were a sectional map and the
AOPA directory, along with VORs.

Do you continue to use these to keep in practice?

The last 15 years have been almost scary-cool-remarkable. I can only
guess what/how we'll be flying in another 15!

At least as scary as cool, especially to someone who is familiar with
the inherent but not widely known risks of computerized and automated
systems.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Seriously, how many here still use them for primary navigation? I
honestly can't say I know anyone who does, anymore.

Jay, that's about the most startling thing I've read on this group!

I enjoy nothing more, on a VFR day, than turning off the nav radios
and navigating by pilotage. Watching the "big blue marble" slide by
beneath the airplane and reading the names of the towns and rivers off
the sectional is a very large part of the pleasure of flying.

I even have a sectional on my lap when I'm IFR, and I keep track of my
progress on it. If it suddenly gets real quiet, I know what kind of
terrain I'm over and where the flat open land is.

Yes, I have a gps that will tell me where the nearest airport is, but
a sectional never goes dead when you need it.

vince norris

Jay Honeck wrote:
Seriously, how many here still use them for primary navigation? I
honestly can't say I know anyone who does, anymore.

Me!

When I was finishing up my PP, I kept thinking that I'd buy a portable GPS
and navigation would be *so* much easier. Then, something *clicked*, and
I *got* how to navigate by pilotage. I sort of had it before, but right
around checkride time, something snapped into place and I started finding
it a LOT easier to match up the ground with the chart. While I still
wouldn't mind having a GPS (a new toy!), I'm not jonesing for one the way
I was before.

The plane I fly is a 70s-era Warrior with VOR+DME only. And the DME is
flaky. At some point I'll step up to one of the FBO's new glass-cockpit
Cessnas, but I'm having fun in the Warrior now.

I had also thought I'd start doing all my cross-countries using VORs,
since pilotage was (earlier) hard. On my last cross-country, the briefer
neglected to tell me the VOR next to the airport was, er, erratic. I
watched the needle swing back and forth for a while, then shrugged and
switched to pure pilotage (which I had been using as a backup the whole
trip anyhow). Without a sectional, of course, this would not have worked
so well.

Don't assume that everybody has the latest & greatest toys in their
planes. Some of us are doing it other ways, and still having fun with it.

.... Alan
--
Alan Gerber
PP-ASEL
gerber AT panix DOT com