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

Do you mean how do you find the boundary as depicted on the chart, or
how do you relate the depicted boundary to an actual physical location
out in the real world?

How do I relate it to the real world? In other words, how do I know,
as I fly along, whether I'm inside or outside a boundary? Very often
the boundaries cross largely empty areas of the chart, with no precise
indications of how to locate the boundary in the real world.

If the latter, when all else fails, some pilots fall back on an advanced
technique that is all but forgotten in this age of GPS. It's called
"looking out the window for landmarks."

But the charts don't have that many landmarks, and the boundaries
rarely seem to be based on landmarks; instead, they seem to have been
surveyed.


You call up flight service 5 days before your flight and give them your
flight plan, then on the day you fly your planned course is drawn on the
ground for you to follow, danger areas on either side are highlighted with
red boundries painted on the ground.

BT wrote:

You call up flight service 5 days before your flight and give them your
flight plan, then on the day you fly your planned course is drawn on the
ground for you to follow, danger areas on either side are highlighted with
red boundries painted on the ground.

You think that's funny?

I had a neighbor (who knows I'm a techie) ask me if the yellow first
down line on televised NFL games distracts the players.

I couldn't make that up!

If the latter, when all else fails, some pilots fall back on an advanced
technique that is all but forgotten in this age of GPS. It's called
"looking out the window for landmarks."

rg

more historically refered to as "pilotage"

BT

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message

How in the world are you supposed to know when you are inside or
outside one of these areas,

There's a dark, dashed line painted on the surface of the earth denoting
these areas, making avoidance easy. These lines are not noticeable to those
on the surface, but are easily visable from the air. If you'd take the
bother to go on a real flight, you would notice this. :-)

Mxsmanic wrote:
I see tons of restricted areas, MOAs, Class B, C, D, E airspace, and
the like on charts, but no clear indication of how to locate the
boundaries of these areas other than by pure guesstimate based on
looking at the chart.

The expired chart offer still stands... G

There are shaded lines denoting E/G space. Most of a chart can be E, so
the E/G line can be difficult to find.

B, C, and D are easy, they have solid and dotted lines, as well as
numbers denoting lateral and vertical limits.

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:35:04 GMT, B A R R Y
wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote:
I see tons of restricted areas, MOAs, Class B, C, D, E airspace, and
the like on charts, but no clear indication of how to locate the
boundaries of these areas other than by pure guesstimate based on
looking at the chart.

The expired chart offer still stands... G

There are shaded lines denoting E/G space. Most of a chart can be E, so
the E/G line can be difficult to find.

B, C, and D are easy, they have solid and dotted lines, as well as
numbers denoting lateral and vertical limits.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but around the SF Bay
area, most permanent airspace boundaries are chosen to coincide with
surface features or VOR radials. (It may be trickier further east,
where all the silos look alike.)

For more help in terminal areas, the back side of the terminal charts
have little drawings of what key landmarks actually look like.

And for temporary areas, the gummint kindly charts them and posts them
anew, superimposed on your choice of sectional, WAC, or GNC, every
morning on http://airspace.nifc.gov/mapping/nifc/index.cfm

Don

B A R R Y writes:

The expired chart offer still stands... G

Postage overseas is expensive.

There are shaded lines denoting E/G space. Most of a chart can be E, so
the E/G line can be difficult to find.

B, C, and D are easy, they have solid and dotted lines, as well as
numbers denoting lateral and vertical limits.

They are all easy to find on the chart, but I'm concerned about
finding them outside the window, without a GPS that shows them.

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

Mxsmanic wrote:

B, C, and D are easy, they have solid and dotted lines, as well as
numbers denoting lateral and vertical limits.

They are all easy to find on the chart, but I'm concerned about
finding them outside the window, without a GPS that shows them.

Without GPS:

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.

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.

Typically, you wouldn't fly right up to the edge of sensitive airspace
unless you had a very high confidence in your position. If it's a
controlled airspace situation, you'd get clearance or establish two-way
communications, as required, while still obviously outside the space.
If I'm flying near, over, or under controlled airspace, I'll at least
monitor the frequency, and call if I'm near.

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.

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.

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

Mxsmanic wrote:

For example, look at the terminal chart for KLAX.

if you have the terminal chart for LA, and want to
fly through the thing VFR, just turn it over and
look at the VFR corridors and/or recommended routes
which are clearly defined, follow them and you
are set. Alternatively, file IFR and it's even
simpler.

--Sylvain