Sectional use

If the weather is marginal, we will pick IFR routes
over more hospitable terrain based on the information from the sectionals.

For cross-country flights into unfamilar areas, there is nothing as
good as a sectional charts for planning. We spread 'em out on the
dining room table, and have at 'em. And for transcontinental flights,
WACs are great, too.

But I'm talking about primary navigation in the plane. I don't konw
*anyone* (well, okay, I know Bob Noel) who routinely just hops in the
plane with a compass and a map, and goes off in search of the wild
bacon-cheeseburger.

In the summer, of course, we'll see all sorts of guys flying open
cockpit biplanes, navigating solely by ded reckoning and pilotage.
But they're usually flying in the local area, where they know every
tree stump and water tower for 80 miles. If you look inside the
cockpits of the ones who are coming any great distance -- en route to
Oshkosh from out west, for example -- almost all of them have portable
GPS receivers on the yoke.

And that's only proper. Why would you NOT use the best tool in the
toolbox?

During our flights, we use both IFR enroute maps and the
sectionals and of course the Lowrance Airmap 1000. It's nice to have
an overview of terrain below and ahead. This is something that the
small GPS screen can not provide.

The 496 displays terrain quite nicely. I haven't upgraded the
software in our 2000c to do so, but it has the same capability. (Of
course, most of our "terrain" worries are towers, here in the
Midwest...)

We also use the sectionals to find
AWOS frequencies along the route for weather monitoring.

When Mary is copilot, she still uses them for that, too. When I'm the
non-flying pilot, I've learned to scroll ahead (on the 496) to the
next reporting station, and look at the METAR. If it's more than a
few minutes old, a button push gives me the AWOS frequency, and I'll
listen to it.

As I said, we always keep fresh sectionals in the visor-pouch,
literally inches away. But whereas we used to have to tape the map
seams, so they wouldn't tear out, we now wrap gifts in them while
they're still pristine.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck writes:

I think you're forgetting that it takes forever for all the old stuff
to go away -- at least not in America.

I thought I read that the FAA was itching to decommission NDBs and
(perhaps?) VORs.

Even though I rarely turn them
on, I've got dual VORs in the panel, with dual glide-slope indicators,
and (until last month) I still had DME, too. (I yanked it out, and
gained 10 pounds of useful load...)

You still need the transmitters on the ground, though.

However, even with IFR the situational awareness and accuracy of GPS
is so markedly improved that I really don't know any "hard" IFR pilots
who *don't* rely on GPS anymore. Every one of the pilots I know who
routinely fly IFR relies heavily on GPS technology now -- and that's
only proper.

Do they still tune their VORs and cross-check to ensure that the
heading towards the real VOR matches the heading given by the GPS?

Yep. Heck, they've already removed the NDB approaches from most of
the airports in our area. VORs will hang in there a few more
decades, but they will soon go the way of the light beacons.

And then the bad guys will head to the area of a major airport, turn
on the GPS jammer, and kill a few thousand people in an hour without
anyone even knowing they were there.

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

Jay Honeck writes:

And that's only proper. Why would you NOT use the best tool in the
toolbox?

You would certainly use the best tool, but it's risky to have a
toolbox that is empty except for that one tool.

The 496 displays terrain quite nicely. I haven't upgraded the
software in our 2000c to do so, but it has the same capability. (Of
course, most of our "terrain" worries are towers, here in the
Midwest...)

I thought it was bad form to look at the little GPS screen when you're
supposed to be looking out the window.

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

And then the bad guys will head to the area of a major airport, turn
on the GPS jammer, and kill a few thousand people in an hour without
anyone even knowing they were there.

That's an interesting (if appalling) topic. I wonder why no one (to
my knowledge) has ever taken out an ILS transmitter -- or, worse,
jammed it to cause false readings -- in an effort to do the same
thing?

If you think about what this would do at, for example, Chicago's
O'Hare International, with planes landing at better than one per
minute, the results could be truly appalling.

You could literally (in theory) steer a dozen jumbo jets into the
ground during a snow storm before anyone caught on... Yet, it's not
been done.

Have Osama's buddies just not thought of this yet, or are we talking
about something that is much harder to accomplish than we might
assume?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 28 Jan 2007 05:45:44 -0800, Jay Honeck wrote:

Have Osama's buddies just not thought of this yet, or are we talking
about something that is much harder to accomplish than we might
assume?

GPS jamming is only done by those operating the GPS satellites. But only
for military purpose and not for the described purpose. Don't know how the
receiver will react when one signal (out of how many?) is out of scope.

And: What alert level you think would bring another terrorist act? They
already won. Shock and awe, you know.

#m
--
I am not a terrorist. http://www.casualdisobedience.com/

In article .com,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

And then the bad guys will head to the area of a major airport, turn
on the GPS jammer, and kill a few thousand people in an hour without
anyone even knowing they were there.

snort


That's an interesting (if appalling) topic. I wonder why no one (to
my knowledge) has ever taken out an ILS transmitter -- or, worse,
jammed it to cause false readings -- in an effort to do the same
thing?

If you think about what this would do at, for example, Chicago's
O'Hare International, with planes landing at better than one per
minute, the results could be truly appalling.

You could literally (in theory) steer a dozen jumbo jets into the
ground during a snow storm before anyone caught on... Yet, it's not
been done.

Unlikely. There are field monitors and most jumbos would have radar
altimeters (or radio altimeters or whatever the heck they are called).

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

Mxsmanic wrote:
Next thing you know, the GPS will be displaying tiny advertisements as
you fly.

Someday, you'll be flying an approach and the box will pop up with, "We're
sorry, but our account records show you have only subscribed to the
non-precision plan. If you would like to continue to track the glideslope,
please swipe your credit card now".

I use a sectional every time I leave the local area.

"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.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, replaces a sweaty finger on a sectional
while doing pilotage. My favorite use of them, though, is to give them
to a pax and let them track my navigation if the weather is clear
enough.

I can't remember the last time I used one in real life for navigation,
but for flight planning they are convenient for chosing airports close
to where ever it was I was going. In the good old days, for example,
it would help me choose between Midway and (was it Burke?) Lakefront
in Chicago, depending on where in the city I was going. I don't
hesitate going into the larger airports because rental cars and the
like are more likely to be available, but sometimes that just isn't
the best choice.






On Jan 27, 8:50 am, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
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 routeWhat'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 N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay,
I'd agree that for primary nagivation, GPS is becoming the primary
tool for many pilots but this does not mean that sectionals are not
needed. Actually, I was quite surprise to see your statements "What's
a "sectional"? Seriously, how many here still use them for primary
navigation? I honestly can't say I know anyone who does, anymore.
From the responses that I have seen so far, it looks like either you
don't know many pilots or you don't know much about the pilots that
you know ;-)
Although GPS has come down in prices, to have the latest and
greatest ones with weather , color map and terrain features and to
have redudancy (two units) like your setup require a relatively deep
pocket. It's nice that the newer GPSs have terrain features but their
tiny screens do not provide as much information both in term of range
and resolution as the big sectional. Besides, to rely solely on GPS
for navigation, you have to assume 100% reception. In my limited
experience of using GPS in the last 4 years, I have lost GPS signals
in at least two occasions. In addition, it is quite expensive to keep
the GPS database current. The Jeppesen database update for our
Lowrance unit cost $35/month or $299/year. It's much cheaper to keep
the paper based navigation tools (enroute maps & sectionals) current
so we buy fresh maps and only update the Lowrance once a year prior to
a major cross country trip.
The hand-held GPS is our primary navigation for now (until we get
the Garmin 430 or 480) but we never take off without making sure
that all our avionics (VORs, ADF, localizer, glide slope, marker
beacon) are working and that we have both the IFR enroute maps and
sectionals on board. Oh by way, we still cross check our instrument
navigation with pilotage and ded reckoning in every single flight (of
course with the exception of IMC condition ;-)).

Hai Longworth