Have we stopped teaching VOR skills?

In article , William W. Plummer wrote:

What has emerged is that there are two skills to be learned: Instrument
flying and GPS operation.

Exactly.

My choice is to do the former in the plane
with an instructor and the latter on the ground with a manual.

You pretty much have to play with the GPS on the ground. RTFM and
run the sim. But that's generally not enough. Unless you're really
using the GPS in flight, and even if you're particularly imaginative,
you won't come up with enough scenarios.

How many people here have had an approach controller tell them to do
a right 360 to *re*join the localizer? It only happened to me once.
How many buttons would you have to push on your GPS?

This is a very good idea for a workbook or training softwa unusual
GPS scenarios. Most of the oddball things occur in the terminal
areas, but even enroute, reroutes happen.

BTW, if I could do one thing to improve the interface on the sims,
instead of clicking to turn the knobs, I'd have you drag the mouse
to turn the knob.

In fact I do quite a bit of "Geocaching" using the GPS to find hidden
treasure. And after a year I'm still finding out stuff about the
simple little Garmin 12.

If the simple one has so many surprises, the more complex moving maps
are going to have that much more.


Morris

Journeyman wrote:

How many people here have had an approach controller tell them to do
a right 360 to *re*join the localizer? It only happened to me once.
How many buttons would you have to push on your GPS?

Trick question. Everyone knows that the GPS cannot be used for primary
navigation while flying an ILS approach.

--
Peter













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"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...

Well, but maybe that's the real question? Is visualizing location in
space
by interpreting a CDI needle indeed a basic IFR skill? It certainly was
when I did my instrument training, but is it still? Will it always be?

Let me offer a different perspective. In Europe we have to have an IFR GPS
to fly at 10,000 ft+. Because most IFR traffic in Europe is commercial and
pressurized, it becomes a practical requirement at any level to be able to
fly direct to ABCDE immediately on ATC's request, because they just expect
it. So we've almost all got IFR GPS (and even those who don't have a
handheld). It's becoming rarer to spend much time tracking towards
waypoints defined by VORs, let alone actually using the raw VOR data.

We have very few VOR approaches -- most are ILS or NDB. So I get very
little practice at using the CDI on a VOR -- it's either "make TRK = BRG" or
I'm tracking a localizer, which is similar to a CDI in principle but with
vastly different sensitivity. GPS approaches aren't widely authorized (none
in the UK for example), and when I fly an NDB approach, my use of the GPS to
"monitor" :-) is to put the GPS waypoint as a pointer on the RMI (EHSI, in
fact). I don't set up the CDI at all, because it's a pain to get a useful
sensitivity setting.

As a result, when I try practising VOR tracking using raw data and the CDI,
I'm very bad at it. I'm used to having a TRK readout. I've never really
been a great fan of CDIs anyway.

Is that a great loss of skill? Perhaps. It depends on your reliance on it
after a single failure, of the GPS, I guess. In an environment where a
vector is always available and usually more practical for ATC than going
back to tracking VORs, it's unlikely to be critical.

Julian Scarfe

I do not see how utilizing the GPS for navigation
would negatively affect ones attitude flying skills.

It probably wouldn't. But I didn't say it would - I said it would
negatively affect learning =basic= skills, such as VOR navigation, whose
user interface is drop-dead simple.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

William W. Plummer wrote:
In fact I do quite a bit of "Geocaching" using the GPS to find hidden
treasure. And after a year I'm still finding out stuff about the
simple little Garmin 12.

Aint it a great little gadget? It was the firt GPS I owned. I'd turn
it on, toss it in my bag in the backseat for every lesson. When I
got home, would dump the track to the computer and print it out.
Made it *so* nice to see how I did stuff right and wrong. Steep
360s were nice and round. Slow 360s -- not great. In fact, pretty
rotten.

We've got an exhibit on GPS at the museum right now (I'm a volunteer)
but no working GPSs. So I brought my G12 and the Pilot III. Turns
out that there's too much structural stuff -- can't locate any
satellites. So we took them both outside to the parking lot to
amuse the folks standing in line. I think we converted at least
3 people to geocaching!

I thought Arrows had retractable gear, constant speed props and flaps?
That is complex in my book.

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
'79 Mooney 201

Journeyman wrote:

In article et, Gene Whitt wrote:

Must be relaated to SR-22 accident record.


I've got no time in the SR-22, but I've talked to a few
who have, and they agree with Michael's assesment: it's
a complex airplane minus a few knobs (while my Arrow
is a non-complex with a few extra knobs).

I was flying into a busy airport this morning, and was
asked to keep my speed up. I went down the glideslope
at Vle and still made the first turnoff. You can't do
that in a slipery bird.


Morris

In article , Jon Kraus wrote:
I thought Arrows had retractable gear, constant speed props and flaps?
That is complex in my book.

It has all that, and fits the FAA definition of complex.

But, since it's (relatively) slow and draggy, you don't have to fly it
the same way you'd fly a higher performance bird. The SR-22 should be
classed with the Mooneys and Bonanzas. The Arrow should be classed
with the Skylanes and Cherokees.

IOW, in the real world, what makes an airplane a handful to fly isn't
the presence or absence of a couple of extra knobs. It's the need
to be planning further out ahead of the plane.


Morris

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 03:13:06 GMT, Jon Kraus
wrote:

I thought Arrows had retractable gear, constant speed props and flaps?
That is complex in my book.

The Arrow is complex, but it is not high performance. (*over* 200 HP)

It is also far, far slower than an SR-22. The 22 may have fixed gear,
but it's a good 20 knots faster than many Bonanzas. The major hurtle
is learning to think farther ahead.


Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
'79 Mooney 201

Journeyman wrote:

In article et, Gene Whitt wrote:

Must be relaated to SR-22 accident record.


I've got no time in the SR-22, but I've talked to a few
who have, and they agree with Michael's assesment: it's
a complex airplane minus a few knobs (while my Arrow
is a non-complex with a few extra knobs).

Your Arrow is a complex.


I was flying into a busy airport this morning, and was
asked to keep my speed up. I went down the glideslope
at Vle and still made the first turnoff. You can't do
that in a slipery bird.

The Bo is slippery and a good short field bird and particularly the 33
series. Book figures have them landing shorter than a 172, or at
least many of them. Then again the wing loading of the Bo is
surprisingly light. My Deb is a tad lighter per sq ft than a
Cherokee. The newer ones are a tad heavier, but still relatively
light.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Morris

In article , Roger wrote:

Your Arrow is a complex.

Sure, but is it any more complicated/difficult/challenging to fly
than a fixed-gear Cherokee?

Does a high-performance fixed-gear Skylane give you any more
performance than a low-performance retract Arrow?


Morris

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 22:20:36 -0500, Journeyman
wrote:

In article , Roger wrote:

Your Arrow is a complex.

Sure, but is it any more complicated/difficult/challenging to fly
than a fixed-gear Cherokee?

Does a high-performance fixed-gear Skylane give you any more
performance than a low-performance retract Arrow?

Yes, it is a bit more challenging and complicated, but no more
difficult. You have a constant speed prop and retractable gear which
are more things to keep track of, but that is not the point. By
definition it is a complex aircraft.

OTOH High performance, which the Arrow is not, makes a really big
difference with usually much faster, slipperier, and much less
forgiving aircraft that require not only thinking much farther ahead,
but learning the aircraft far better than say a 172 or Cherokee which
are far more forgiving of mistakes. The Cherokees and Arrows are
among the most forgiving aircraft out there.

The SR-22 being even faster than a Bo, should not be thought of in
terms normally reserved for "fixed gear" aircraft. It is a truly high
performance aircraft.

I would not call the SR22 any more complex than the Bo (if you neglect
trying to program the GPS/MFD while en route). Besides, you don't have
to worry about lowering the gear. I find the glass displays easy to
fly, simpler to read, and even prefer them, to the regular instrument
display, but it would take me hours to learn the GPS to the point
where programming it in flight was instinctive.

There are three things in transitioning to a much higher performance
aircraft. Learn its limitations and the edges of the flight envelope
well. Learn its systems, and develop a mind set that thinks in the
terms of the speed at which you will be flying. Even the extra 20
plus knots from a Bo to the SR-22 takes a bit of conditioning. Going
from 130 or 140 knots to 200 or better is a big step.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Morris