Folks,

In case you haven't seen this, the Air Force is planning GPS jamming exercises in southern Idaho (Mountain Home) next week. So, if you're flying around anywhere withing a couple hundred miles.....don't plan on GPS being available full time:

https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices ... visory.pdf

MTV

Good time to work on pilotage and true course angle across section lines.

Great! I flew up to Boise today so I could stay off the airline hassle just to get bombed by my own government.

An opportunity to practice pilotage, VOR nav, and DedReckoning... Skills we should keep handy.

Hand DR and short pencil. Dig out the old charts

contactflying wrote:true course angle across section lines.

What means this? Talking you about lines of magnetic deviation? Or meanses the flip of the sectional chart from uppsy downsy to downsy uppsy? Honest be I must, drawing a courseline across the chart flipsy was never solved by Zzz despite staring at FAA instructions.

Long lat gives us a look at the angle on the sectional. Section lines not as obvious out west but straight roads are generally true N-S or E-W. Tumble weed will make fences in that area stand out. All US outside Spanish Land Grant surveyed true N-S and E-W. I flew the area in a Pawnee with the Piper oil pressure and oil temp gauge and nothing else on the dash, not even a compass. I was taking it from Ontario, Oregon to Bainbridge, Georgia.

With GPS, we are back to true (great circle but looks straight at this latitude) again. I have always been true. If we fly our butt down the pencil line on the sectional observing the angle across lat and long, along with pilotage, no compass or airspeed indicator or WCA or wis wheel or computer needed. Fill the tank, plastic gas jugs in hopper, drink coffee, land and put more gas in when we need to pee. Or as old tankers say, "never bypass a POL point."

Let me help contact with less words. If you can figure out what angle you roughly need go across the country (the angle created by your line on a chart as it intersects a lat or long line) you replicate that angle when crossing section roads. Works pretty decent really as long as you keep up with other landmarks. Unless of course you are in northern utah or anywhere in Idaho. You know, where there aren’t really any section lines. Good luck, might want to think about using that loran.

Not every section as in Kansas, but they are there. Best to see them at 500.' And down low, distant physical features show up much better. I caught some good air south of Jackson Hole, however, and worried a bit about not having oxygen. Pilotage works when we have lots of checkpoints. Nothing in the desert? You're not looking very hard. Folding the sectional like a military strip map helps as well. Clip it so everything left of the line on the map is under the left wing, everything right of the line under the right wing. Be specific. Drainage in the desert is significant, even without water. Keeps you awake.

Thanks for posting this information. I am planning on being in Idaho for about 8 days during that time. 1500-2330Z is pretty much all day. Sad to say how dependent I have become on GPS, Ipad navigation, and moving maps. I will get some paper sectionals before the trip. There are going to be some pilots who think they flew into the Bermuda triangle when their GPS starts malfunctioning.


Josh

Zzz wrote:

contactflying wrote:true course angle across section lines.

What means this? Talking you about lines of magnetic deviation? Or meanses the flip of the sectional chart from uppsy downsy to downsy uppsy? Honest be I must, drawing a courseline across the chart flipsy was never solved by Zzz despite staring at FAA instructions.

Not sure what flipsy is. Never heard it before. I always used a chart north up.

qmdv wrote:
Not sure what flipsy is. Never heard it before. I always used a chart north up.

I'm talking paper, man. When you fly off the edge of the flat Earth but there's more on the other side of the paper. You gotta translate your course line using some offset technique.

Never knew about the use of roads as parallels to chart grid lines. Today I learned. That's serious biplane stuff. I like it though. I used to fly ultralights with my chart strapped to my thigh. Didn't have a chance to unfold it before the fuel was exhausted.

There's definitely an excitement of navigation that's lost with the pink line. During primary training it was such a fun thing do XC without GPS, to time legs and verify ground speed with pilotage and estimate fuel remaining. Now, I know pilots getting their certificates who tell me they don't do that stuff or really even bother with a nav log, and will never know the uncertainty of wondering how far off course they are because they haven't picked up their landmark.

The fuel and potty stop for the far edge of the first sheet can be determined on a small scale planning chart like Jeppsen or sectionals used to be glued together on a full wall at some FBOs. When you fly off the edge of the first sheet, there is some overlap on the other side. Find the last checkpoint this side near the beginning on the other side and use a protractor or eyeball to project the same angle across longitude lines on the other side. Once we have flown just a few miles, the angle across longitude lines and the alternating different angle across latitude lines is fixed in our mind anyway. It doesn't have to be drawn on the paper until a fuel and potty stop near there anyway. Toward the end of the 2,000 mule journey, adjust to make sure to direct course to the destination on the last sheet. Because of weather, RON, etc., it may not be a perfectly straight line all the way anyway. VOR to VOR is a lot more crooked.

It only took one cross country to make me appreciate paper maps when I lost electrical power and electronics died. It gives one a lonely feeling. Paper is hard to keep in the cockpit when flying with no doors though.

qmdv wrote:I always used a chart north up.

Heathen! LOL

It's funny how the topic of "track up" versus "north up" gets so many people riled up... The Army taught "track up" and the law of primacy says that's what I still use today. Track up meant that you can (without any conscious thought) know whether that thing you're looking for will be to your right or your left, and makes it much easier to pick out landmarks.

On the other hand, North up makes reading those (increasingly small) printed words and numbers on the chart a lot easier, and we've all been brainwashed from an early age that "North is at the top of the map."

As with so many other things in aviation: "You're the PIC, do it your way!"

JP256 wrote:

qmdv wrote:I always used a chart north up.

and we've all been brainwashed from an early age that "North is at the top of the map." "

I think mayabe north is up is because north is at 000. In one of my previous lives I was in the navigation dep on a submarine. Not many landmarks. North was always up. I tactical situations we were always changing course and speed. The hand DR would get crazy. I cannot imagine rotating a chart every time you made a cours change. I do north up on my 430W and also on my tablet. Habits are hard to change.

My second commanding officer on Queenfish was Fred Mclaren. He was a junior officer on Sea Dragon when she surfaced at the north pole 60 years ago. Here is an excerpt from one of his books.

And now we reach Seadragon’s final first! After surfacing and getting the submarine settled, one of the first tasks they undertook was the organization of the very first baseball game at the North Pole. But this was no ordinary game! The field was aligned with the pitcher’s mound as close to the North Pole as possible which set up some really crazy situations:

if a batter hit a “homerun,” he would circumnavigate the world as he rounded the bases;

if the ball was hit into right field, it flew into “tomorrow;” a ball hit to left field remained in the same day, but if it was then thrown to first base it entered “tomorrow”;

if the right fielder caught a fly ball, he caught it the next day which meant the batter could not be considered out for another twenty-four hours, but if the ball was caught as a line drive and thrown back towards second or third base, it was being thrown back into yesterday;

Double or triple plays could take several days to complete and, as you would expect with a field of ice, sliding into the bases took on a whole new, a somewhat dangerous meaning! During the game so many disputes broke out over what day and time an event had occurred that the umpires remained in a constant state of confusion. In the end no one remembered the final score or even the day game ended–the only thing they were sure about was that it had started on August 25, 1960.

Paper sectionals? Really? Why? You have sectionals stored on your tablet and your phone. You can run off the end of a paper sectional. You'll need to leave America to run off the sectionals in your "device".

North up for life.

I don't really like using tablets in the cockpit. Call me weird.

I'm planning a trip to Idaho Montana & Oregon etc next week with a couple buddies.
Not thrilled about the GPS testing.
FWIW I guess I'm a redneck pilot after all--
when I wanted to lay out the overall trip to get an idea of distances involved & routes,
I used an old AAA "Western States & Provinces" road map.
It would have required multiple sectionals.