The A2A Simulations Community

G'day mate,

The simplest analysis...an NDB or Non Directional Beacon, radiates 360 degrees with no "tag" on the actual radial that you pick up...ie you can tell which direction you head for the source but you can not easily determine how to fly to the beacon on a GIVEN heading, just on the one that will take you to it from where you are now. Keep the needle centered on it and fly..eventually you will be overhead and the needle will swing as the you pass over the beacon. Oh and IRL, NDBs give a morse signal which identifies them. I don't think this works in FSX though.

There are ways to work out different specific arrival headings etc and even to work out the time to the beacon (by comparing angles after a given time and "complteting the triangle") but I've never used them. NDB approaches to an airport can be particularly challenging.

As an aside, ANY AM radio station can be used as a quasi NDB.. Radio stations can actually be listened to to identify them from station promos etc again, not in FSX.....the one where I live is often used as a semi positive fix on approach in bad weather.

Do a search on NDB navigation, I've found some very simple (ie -I- understood them ) tutorials over the years.

Good hunting!


Darryl

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...Some say he never blinks, and that he roams around the woods at night foraging for Merlin parts...

Easiest way to navigate by NDB using an ADF (Automatic Direction Finder) on any of your FS planes is simple - just follow the needle. If you're going to the NDB, just follow the Needle. If there's a wind, you'll follow a curved course, but the error will be within allowable tolerances for navigation. In a lot of ways, you can just "feel out" how much correction is needed by overcorrecting a little bit at a time until the needle stops drifting. If you need to navigate between NBD's without being able to receive both at the same time or navigate outbound from an NDB to a fix, then just apply your basic VOR navigation techniques for holding a Radial but understand that there will be no deviation bar, your deviation bar is the needle drifting left or right from your intended bearing from the station. To determine distance - you have to use other methods or use time after station passage.

Hope that's simple enough for you. If not, like was said above, there's good tutorials available elsewhere on it.

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Hey Arc,
Here's a site I usually point my VA pilots to so they get the basics. Included on the site is NDB nav, VOR nav, NDB approaches, VOR approaches, and ILS approaches. http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/index.htm

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AFAIK, the P-40 was a dead-reckoning aircraft. Course, speed, time. When they flew deployment or ferry flights, they were escorted by a "mother hen" like a B-17 or B-24 to provide full navigation. Sometimes it'd be a C-47 or C-54, but usually it was a heavy bomber that had all the radio equipment and a navigator to perform long distance flights like that.

The use of a "mother hen" aircraft stuck around until the advent of GPS. The USAF even had aircraft specifically equipped for hat role; the 'Head Dancer' EC-135K. When deploying units from the US to Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, one of the EC-135K's would provide navigation and other support for the unit which would deploy "en masse" from the US to Europe. Additional KC-135A's would be used to ensure sufficient fuel was available, but they would still rely on the EC-135K for navigation and simply fly a loose formation. As the radio equipment on the KC-135's improved and the KC-10's were delivered, the need for a dedicated Deployment Control Aircraft became redundant and the EC-135K's were retired or modified to other aircraft.

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You could always use pilotage to navigate too. I know FSX isn't the greatest for this type on navigation it's also the easiest, and besides I would wager this is how the majority of light GA get around. I know in my RW flying adventures this is how I do it (mostly). Check out this free program called Plan-G, it's a VFR flight planning software with a moving map. http://www.tasoftware.co.uk/planG.htm

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Get some nice VFR scenery from wherever you want (there's very good UK scenery and some areas of the US are beginning to be well covered) or use one of the Google Earth tiling programs (can't remember the name of it) to dynamically load in Google Earth images as you fly in FS and just fly it IFR (I Follow Roads and railroads) over the US.

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I'd recommend to go here and grab book #3 about navigation:

http://www.flybetter.com.au/index.html

The other books are highly recommended as well.

The nav book explains all that ded reckoning stuff, radio nav and fuel management and how to keep the workload at minimum while flying. Worth reading IMO. And its free!

And if you're still bored you may give the se.xtant addon a try.....