A Nav and Engine question

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Louis8m
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A Nav and Engine question

Post by Louis8m »

Just out of interest, what is every one using with this bird to navigate this P-40 in the modern world ? And In the DC'3 if you brought back the props lower then the power setting the bearing would hammer against each other so they always used the 20 -20 rule , was this a problem with these engines ? I'm still having a heck of a time to taxi this thing . Louis--Alberta
Last edited by Louis8m on 23 Mar 2020, 20:20, edited 1 time in total.
Louis Massicotte -Caroline alberta

Hook
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Hook »

Louis8m wrote: 23 Mar 2020, 10:56 Just out of interest, what is every one using with this bird to navigate this P-40 in the modern world ?
The compass. :)

Before the flight, check on a map or chart (I use skyvector.com ) and draw a line to your destination. Note the direction and fly that heading on your compass. Note the distance, divide by your expected ground speed to determine a time to fly, and start looking for landmarks when you get near. For longer flights use waypoints like towns, rivers, lakes, crossroads, something that's easy to see and recognize from the air.

Oh, and there's a map in one of the 2D panels. :D

Hook

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Paughco
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Paughco »

You can plan a flight with Little Nav Map and save that to your flight plans folder. Then start your flight sim with a default aircraft, then switch to your P-40. Next, load the flight plan into the sim. You'll see the flight plan when you hit Shift+5 to bring up the A2A map. Hit Shift+2 and use the takeoff, climb, and cruise setting shown there.

Seeya
ATB
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Louis8m
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Louis8m »

Wow interesting , i'll give that a try . I got my license in '68 and that's how we flew but i pretty well forgot how to do it now.I still have a nice stainless steel Dalton Dead reckoning computer with the instructions, case and all , but don't have a clue how to run it now -I use sky vector all the time also - Thanks guys
Louis Massicotte -Caroline alberta

Hook
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Hook »

Louis8m wrote: 23 Mar 2020, 20:16 Wow interesting , i'll give that a try . I got my license in '68 and that's how we flew but i pretty well forgot how to do it now.I still have a nice stainless steel Dalton Dead reckoning computer with the instructions, case and all , but don't have a clue how to run it now -I use sky vector all the time also - Thanks guys
I've got an E6-B but it's aluminum. :) They're not difficult to use and you don't need to know everything about it for it to be very useful. I end up using it a lot even when I've got decent navigation instruments. I just don't use the GPS. Sometimes I don't use the navigation instruments. :D

I wonder if we need to set up a tutorial on how to do dead reckoning navigation for those who have never used anything but a GPS or FMC.

The major thing you need to remember is that you do NOT need custom scenery to do dead reckoning. All the coast lines, roads, power lines, lakes and rivers and towns are in the sim and nearly all radio towers. Landmark objects like racetracks and prisons are not depicted, but you don't need any of those. Most power stations are there but not all. Sometimes small bodies of water are missing. Actually, by comparing real world maps and skyvector charts and the sim, I've found the sim to be more accurate than the skyvector charts in some places.

Hook

Louis8m
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Louis8m »

Hi Hook ,you sure hit the nail on the with dead reckoning tutorial and this is sure the place to open it . Can't believe you find the sim to be more accurate the Sky vector (partly ). I did a flight after smashing the plane completely about 3 times and finally had to watch a 20 min. video just on the landing gear , but i used the GTN 750 and not at all did it feel right .Are you able to get the ball rolling on this?
Louis Massicotte -Caroline alberta

Hook
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Hook »

Louis8m wrote: 24 Mar 2020, 07:14 Hi Hook ,you sure hit the nail on the with dead reckoning tutorial and this is sure the place to open it . Can't believe you find the sim to be more accurate the Sky vector (partly ). I did a flight after smashing the plane completely about 3 times and finally had to watch a 20 min. video just on the landing gear , but i used the GTN 750 and not at all did it feel right .Are you able to get the ball rolling on this?
I'll see what I can do about a tutorial. When I was flying the Cub I asked if anyone might be interested in a complete walkthrough of how I planned and navigated a flight but no one responded. I'm going to have to see if I can re-create what I had intended to write at the time. I should have gone ahead and written it even if I didn't publish it.

I found a few places where small lakes were missing from SkyVector but were on maps and google earth. I've seen a few radio towers in the sim that weren't on the charts as well. The one that annoyed me the most was a 10 or 15 degree bend in a road that I found in the sim but couldn't find on SkyVector. I went in later and checked maps and google earth and the bend was there. I had a moment of confusion when I had a terrain detail that wasn't depicted on the official charts and while I wasn't "lost" I was "a mite confused", and I did have a few choice words after the flight. :)

A few high points for now. If you're following a road or other terrain feature and can always see your next waypoint, that's called Pilotage. I do this as often as possible. If you have to fly across terrain with no recognizable or useful landmarks, flying on a specific heading for a specific time, that's Dead Reckoning. Determine the heading you need to fly and the ground distance (SkyVector is good for this), divide the distance by your expected ground speed (estimated for wind and altitude, windy.com is useful) to get a time to fly, estimate compass offset for drift caused by wind, and go for it. When you get close, look for landmarks. I used to use a digital kitchen timer as a stopwatch but lately I've found that simply recording the clock time works better.

Everything except actual ground distance is an estimate. Expect it to be up to 10% off. It doesn't matter as you'll still find your destination. Generally, as long as you maintain a course within 5 degrees either side of your intended course you'll hit within a circle with a radius of 10% of your total distance. In other words, if you're flying 80 nautical miles, you'll hit within 8 miles of your target.

I don't use the time to fly reported by SkyVector as my own estimates are usually closer. Sometimes my estimates are better than the times reported by the Active Sky flight planner. Often I can't fly the altitude I originally planned so winds aloft aren't going to be the same anyway. When first starting the SkyVector estimates are useful enough.

I've found Little NavMap (freeware) to be excellent for doing flight planning and it has a good airport map to use when taxiing. SkyVector.com for real world charts, and windy.com for winds and weather. Active Sky winds aloft are usually a bit tamer than those reported by windy.com but typically within errors of estimate.

If you get totally lost, use the A2A map available as a popup. :)

Hook

Louis8m
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Louis8m »

I’ve read your post above multiple times .I should mention I’m loaded up pretty good with Orbz and do have active sky .I have G plan but I just installed Little nav map ,and have no idea how to run it, so do you use moving map on Little map ?cause plan G you always know where you are .My friend used to fly a 737 200 in the 60’s no fmc in those days .We met at a high reunion in Thunder Bay about 5 yrs ago and I asked him ,” how in heck did you know when to come down if there was no VOR to do the height times 3 rule and just NDB? ? He said “we estimated, and some times we were way off and would be 20 thousand feet over the NDB .Well thanks and I’ll keep thundering with this .
Louis Massicotte -Caroline alberta

Hook
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Hook »

I think Little NavMap has a button to lock the map onto your aircraft. Mostly I only use it for the moving map when I'm taxiing. I make my flight plans in SkyVector, then copy the waypoint string to Little NavMap and make a flight plan from it. Then I verify the VORs and NDBs to make sure they have the right frequency for the sim (not applicable to the P-40). If you save the flight plan from Little NavMap you can import it as a flight plan to Active Sky. There's nothing special about Little NavMap so if you'd prefer to use Plan-G, do that.

Once I have the flight plan in SkyVector I copy the compass headings and distances to paper. Then I use the E6-B to estimate flight time on each leg. You can simply do the necessary math with a calculator instead. I write down my time of takeoff, add the time for the first leg and write the estimated time for arrival at first waypoint. Then I record the actual time when I get there. It's usually within 10% accuracy. At that point I can write the estimated time for the next waypoint, and I may update the time according to whatever error I had in previous estimates, but I don't estimate the arrival time at the waypoint until I've arrived at the previous one. For example, a 30 minute flight might take between 27 and 33 minutes. If I have a headwind and I'm 10% over, then I add 10% to the next leg. Gee, I hope this makes sense. :D

When planning my descent I just eyeball it. Of course I'm seldom flying so high that this is difficult. After a while you get a good feeling for how far the runway is below the horizon when you need to start your descent. I've had better luck with this than with trying to calculate it, especially when I didn't have an exact distance to the destination airport.

Hook

Hook
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Hook »

One thing to be aware of is that the magnetic deviation (is that the correct term?) from modern charts does not perfectly match what is in the sim, even if you update the file. Generally this is not an issue, but Little NavMap (and probably Plan-G) should give you the correct magnetic heading. I prefer to use the "direct" magnetic heading from Little NavMap as it seems to be closer.

If you plot a course from a VOR in SkyVector it will give you the radial to fly, not the magnetic heading. Sometimes these are off and you can test it in SkyVector my moving the waypoint a bit on the line you intend to fly to see if the reported direction is the same. Obviously with the P-40 you don't need to plot courses from a VOR.

If there's a convenient airport on my route, I'll use it as a waypoint. If not it's lakes, towns, bends in rivers, sometimes road intersections. Anything you can recognize from altitude and far away.

Hook

Hook
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Hook »

Although you are flying a compass course, fixating on the compass will make you crazy. Instead, get the compass pointed where you want it, then look over the nose and find an "aiming point". This can be a darker or lighter spot on the ground, some terrain feature you can see, some pattern in the clouds, whatever you can find. This keeps your head out of the cockpit where it should be.

The wind will cause you to drift, so check your compass with your aiming point periodically to see if it's offset right or left from the ideal compass point. Correct as necessary, and this is probably more art than science at this level. If you're using a pattern in the clouds (I often use an opening between two clouds) keep in mind that clouds may change or drift differently than your aircraft, so adjust your heading as needed.

I like using a distant hill the best. I determine how far left or right of the hill to steer and keep that course by watching the hill and checking with the compass ocasionally. If you've got a handy lake you just fly toward some feature of the lake until you get there, then find another aiming point farther on your course.

If you're following a road, don't try to fly directly over the road, but fly to one side (I prefer the right) so I can see the road to the left of my cockpit without straining. Keep close enough to see the road, but far enough away so you don't have to crane your neck to see it.

The fun part is when you have to dodge clouds. You do not under any circumstances want to fly through a thunderhead. If I have to fly 30 degrees offset to the left from my intended course for a while, I try to fly offset to the right for a while afterwards. This is not exact and I try to balance them as best I can. Oddly enough, meandering through clouds like this may not move you very far off your intended ground track. I'm always surprised when I've done a slalom around clouds and still find my destination about where I expect. Lindbergh was surprised when he hit the coast of the UK just about where he expected after flying well off his course for a while and not correcting for the great circle route for a few hours. This can't be skill, it happens far too often to be luck, so it must be easier to fly a dead reckoning course than you might think.

The only time I've missed a waypoint is when I misread either my flight plan instructions or the compass and flew 20 degrees off the course I intended. Don't confuse 60 and 80 or you'll be using the Shift-5 map to figure out where you are. :D

You may find it useful to intentionally fly offset to one side of the course to your destination in order to make sure you hit a landmark you can see. An example is flying from Key West, Florida to Havana, Cuba. Don't fly directly toward Havana, fly slightly to the left of that course. When you hit the coast of Cuba, if you don't see Havana right there, you know it's somewhere on your right, so turn right and fly down the coast until you see the city. I might do this with any coastline or river or large lake, just to make sure in case I'm off my intended course. This is especially useful in very low visibility.

Hook

Louis8m
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Louis8m »

Well i'm getting the hang of it i think hook, boy this plane is some bucket of bolts .I'm just going back and forth from Bowerman KHQM to KORS i have the SkyVector map up on my second monitor but man i find it hard, so i started using my Track IR and i find it's way better . I'm not using active sky yet just fair weather .I remember before i had my Trac IR that i bought at a flight sim conference, my son who is Capt on a 737- 700 NG real world ,came to the house one night when i was flying the 737,and he said to me "How do you guys fly like this ? so looking around and trying not to go in Spot view at all,with the Trac IR it's a lot easier to look for landmarks , have a way's to go yet but it's coming . Getting into Bowerman isn't to to bad but getting into KORS with all those little island is a bit of a challenge.Louis CYYC
Louis Massicotte -Caroline alberta

Hook
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Hook »

I've always said that TrackIR is the most important peripheral after a joystick. The ability to look around naturally makes a world of difference. It wasn't until I had TrackIR that I could time my turn to final properly.

One thing that helps in finding landmarks is to use a fairly high zoom level. I have my P3D set to 0.8 zoom. This makes instruments appear about life size on my 24" monitor and makes the outside world somewhat more dramatic. You almost have to have something like TrackIR in order to use a zoom level that high. I first started using that zoom level back before I had TrackIR and while it was possible it was difficult.

The 0.8 zoom level makes Heidi's head in the Cub look too big, but that's because she's actually closer to you than your monitor. :D

Hook

Hook
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Hook »

I got tired of annoying bugs in Vehicle Simulator after about 80 hours and loaded the flight sim after a couple of weeks away from it. Did a short Cub flight to check things out. Installed and updated the P-40, no problems except the first attempt at updating but knew what to do from the many posts about it.

Jumped in the plane, looked around, tried to figure things out. I had made one quick pass through the manual(s), watched a few videos and read a few forum posts so I had some idea what was going on. Mostly.

I flew from SABA to San Juan, Puerto Rico with a detour off my original plan to overfly the Virgin Islands. Yeah, same places I've been sailing recently and I wanted to see what it looked like in P3D while it was still fresh in my mind.

I didn't crash, not even once! I got close more times than I care to admit flying close to the ground. I had some idea how to work the flaps and gear totally manually but it was a definite distraction, dangerous when you're flying under 500 feet because you just took off or are about to land. Aircraft was easy to control, and at low cruise power I needed a lot of left rudder trim.

Time to hit the various customizations. "General condition" becomes "Engine condition", all the dark gray on dark gray text will be lightened so I have some possibility of reading it. Lots of research in the documentation and some likely updates to the checklist.

It's a good airplane. I may have to get the T-6 and one of the other warbirds because of this. I'd probably never have considered those seriously without the P-40. Good job, A2A. :D

Hook

PS.

Next part of the tutorial (if I haven't forgotten anything else) will be the total flight planning phase, which involves Google Earth and some hints on how to use the E6-B (or Dalton, depending probably on where you bought it) during this process. I'll get around to his eventually after I've done it a few more times... I'm out of practice at the moment.

H.

Louis8m
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Re: A Nav and Engine question

Post by Louis8m »

How's my new found buddy Capt Hook ? I found i had to practice Touch --Go's and a large airport to get the hang of this beast, you have to really get on the rudders and work them hard . Boy watching a pile of videos there some that are really good at flying this beast and they all say its harder then the real one and takes a lot of practice .Your look for lakes, and pick a hill to steer, instead of chasing the compass really works better. Our of curiosity are you using FSUIPC for you rudders and everything else ? cause no one seems to talk about the sensitivity settings with i would think makes a big difference i had my slope set at 10 pulled down not up and just changed it to 5 so i'll see if it makes a difference. A hundred mile trip, all be hand, no nav aids a guy is pretty much ready for bed :( ------Louis
Louis Massicotte -Caroline alberta

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