Poll: Do you always use electronic navigation on long XC trips?

[Theboys]

I use them most of the time. Just did a 11 hour xcountry and when I was getting ready to taxi my garmin said low voltage alert. Said I had 11.5 volts input. So after figuring out the problem it said I had 14.1 volts and I was ready to go. Couldn't really tell from the lights it was not charging. Also had lots of storm cells to avoid. Made several diversions from my original plan on foreflight. Was not a problem. Just poked on airport and brought up weather and winds and landed. Had Two Gps's and foreflight with Stratus. Was great. Will be doing same trip in two weeks and plan on using it again. I do use Vor's also just for the practice and fly short flights (less than several hours without) occasionally.

 

[Geico266]

I guess you must be new here.....the Navy just moved me to Virginia from SoCal a month ago. Done quite a bit of mountain flying in the southwest. I was referring to recent trips in the Rockies.....you know where the mountain peaks are higher than some non-turbo service ceilings?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Not for RV's.

 

[Henning]

Missed my answer, "when I have to". I don't do it by choice really anymore considering the proliferation of cheap GPS units, but I've crossed the country on Platte charts and a Rand McNally trucker's atlas so it's not like I'm worried about doing it. If someone else is paying the fuel bill, I'm more willing to go sans GPS, but it's probably the second greatest fuel saving device in the plane after the red handles.

 

[bullwinkle]

Not using a GPS when available seems like a good way to bust airspace, in the post-9/11 world of pop-up TFRs and other annoyances. In some areas this isn't really a problem, but a lot of the USA has a ton of weird airspace to pick your way around.

 

[midlifeflyer]

1. You're flying VFR in mountain conditions and following the twists and turns of a river with a magenta line is much more heads-down time than you should tolerate under that circumstance. Your trajectory is determined by terrain (right side of valleys, crossing ridges at 45 deg, etc.), and it wasn't designed with GPS in mind.

2. You're approaching a nontowered airport in VFR conditions on a really nice Saturday afternoon in the summer, and having your head down risks a mid-air.

3. You're flying over a VOR in VFR conditions at a VFR altitude.

4. Your engine is running rough over the city and can see at least one airport nearby that wasn't on your flight plan.

There are quite a number of reasons not to use a GPS for at least part of a flight.

I really don't understand why one would not use GPS in those situations.

#1. I use GPS in the mountains as an overview of my route, not for the purpose of following the magenta line but for overall sitatuional awareness and decision making.

#2. Why would my head be down with a GPS? That's quite an assumption. I doubht this is the case, but it sounds like someone who has never used one (or wants to prove that they are bad...bad.. and is creating only worst case scenarios - that apply at least as much to the use of charts, flight logs and paper charts as to GPS).

#3. I have no idea what this was intended to mean. Why would the availability of a GPS have anything to do with VOR capability or the altitudes I choose to fly?

#4. This one I understand. I tried to do a diversion one day and a huge hand came out of the GPS, grabbed the yoke and made sure I only went to a flight-planned airport.

 

[Ted]

Depends on what I'm doing. But typically, I've got the GPS dialed in since I'm on an IFR flight plan for virtually every flight.

 

[Henning]

I really don't understand why one would not use GPS in those situations.

#1. I use GPS in the mountains as an overview of my route, not for the purpose of following the magenta line but for overall sitatuional awareness and decision making.

#2. Why would my head be down with a GPS? That's quite an assumption. I doubht this is the case, but it sounds like someone who has never used one (or wants to prove that they are bad...bad.. and is creating only worst case scenarios - that apply at least as much to the use of charts, flight logs and paper charts as to GPS).

#3. I have no idea what this was intended to mean. Why would the availability of a GPS have anything to do with VOR capability or the altitudes I choose to fly?

#4. This one I understand. I tried to do a diversion one day and a huge hand came out of the GPS, grabbed the yoke and made sure I only went to a flight-planned airport.

My question as well, I find moving map GPS technology far reduces my heads down time as the information I need even in those situations such as, 'which pass has lower terrain on the other side' and such to be much faster to gather than using paper. With the terrain feature I can see in an instant if the other side has a way out below my altitude or not.

 

[Ddayle]

My Dad taught me to navigate in the sixties, That is how I still go. I like and use the VOR system. I find it easy to use. My club planes have 430 GPS's , I can just barely get up the moving map , and use it as a back up. Dave

 

[midlifeflyer]

I find the iPad requires too much fiddling. Also, screen is barely readable in full sunlight. Also, from time to time, if I didn't close out everything first, it will crash foreflight or wingx and I have to reacquire fixes, etc on restart.

I can honestly say that none of those events have been an issue in the year and 1/2 I've been happily flying with an iPad. I had to "fiddle" far more when I used paper.

 

[Velocity173]

Only 15.58 % said often or always??? Please, the most popular threads these days are the Foreflight, Xflight, iPad vs Nexus stuff. Everyone is using some sort of pocket nav sitting next to them or on their yoke. I don't have any of that new tech stuff but I assure you I have my Garmin 480 up and if that fails my BM EFIS has a GPS as well. One paper sectional is all the paper I use. If it's available I use it, and when it fails I revert to a map.

 

[Velocity173]

480 is nice, but I try not to use BM in the cockpit.

Yeah the BM is for backup. It's newer BM and actually quite reliable. Of course the old stuff had issues.

 

[denverpilot]

480 is nice, but I try not to use BM in the cockpit.

BM means something completely different in the medical world... and I believe we already had that thread. No no no. Haha.

 

[TMetzinger]

I use whatever the plane has installed. If I've got pax, I'll have my GPS96C at a minimum. If I'm flying for proficiency I may use pilotage just to keep in practice.

 

[Velocity173]

BM means something completely different in the medical world... and I believe we already had that thread. No no no. Haha.

Never realized there were so many other BMs out there. Were you referring to Breast Milk or Bloody Mary?

 

[denverpilot]

A friend once sent me to the Urban Dictionary to remind me never to shorten my nickname to "DP", after I referred to my lovely wife as "Mrs. DP" to shorten a sentence for Twitter. Yikes.

 

[Velocity173]

A friend once sent me to the Urban Dictionary to remind me never to shorten my nickname to "DP", after I referred to my lovely wife as "Mrs. DP" to shorten a sentence for Twitter. Yikes.

 

[Henning]

A friend once sent me to the Urban Dictionary to remind me never to shorten my nickname to "DP", after I referred to my lovely wife as "Mrs. DP" to shorten a sentence for Twitter. Yikes.

You really need to watch 'Orgazmo', it's on Netflix I believe, it's by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the guys from South Park.

 

[gismo]

Only 15.58 % said often or always??? Please, the most popular threads these days are the Foreflight, Xflight, iPad vs Nexus stuff. Everyone is using some sort of pocket nav sitting next to them or on their yoke. I don't have any of that new tech stuff but I assure you I have my Garmin 480 up and if that fails my BM EFIS has a GPS as well. One paper sectional is all the paper I use. If it's available I use it, and when it fails I revert to a map.

Are you thinking that meant that only 15.8% admitted to flying with GPS? The last option in the poll is for folks who rarely if every use electronic navigation (GPS, VOR, ADF, etc) not the other way around. Sorry if I made it confusing with the title having the opposite sense as the poll.

 

[Bob Noel]

Once you passed your PPL checkride have you continued to make trips using nothing but pilotage (chart marked with the route and visual checkpoints every 10-20nm along with a flight log to track your progress) and no electronic navigation (i.e no GPS, VOR, ADF, AN range)? I'm not talking about flights covering the same ground between two airports that you've flown often enough to get there without turning on the GPS or short hops to a nearby field but rather honest to gosh XC trips to new places that are far enough away that you actually plan a specific route.

My airplane has the gadgets (albeit no GPS), so I use them.

 

[L.Adamson]

1. You're flying VFR in mountain conditions and following the twists and turns of a river with a magenta line is much more heads-down time than you should tolerate under that circumstance. Your trajectory is determined by terrain (right side of valleys, crossing ridges at 45 deg, etc.), and it wasn't designed with GPS in mind.

2. You're approaching a nontowered airport in VFR conditions on a really nice Saturday afternoon in the summer, and having your head down risks a mid-air.

3. You're flying over a VOR in VFR conditions at a VFR altitude.

4. Your engine is running rough over the city and can see at least one airport nearby that wasn't on your flight plan.

There are quite a number of reasons not to use a GPS for at least part of a flight.

Mountain flight is about all I do. It's never heads down, as the Garmin 696 is very easy to see at a glance (this was preceeded by four other Garmin models since 1993). Long cross countries have always been pre-planned using up to date sectionals, and the route is loaded into the Garmin before flight. The advantage, is always knowing "exactly" where the destination is, even if you don't care to follow a planned course. And for those long cross country mountain flights, you can't beat having XM weather. I've even seen the shape of TFR's change, while in flight. Most of these were due to expanding forest fires.

Other than that, I've used terrain mapping GPS's, to document mountain crash sites, and just how well a good terrain GPS performs. In other words, it's too bad that most of those previous flyers didn't have this technology.

 

[Velocity173]

Are you thinking that meant that only 15.8% admitted to flying with GPS? The last option in the poll is for folks who rarely if every use electronic navigation (GPS, VOR, ADF, etc) not the other way around. Sorry if I made it confusing with the title having the opposite sense as the poll.

Ha! I'm an idiot. I miss read it. Now I gotta go back and change my vote.

 

[midlifeflyer]

Other than that, I've used terrain mapping GPS's, to document mountain crash sites, and just how well a good terrain GPS performs. In other words, it's too bad that most of those previous flyers didn't have this technology.

Good point. I had an engine problem in IMC over the mountains. My 396 was instrumental in getting us safely to a successful landing at an airport without hitting something high and hard on the way down.

I never quite understood the resistance some have to new technology that increases situational awareness, although I do recall a lot of whining about airspace reclassification and the adoption of ICAO weather codes among pilots when those occurred.

The "one can't possibly use a GPS without being heads down" view is particularly interesting. Due to the need to learn to do the calculations, many CFIs doing private training require their students to have visual checkpoints on their flight plans every 10-15 NM on a cross country and to do updated calculations at each one (non-GPS of course). And to actually calculate the time, course and distance to a diversion. Talk about heads-down time!

 

[Henning]

I never quite understood the resistance some have to new technology that increases situational awareness, although I do recall a lot of whining about airspace reclassification and the adoption of ICAO weather codes among pilots when those occurred.

It's called rationalization. They are rationalizing why they aren't spending that money. Conversely it's why those same people claim that the iPad can provide it all just as well as G-1000.

 

[gkainz]

ok, so I said "Sometimes when I feel like it" but apparently there are differing opinions on what that means. The 430 is on all the time, sometimes I look at it - glancing at the moving map just like another gauge or instrument. Sometimes I actually use it for minor course corrections, but usually I just point the nose of the airplane in the general direction of {N|E|W|S} and go ...
Like one of my common XC flights is KBJC-KCUT ... generally point the nose N and fly to the windmills near Cheyenne, continue N to split the difference between KTOR and 7V6, continue N-ish until you see the Black Hills looming in the horizon, then continue N-ish until Crazy Horse Monument shows up as a white splash on the mountains slightly right of center ... you're there ...

 

[zaitcev]

Once you passed your PPL checkride have you continued to make trips using nothing but pilotage (chart marked with the route and visual checkpoints every 10-20nm along with a flight log to track your progress) and no electronic navigation (i.e no GPS, VOR, ADF, AN range)?

Yes. However, the poll need an additional item: "yes, because all of the electronic equipment in rental airplane was inoperative". Coincidentially one of those flights was the only time I got lost. I was overconfident in my pilotage ability and perhaps did not plan it as carefuly as I should. Terrain was unfamiliar, and I ended following a wrong creek on the map. When I detected the problem, I realized that 1) there were several running in parallel, so I did not know if I should turn north or south, 2) I may not have enough fuel to reach another airport, 3) DF equipment is decommissioned in CONUS - thank you FAA. I eventually flew out by stopping panicing and finding alternative (unplanned) landmarks.

 

[gcd89]

VOR is the extent of my electronic nav usage.