Track Up or Track North?

[Lance F]

Track up.

 

[Sac Arrow]

I prefer track up, but when using a sectional enroute chart overlay, North up is helpful for no other reason than to be able to read the writing. Being able to switch back and forth easily is great.

 

[John221us]

I prefer track up, but when using a sectional enroute chart overlay, North up is helpful for no other reason than to be able to read the writing. Being able to switch back and forth easily is great.

They actually took care of the writing thing and rotate the tags.

 

[Sac Arrow]

They actually took care of the writing thing and rotate the tags.

Really. I can't wait to try it out once I get back. The best I can do right now is overlay a "world map."

 

[iflyforfun]

North up since I am a paper map guy from the dark ages.

Cheers

Ditto

I'm a bit of a Luddite. I had a 430, a 396 and FF on the iPhone and still felt naked if I didn't know EXACTLY where I was on the paper chart with the "best" VOR dialed in. Having North Up is much easier for me, though there are a few times where some mental mathmatics are necessary (which way do I want to turn when approaching a left had pattern for runway 030 from the NNE).

 

[Henning]

I'm not even sure what the hell is being discussed.

When you have a moving map, 'track up' has the Plane pointing from the bottom to the top of the screen in direction of travel. In 'north up' north is at the top of the display and the MLOD runs across the chart in its respective direction. Course up will have the MLOD running from bottom to top. There is no such thing as 'track north'.

 

[Henning]

They actually took care of the writing thing and rotate the tags.

I've always been able to read upside down, backwards and in a mirror, that stuff never bothered me.

 

[Witmo]

I use track-up because that's what I got used to in the A-6, RF-4, and F-111 long before there were mapping displays in light aircraft. I know several former B-52 navigators who prefer north-up since that's what they had in the Buff back then and that's what they learned to read. Consider it a Law of Primacy issue -- you're likely to be more comforatable with what you learned first.

That said, most of my instrument trainees seem to do better with track-up, but some do better with north-up. Guess it's a matter of "whatever works for you."

When I was a flight examiner at Nav training giving Sim checks to new nav instructors, it was always easy to figure out which ones flew fighters and which ones came from heavies. Since the radar had to be configured North Up for the initial sim check, the heavy navs would sit straight up and look comfortable while the WSOs would contort their head and shoulders around to line up their forhead with their track on the scope. If I was especilly mean that day, they'd get a lot of southerly vectors.

 

[LDJones]

When I was a flight examiner at Nav training giving Sim checks to new nav instructors, it was always easy to figure out which ones flew fighters and which ones came from heavies. Since the radar had to be configured North Up for the initial sim check, the heavy navs would sit straight up and look comfortable while the WSOs would contort their head and shoulders around to line up their forhead with their track on the scope. If I was especilly mean that day, they'd get a lot of southerly vectors.

That's really funny! I'm completely fine with either and use both, sometimes concurrently.

 

[Gadgetman]

I tried Track Up today however, I felt more disoriented because the whole map page started moving. I still prefer Track North Up.

 

[jbarrass]

Track up. Always. In Pathfinder school they told me I'd die if I did North up.....OK, maybe not die but certainly not pass the course which would have been the same thing....almost.

 

[JimNtexas]

In USAF nav school they taught us that trying to fly south with a north up display (or holding the chart north up going south) is certain to result in a left/right error. They'd had studies done on this subject.