Flying IFR outside airways

[brzapa 0]

Hi all,I don't think that is the best place to put this kind of question, but I didn't find any other place better, like a learn to flight forum. :( If someone could help me, I'll appreciate so much :( Lets imagine the following situation:I have a single prop. plane equipped with one VOR and one ADF and I need to flight from an controlled airport to a small VFR airport 300nm from my departure. I planned my flight and I realized that if I flight in the radial 300

[RyanB 0]

Hi all,So based on that situation I take off from my departure on FL080 and begin to follow my radial to my arrival, at about 100nm (an assumption) I lose the signal from the VOR for an unknown reason and I don't have any other radio station (VOR or ADF) near to help me to reach my arrival, so in this situation should I necessarily change my flight rules to VFR or can I continue my flight over IFR just using the compass to guide until the arrival.

VOR's are line of sight, and their signals are only good for so long. This is why airways are used, they specify a MEA which must be flown above for terrain/radio nav. You could cancel your IFR if you were in VMC. But you have to know how you're going to get to the airport if you do cancel (and have pre-worked that out).......You'd need some sort of plan of action. It's like chess, always be ahead of the airplane by 6-10 moves..."can I continue my flight over IFR just using the compass to guide until the arrival"Not unless you're receiving radar vectors. the term CFIT comes to mind.Lets say for example you wanted to go to that VFR airport, but the airport you're departing has bad visibility down low - but there's nice clear skies above this or that layer....Request a climb to VFR on top, you'd climb under IFR with the departure controller and as soon as you were above the cloud layer and could maintain VFR minima, IFR gets canceled and you continue using VOR's and maintaining your own seperation without radar. as soon as you can see the ground again, you begin making use of dead reckoning. not horribly difficult.another option is a composite flightplan. this is where you file both IFR and VFR, and specify an IFR portion of the flight and VFR portion.lets say you start IFR and end VFR. reaching your clearence limit fix/nav aid your radar services would end and you would call a Flight service station to open the VFR portion of your plan. additionally, if you needed to - you could advise that you need to extend the IFR portion, and ATC would give you an amended clearence, or put you in a hold until they could.Lots of options (Most of these are not understood by FS ATC)

[flaminghotsauce 1]

If you're solid IFR, how could you possibly navigate to a station without ANY VORs or NDBs nearby to help you navigate? IFR is Instrument flight, and you need to rely on your instruments to navigate. If you have no instruments to navigate by, don't go improvising in the clouds. Find a place to land. That sounds like a flight that should not be attempted, unless as previously stated, you're going to be running into VFR conditions. This is where pre-flight planning comes in. You MUST be able to navigate with no reference to the ground to your destination. Somehow, some way. GPS is changing all this, of course. If you have a GPS approved for IFR navigation, you can make this flight safely. But your conditions VOR and ADF only, preclude this option.

[DC_Ed 3]

If there are no airways you cannot plan to fly IFR. You can effectively fly IFR without flying a specific airway once you are airborne (and filed an IFR route in the flight plan) and requesting a "direct-to".As Ryan said, you cannot continue to fly IFR without any navigation signal. If you lose signals from any navaid you should notify ATC that you have degraded navigation capability, maybe then they can provide you with some help (i.e. radar vectors). In this particular case you'd have to fly VFR as there are no airways from A to B.

[ronzie 21]

VORs also come in different transmission strengths. If you are using high altitude IFR enroute charts you will not see all enroute VORs used on the low altitude charts. Both high and low enroute chart airways avoid these lowest power VORs. The reason all VORs are not high powered is because of the range of frequencies available. There would not be enough to go around without VORs interfering with each other.Many airport based VORs are of the low power variety used for navigation departure and arrivals purposes. Even flying at high altitude will not improve their reception. Also what can affect VOR range are terrain obstacles blocking the slant/range reception in specific directions.If there is no airway between your desired points but there are airways crossing your path you could look at plotting your route using intersecting radials as custom defined intersections. It is easiest to do this with two nav units. If you only have one nav unit (but you must have two for an IFR certified aircraft) and if the VORs have DME then you can define your intersections accordingly. In your single engine prop you would probably be flying less then the controlled airspace at or above 18,000 feet so low altitude IFR enroute charts would be of interest. These show an enroute MSA but also show in each quadrant an MSA for the highest point in that quadrant. The quadrant based MSAs are also on sectional charts.If your aircraft is GPS equipped then you might in low traffic areas get cleared for off airway (direct-to) by ATC in IFR conditions providing they can provide radar separation. If not and they are willing to accept reporting points if you route through known intersections they might provide a clearance. If you are going to fly "on top" as previously noted and refile to get down where radar is available you might get clearance at low density traffic areas.The purpose of airways is to provide an orderly flow of traffic especially when positions are monitored by ATC. These airways are plotted on scopes or other facilities and with radar or position reporting they can maintain separation through known tracks. In VFR you are solely responsible for separation even if receiving flight following.If you decide to fly on-top of a cloud layer by compass dead reckoning alone then carry enough fuel to allow for your drifting off your planned track.Consider flying from an airport merging onto a radial of a higher powered VOR and then using that to engage another high powered VOR radial and then flying using that one to your destination. The added distance may not be that much. Otherwise use your GPS/FMC like system if available and charts to provide obstacle clearance for the most direct route. Be prepared to go basic, however, if any nav instrument fails.If your route crosses any high density airports with terminal control areas you probably will have to fly VFR control corridors at specific altitudes for traffic separation.You can get good tips from here:http://www.stoenworks.com/Aviation%20home%20page.html

[brzapa 0]

VOR's are line of sight, and their signals are only good for so long. This is why airways are used, they specify a MEA which must be flown above for terrain/radio nav. You could cancel your IFR if you were in VMC. But you have to know how you're going to get to the airport if you do cancel (and have pre-worked that out).......You'd need some sort of plan of action. It's like chess, always be ahead of the airplane by 6-10 moves..."can I continue my flight over IFR just using the compass to guide until the arrival"Not unless you're receiving radar vectors. the term CFIT comes to mind.Lets say for example you wanted to go to that VFR airport, but the airport you're departing has bad visibility down low - but there's nice clear skies above this or that layer....Request a climb to VFR on top, you'd climb under IFR with the departure controller and as soon as you were above the cloud layer and could maintain VFR minima, IFR gets canceled and you continue using VOR's and maintaining your own seperation without radar. as soon as you can see the ground again, you begin making use of dead reckoning. not horribly difficult.another option is a composite flightplan. this is where you file both IFR and VFR, and specify an IFR portion of the flight and VFR portion.lets say you start IFR and end VFR. reaching your clearence limit fix/nav aid your radar services would end and you would call a Flight service station to open the VFR portion of your plan. additionally, if you needed to - you could advise that you need to extend the IFR portion, and ATC would give you an amended clearence, or put you in a hold until they could.Lots of options (Most of these are not understood by FS ATC)

Hi Ryan,I didn't understand why you told that CFIT came to mind, if you have planned safely your flight, I mean, taking care about terrain and everything else that is necessary to do a safe flight, I don't see any problem with CFIT. Maybe I'm wrong in my understand about your message.You also told something about using VOR when I'm over VFR. If I'm not wrong, I read somewhere else that you can't use VOR or ADF during VFR flights (it sounds a little bit weird), I don't think that is a problem check the VOR to make sure that your VFR navigation is going well, but when we're are making a VFR flight shouldn't we use visual references to guide us during the flight?The last thing :D... You told that using only compass I can't continue my flight over IFR, there is any place where I can find this prohibition? Isn't the compass a primary mean of navigation like VOR and ADF?Thanks a lot for your help.

If you're solid IFR, how could you possibly navigate to a station without ANY VORs or NDBs nearby to help you navigate? IFR is Instrument flight, and you need to rely on your instruments to navigate. If you have no instruments to navigate by, don't go improvising in the clouds. Find a place to land. That sounds like a flight that should not be attempted, unless as previously stated, you're going to be running into VFR conditions. This is where pre-flight planning comes in. You MUST be able to navigate with no reference to the ground to your destination. Somehow, some way. GPS is changing all this, of course. If you have a GPS approved for IFR navigation, you can make this flight safely. But your conditions VOR and ADF only, preclude this option.

Hi flaminghotsauce,Yours considerations take me to think about again on the same question that I did above, isn't compass a primary mean of navigation? couldn't I make a IFR flight using only it, the compass, and estimates based on my plane speed, winds, etc...?Thanks for you reply as well.

[brzapa 0]

If there are no airways you cannot plan to fly IFR. You can effectively fly IFR without flying a specific airway once you are airborne (and filed an IFR route in the flight plan) and requesting a "direct-to".As Ryan said, you cannot continue to fly IFR without any navigation signal. If you lose signals from any navaid you should notify ATC that you have degraded navigation capability, maybe then they can provide you with some help (i.e. radar vectors). In this particular case you'd have to fly VFR as there are no airways from A to B.

Hi DC_Ed,I disagree with you when you talk that isn't possible to make an IFR flight between two point where there aren't airways. It's possible, you don't need be flying to make an IFR flight like that.If I'm wrong, please let me know.Thanks.

[RyanB 0]

Compass is not a primary means of Navigation during IFR (it can be during VFR when mixed with the eyeball), because heading does not constitute track, and using only heading, you can be very easily blown off the desired course.Controlled flight into terrain then has a great possibility of ensuing.The purpose of an airways is to guarantee a pilot radio signals for navigation as well as clearence from terrain. if you have an IFR GPS or FMS with VOR/DME RNAV or INS capability, then you are capable of RNAV, but not necessarily guaranteeing yourself of terrain clearence by "Making up your own route". To use IFR GPS equipment in navigation gets very, very complex (FAA laws on RNAV are very particular to equipment, and vary substantially) , enroute you have "Q" airways, which are RNAV airways (There's only a few in the entire US). think of it as - in IFR Flight there are 3 gods:AirwaysControllersDP's and IAP'sTo disobey is to find yourself brushing noses with other traffic and/or the ground. airports with IFR procedures will have a way of feeding from enroute to terminal, VFR airports........well they're only meant for VFR. Fly IFR if you need to, and cancel while enroute. Don't go off the airways to shorten your route during IFR procedures though, it's a No-no.Also, pray to your gods, they will give you safe deliverance :( (most of the time anyway, unless the controller has a human failure, or an airway has a navaid failure or an IAP does the same, but you have a level of redundancy in assisting you out of failures, generally it isn't too much of a problem)

[brzapa 0]

Thanks a lot for your help.I raised those questions because last week I had a debate with a friend about this kind of flight and yours reply was what I was expecting.Now based on yours arguments I'll continue talk to him :DRonzie told something interesting about the VORs, here in Brazil the Agency that takes care of aviation in our territory is installing more than one VOR in some movimented terminals to work like he told. One VOR will be responsible to guide the aircrafts in airways and the other one to help the IAP and DP near the terminal. I've never heard about that before but it's a wise decision. ;)Thanks a lot everyone.

[flaminghotsauce 1]

Hi Ryan,I didn't understand why you told that CFIT came to mind, if you have planned safely your flight, I mean, taking care about terrain and everything else that is necessary to do a safe flight, I don't see any problem with CFIT. Maybe I'm wrong in my understand about your message.You also told something about using VOR when I'm over VFR. If I'm not wrong, I read somewhere else that you can't use VOR or ADF during VFR flights (it sounds a little bit weird), I don't think that is a problem check the VOR to make sure that your VFR navigation is going well, but when we're are making a VFR flight shouldn't we use visual references to guide us during the flight?The last thing :D... You told that using only compass I can't continue my flight over IFR, there is any place where I can find this prohibition? Isn't the compass a primary mean of navigation like VOR and ADF?Thanks a lot for your help.Hi flaminghotsauce,Yours considerations take me to think about again on the same question that I did above, isn't compass a primary mean of navigation? couldn't I make a IFR flight using only it, the compass, and estimates based on my plane speed, winds, etc...?Thanks for you reply as well.

You most certainly can use VORs and ADF for visual flight rules. I always liked to triangulate radials off VORs to get my precise point on the chart, or to plot out where to begin my descent. TheVOR and ADF only airplane can make an IFR trip. But you will need to assume that you will be without visual reference to the ground. Then, flying into a VFR airport with no radio navaids at all to help, is you flying totally blind, hoping your compass doesn't lead you astray. How can you be sure? How can you check for wind drift? You also must assume the possibility of lost communications. This is one of the benefits of filing and flying IFR. ATC will assume in lost communications scenarios that you will continue on your filed course. What course have you filed with a compass? When you start planning such a trip as you suggest, you are planning a blind flight using dead reckoning as a navigation technique. This is a nav technique done in VFR. You will have no assurance that you're anywhere near the airport. THEN assuming you get lucky and get close, a VFR only airport will not have a published approach, as there are no radio navaids there to base one on. How do you get down? How do you get lined up with the runway?The more you think this through, the worse the scenario gets.

[DC_Ed 3]

Hi DC_Ed,I disagree with you when you talk that isn't possible to make an IFR flight between two point where there aren't airways. It's possible, you don't need be flying to make an IFR flight like that.If I'm wrong, please let me know.Thanks.

Compass is not a primary means of Navigation during IFR (it can be during VFR when mixed with the eyeball), because heading does not constitute track, and using only heading, you can be very easily blown off the desired course.Controlled flight into terrain then has a great possibility of ensuing.The purpose of an airways is to guarantee a pilot radio signals for navigation as well as clearence from terrain. if you have an IFR GPS or FMS with VOR/DME RNAV or INS capability, then you are capable of RNAV, but not necessarily guaranteeing yourself of terrain clearence by "Making up your own route". To use IFR GPS equipment in navigation gets very, very complex (FAA laws on RNAV are very particular to equipment, and vary substantially) , enroute you have "Q" airways, which are RNAV airways (There's only a few in the entire US). think of it as - in IFR Flight there are 3 gods:AirwaysControllersDP's and IAP'sTo disobey is to find yourself brushing noses with other traffic and/or the ground. airports with IFR procedures will have a way of feeding from enroute to terminal, VFR airports........well they're only meant for VFR. Fly IFR if you need to, and cancel while enroute. Don't go off the airways to shorten your route during IFR procedures though, it's a No-no.Also, pray to your gods, they will give you safe deliverance :( (most of the time anyway, unless the controller has a human failure, or an airway has a navaid failure or an IAP does the same, but you have a level of redundancy in assisting you out of failures, generally it isn't too much of a problem)

You see my point? :(

[ronzie 21]

Magnetic compass is not an accurate reliable means of precise navigation and can be off quite a bit due to various influences in local areas. In the areas for example of the north and south shores of Lake Superior (U.S.) from Duluth east there are several areas marked that magnetic disturbances exist, as much as 18 degrees at ground level. (WAC chart CF-18 2001.3) While no reason is given, these areas do have spotty high concentrations of ore deposits containing iron in one form or another. The area high iron content is also hilly so its affect on the Earth's magnetic flux lines will cause distortion of the typical global pole to pole pattern.There are Victor airways along the routes from Duluth along both shores, however, to assist VFR and allow low altitude IFR looking at this chart. You might find it interesting that on this chart the on airfield MSP VOR at KMSP, Minneapolis, is not shown nor shows any Victor routes emanating from it, but they do emanate from the GEP VOR about forty miles NNW of KMSP. GEP is also on the low and high altitude IFR charts. This illustrates the different classes of VORs designed for different purposes. They are described here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirec...route_Structure

[brzapa 0]

You see my point? :(

Hi DC_Ed,yeap :( now I understood your point.Thanks a lot