How do pilots typically set NAV1 and NAV2 radios?

[Airbus 14]

After planning a flight what frequencies are typically set in the NAV radios while on route to your destination? Obviously on approach the ILS runway frequency (if available) is set into NAV1. But what about all the VORs on route? Is there some sort of protocol used in order to maintain situational awareness?Thanks for any information!Airbus

[Guest av84fun]

That issue depends entirely on the flight you are engaged in and the equipment (other than vor receivers) that you have on board.On the ILS...BOTH heads should be dialed to the ILS just in case you lose one...and many pilots keep the ID beeping so they know right away if they lose one.Typically, if you are flying a Victor airway, you would have VOR #1 set to the radial FROM the outbound VOR and the #2 set to the inbound radial TO the next VOR making up the airway...at least that's what I do.If you have GPS, then the VORs don't do much for you until encountering the approach but if you become incredibly bored, you can plot your position on a sectional or enroute chart by doing VOR cross bearings.You can also perform the required VOR accuracy checks in the air.Regards,Jim

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

Generally I have NAV 1 set to my course radial, and NAV 2 for the next intersection.----------------------------------------------------------------John MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Private ASEL 141.2 hrs, 314 landings, 46 inst. apprs.Virtual: MSFS 2004"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

[LAdamson 240]

>If you have GPS, then the VORs don't do much for you until>encountering the approach but if you become incredibly bored,>you can plot your position on a sectional or enroute chart by>doing VOR cross bearings.>Enroute with a GPS, that's all they're good for; just something to tinker with, to pass time. These days, dialing in the inbound, and dialing in the outbound, seems like a relic of the past. A few of us, are presently arguing GPS reliability, VORS, RAIM, etc. on the Hangar Forum. But I'll eventually win! :D I have too much "good" data backing up the reliability of "todays" new GPS recievers in combination with WAAS. L.Adamson

[bkeske 0]

Ditto.Or NAV 2 to pick up a radial along the way....typically set-up @ 90 degree (from course) from a selected 'check point' location.

[Guest allcott]

They can also be used to set the `start` and `finish` of a straight leg in cruise. If DME'd you can watch the one wind down while the other winds up. When the needle crosses the centreline and the numbers match,you reached your turning point. I used this method on my qualifying cross country, even though I had a map, stopwatch and photos of the turning points on my kneeboard. I seem to recall I was paranoid about not making the mistake of `making the waypoint fit the flightplan` and ending up at the wrong airfield wondering why they weren't answering the radio after reading about a poor student who did just that the night before my XC!But with GPS and the little red line these days why bother? Well, one very good reason is that those little dials provide an interactive link with your map from your panel. The current map that shows NOTAM'd areas, ATZ restrictions and the many other little things that the little red line will happily plough straight through! Not a problem in the wide-open spaces of the USA, but very very important in the crushed airspace restrictions and bloody Euro control zones in the UK and Europe. Allcott

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

I assume when you say red line, you mean keeping the plane icon on the magenta course line. You should not try to focus on keeping the white plane on the magenta line in the GPS map screen as it is a large scale depiction of what's really going on. Slave the GPS to OBS1, or use the the course deviation gauge at the bottom of the map (In the real Garmin GPSs, I'd switch to a different NAV Page that shows a larger course deviation gauge and no map).----------------------------------------------------------------John MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Private ASEL 141.2 hrs, 314 landings, 46 inst. apprs.Virtual: MSFS 2004"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

Yeah, I've only lost it once, and it was on a VMC day doing practice IFR approaches, but I keep NAVs set for redundancy in case of that "Oops, the virtually impossible happened!" situation when the thing quits.----------------------------------------------------------------John MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Private ASEL 141.2 hrs, 314 landings, 46 inst. apprs.Virtual: MSFS 2004"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

[LAdamson 240]

>Slave the GPS to OBS1, or use the the course deviation>gauge at the bottom of the map (In the real Garmin GPSs, I'd>switch to a different NAV Page that shows a larger course>deviation gauge and no map).>With a large screen MX20 slaved to a GPS, the right side MFD of a Garmin 1000 or Avidyne glass panel, or the full color high resolution screens of our little Garmin 296/396 hand-helds.........I'd always go for the moving map page (in zoom different scales) for flight, at least in the U.S. It's exceptional situational awareness with restricted area boundary lines, airspace class bounderies, current TFR's & weather with the Garmin 396, terrain displays, etc.With higher resolution color moving maps, we now have the option of overlaying nav page info on the map page, or just in seperate screen areas with a large MFD or PFD.L.Adamson

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

I'm saying for tracking a course. From the gist of his post, it sounded like he was doing what most of the students in my flight school (myself included) have been yelled at for doing in the past. That would be using the moving map as a navaid by keeping the white plane ontop of the magenta line, which is a highly inaccurate way to navigate. It is great for situation awareness, but not for tracking a course.----------------------------------------------------------------John MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Private ASEL 141.2 hrs, 314 landings, 46 inst. apprs.Virtual: MSFS 2004"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

[Dark Moment 0]

What's a GPS?Real men fly with a radio compass. VOR? DME? Whoa, that stuff is a bit advanced for me. But I guess I'll get to use it when somebody invents it .... ;-)Really, though, don't all you blokes get bored flying everywhere by GPS, moving map, whatever? To me there's nothing more interesting than flying in limited viz by using VOR and NDB equipment to navigate. Then when you see the runway lights materialize out of the gloom at decision height, you know that YOU have done it, not the computer. Satisfaction guaranteed.Mark Mark "Dark Moment" BeaumontVP Fleet, DC-3 AirwaysTeam Member, MAAM-SIM[a href=http://www.swiremariners.com/cathayhk.html" target="_blank]http://www.paxship.com/maamlogo2.jpg[/a]

[brucek 38]

Hi John,Me too. I was on a GPS approach on one of my stage-checks preceding my checkride, and when approaching the FAF I never got the approach mode, so did a miss as required. The fun part was that I had called FSS that morning to get briefings and also asked for a GPS NOTAM briefing, and got the RAIM outage there- but as I has already done some GPS work just prior to the outage with no problems had almost dismissed the NOTAM. It's great to see how that stuff works! The check pilot was rather surprised at how I knew that I had a RAIM outage, and thought that I had violated one of the other rules that one must follow in order to get the GPS to enter App Mode (hdg to FAF, etc.), but coluldn't figure which one as I had been doing a good approach up until then :). Bruce.

[yellow5 0]

>What's a GPS?I agree...:D I rarely use the GPS. I set my NAV 1 radio to track to the VOR, and set the NAV 2 for the next VOR. Once at the NAV 1 VOR, I will switch NAV 2 to NAV 1 and NAV 2 to the next VOR. If the VOR is too far away to pick up a signal, I will track outbound from the VOR just crossed over until the next VOR signal comes in on NAV 2.NDBs might make it into the mix, or a intersection where two radials cross....Kevin

[bkeske 0]

;)I still do sometimes...I fought the GPS thingy for a while until I came to the realization that 'things change'.Just like the olden days I went up in my new Carenado Stationair (which has autopilot, but no altitude hold.....OH NOOOOOOO....WHAT AM I GOING TO DOOOO...... ;) ) and flew a VOR/NBD course without the GPS. Man, I'll tell'ya what, it is sure tempting to pull that bad boy out and 'look' at it.....just to make sure'ya know...Gee whiz....I still remember how to do it....and the best part was? I had to fly the darn plane! ;)Reality though is different...I was looking for some real shots of real aircraft and looked at bunch of aircraft rental sites. It's amazing how many Cessna's and Piper's and whatnot are fitted with mounted GPS...and fully updated autpilot equipment. Was hardly a NavoMatic to be seen. Too bad, they are fun to throw coins into in order to maintain autopilot function in my Carenado Cessna's :DI even saw a couple glass cockpit Cessna's. No kidden, really...full MFD/PFD cockpits in a Cessna 172!....As a commercial pilot told me, have fun with those NBD's, because in real life they are slowly being dismanteled by the FAA in the US. Even VOR's are on the endangered species list. No lie.

[Guest]

never rely on computers to do something for you you can't do yourself.Call me paranoid but if I were to fly I'd always have a backup for a GPS nav unit (and most likely most of the time actually use the GPS as the backup).And I work in IT, I program the darn things for a living...