How does a pilot navigate through the air?

Question

How does the pilot stay on course? What is a heading? How does the pilot know he is on that heading? Does he get an altitude to stay at and direction and must stay within a certain amount of ft at all times? I do not understand how a pilot knows he is on course. What does he follow? Charts, navigational equipment? Fill me in thanks.

Answer 1

Depends on what kind of flying you are doing.



The most basic form of navigation is pilotage. That is taking landmarks and comparing them to map or memory. You will usually do this on a familiar route where you know roughly how long your flight is going to take or you have lots of fuel or alternate airports to land. This is the way I fly 99% of the time, I always carry maps but rarely use them, GPS is on for groundspeed only.



Next is dead reckoning. This is what your navigation exercises in PPL training will concentrate on. You plot out a course on a map, and figure out the distance speed and time on route of your aircraft, then correct it for forecast winds with a computer (usually an ancient mechanical circular slide rule called an E6B). Once in the plane, you check your progress against landmarks, but most likely they are wrong so you need to revise your heading and ETA. As inaccurate and old this method is, it got Allied bombers to Europe before ground based nav aids were available and it has saved my bacon once or twice.



The previous methods are for Visual Flight Rules only.



Next is ground based nav aids. These can be used for VFR or IFR.



The most basic are Non Directional Beacons (NDBs). These combined with an automatic direction finder (ADF) will give you a bearing to the station. Two combined can give you a position fix (not very accurate) and airways are formed and maintained by keeping a constant bearing to the station until you pass it, then switching to the next one or keeping a constant bearing from the station. VORs are an evolution of NDBs, but they are directional because they can paint a pathway for the aircraft to follow. You turn the Omni Bearing Selector, and the needle will tell you where the pathway is and whether you are drifting to the right or left.

DME is distance measuring equipment which will tell you how far you are from the station. Combined with a VOR, you can also get a position fix. There are other ground based stations like Localizers and ILS for instrument approaches (though all the other ones I mentioned can be used for approaches).



GPS is a space based navigation system and is used pretty much universally in both VFR and IFR environments due to the accuracy, widespread availability, and low cost of receivers. But they do have limitations as they aren't as robust as ground based stations and not as easily monitored. Thus for both VFR and IFR you need to have backup methods of navigation (usually pilotage and maps VFR, ground based navaids in IFR--at least for alternate destinations).

Answer 2

Most planes now have a sophisticated GPS like a Sat Nav for planes that can pinpoint the plane to withing a few metres, These often have pre programmed information about airport facilities etc and approach paths. They can be integrated with the planes autopilot and programmed to follow a course automatically.

There are many radio beacons all over the world on known frequencies and locations that on board recievers can use to determine the location of the plane.

Charts are used for airport approach and take off paths to show where potential high obstructions are and to regulate the paths in the busy area. these show the pilot what heights to be at at what points and maximum speeds in some cases.



The above is a simplified explanation and unless you are going to be a pilot where you will be taught a lot more, this is all you really need to know.

The heading is the compass bearing in degrees that the plane is pointing at, the course is its intended direction.

There are airways in the sky that air traffic controllers use to direct planes so that they are unlikely to ever crash or get close to one another. In tight conditions like around airports a 100ft altitude deviation is acceptable but at higher altitudes like say over oceans 500ft is not a problem.

Answer 3

Pilots use various types of navigation equipment to find their way from place to place, often in conjunction with aeronautical charts that may be on paper or stored in an electronic flight bag (essentially an overpriced iPad-like device).



Pilots of small private aircraft often depend on GPS receivers (sometimes far more than they should). They may also navigate using VOR radio navigation stations, or beacons, or simply by looking out the windows, if they are flying under visual flight rules.



Airline pilots navigate using sophisticated flight management systems. They can also navigate using methods similar to those of private pilots, except that GPS units are not present in airliner cockpits.(Airliners often have GPS receivers, but they are integrated into the flight management system, as one of several navigation aids that the computers use to determine position and direct the flight.)

Answer 4

There are as many ways to fly as there are opinions in congress. Yes, some people mentioned GPS but not every airplane in a particular airline, or every airline has them. Here is a little list for you and you can check on them yourself.



FMGC/FMC – the nav database of the Flight Management (Guidance on Airbus) Computer



INS – Inertial Navigation System – designed for the Apollo program to go to the moon.



IRS – Inertial Reference System



VLF Omega – originally designed for submarines called by pilots a poor man’s INS.



LORAN C – Long Range Navigation poor man’s Omega



Cell Nav – celestial navigation – using a sextant – navigators - is still used in the military & by Russians.



VOR – VHF omnidirectional radio range.



NDB – non directional beacon – not used for airway navigation much in the western world but is used in Africa and approach navigation. As late as 1989 Cleveland Hopkins International Airport had an NDB as their only instrument approach for nearly a year – it was scary because there were no GPSs back then on DC-9s.



ASR/PAR/GCA - Approach Surveillance Radar, Precision Approach Radar and Ground Control Radar guidance.



DR – Dead Reckoning – picking up a heading, correcting for visible wind (smoke, contrail, waves) and flying a track. Pretty much what Lindbergh did in crossing the North Atlantic.



http://bulgariaskivacations.com/latestinformation/transportation/photos/



IFR – I Follow Road – self explanatory



INV – I Need Vectors - my favorite.

Answer 5

Pilot stays on course using Avionics instruments that includes altimeter, global positioning system etc..

Heading is the direction in which the aircraft cruises .....

Yes, Pilot gets altitude through altimeter and stays at all times with use of Autopilot...

Pilot will get assistance from Air Traffic Control to know about his course apart from these avionics instruments.

He follows the rules governed by FAA and particular to the rules posted by the country's aviation body .....

Answer 6

There are 2 real ways to do this.

1) Modern - GPS (yes, they make Garmins for aircraft)

2) Old Fashioned - on the ground you pull out an aeronautical chart ( called a sectional) and plot an azimuth (or heading). Once in the air, there are instruments in the aircraft to keep everything kosher. Altimeter will measure altitude. Compasses for headings. and a few other things.

Flying a course is pretty easy once you learn how.

For more information check out this link, they taught me everything I know! http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/html/index.htm

Answer 7

Airliners use different navigation strategies for redundancy, consisting of ineffective reckoning with inertial reference structures, radio navigation with the help of way of VOR stations, and radio navigation with the help of way of GPS satellites. they have countless of each and every form of navigation gadget to grant returned-up in case of disasters. For landing, they use greater often than not ILS for precision techniques, and GPS or VOR for non-precision techniques. there is not any VFR for commercial airliners. They continuously fly IFR, no rely what the climate is like. The FMS includes computers that direct the autopilot, which in turn flies the plane for many of a flight. The FMS knows the completed direction of the flight, the two laterally and vertically, and could take care of the bargain of the departure, en-direction, and arrival ranges of the flight. Take-offs are frequently flown with the help of hand; so are landings, different than in undesirable climate, wherein case the on-board computers could be recommended to autoland the plane immediately. Airliners are in touch with ATC continuously, from gate to gate. Airline pilots are required to stick to ATC training in any respect cases, except they can't for risk-free practices motives. In a private plane, whilst you're flying VFR, altitude is at your discretion as long as you stick to three policies. whilst you're flying IFR, you're assigned altitudes with the help of ATC, based in part on your filed flight plan. whilst you're VFR in specific varieties of controlled airspace around considerable airports, ATC could additionally provide you headings and altitudes to stick to once you're in that airspace. Flight plans are required for IFR flights. they are optionally available for VFR flights different than in specific airspaces (including around Washington, D.C.). a number of those regulations selection from one usa to a different. The above is for the U.S.

Answer 8

GPS