More Thoughts About VFR Flying

I know, I know; I was supposed to be back at MSP by now flying the "big iron". Instead, I'm still holed-up in Juneau in deteriorating weather learning more and more about VFR flying. To be sure, this has been facilitated by the excellent quality of the Orbx scenery available for Southern Alaska and the Pacific Fjords. Believe me, this makes VFR flying much more interesting than it would be with the default FSX scenery. This scenery makes real VFR flying actually possible. But, I have discovered several things that help.

First of all, I recommend buying (yes, that's right, actually paying money for) the appropriate Alaska sectionals. I recently bought the Ketchikan, Juneau, Whitehorse and Anchorage sectionals, as well as the Anchorage/Fairbanks Terminal Area Chart and the Nav Canada Alaska Highway chart. These beautiful color charts are about 55" by 21" and double sided. They display the terrain in about the same scale as the Skyvector charts blown up to their highest magnification and taped together with about 22 miles of scotch tape. There is something about a large format paper chart that beats "softcopy" hands down. Even if you have a separate monitor to display charts, it's not the same as the total vision you get from a real chart. Believe me, if you spend much of your valuable time doing VFR bush flying, these charts are well worth their modest cost.

Second, it's worth finding the right bush aircraft. This search has something in common with the quest for the holy grail. I have personally tried the Piper Cub, the popular FSX C208B, the Maule M7, the payware DHC-2 Beaver, DHC-6 Twin Otter, the Foundair Bushhawk and the Quest Kodiak. They all have their pluses and minuses. The Beaver probably handles the best and the Kodiak has the best avionics. I do not have a Cessna 185, which I know to be an excellent bush aircraft, as they are very popular and I have ridden as a passenger in Alaska in several of them. However, I have recently fallen in love with the Real Air Avianca Scout. It is closest to the Cub, as it seats two in tandem and has a maximum cargo capacity of 100 lbs. But the aircraft handles beautifully, taxis easily, can land or take off from a postage stamp, has adequate avionics and the best virtual cockpit I have seen on any sim aircraft. To top it off, the Scout has better visibiltily than any bush aircraft I have flown. This is critial because real VFR flying requires that you be able to actually see the terrain and compare it with what you see on the sectional. Check it out.

Finally, a word about GPS. It's a really great system. I had a (very, very minor) role in the development and deployment of the system, so I am quite proud of what our Air Force has accomplished with this versatile system. However, when it comes to VFR flying, it kind of spoils the fun. If you can load your flightplan into a GPS receiver and slave your autopilot to the GPS, accomplishing a flight is what the radio hams used to call "armchair copy". You might as well wave goodbye to ATC and go into the kitchen and make yourself a peanut butter sandwich. This is the real world. I know because I've taken several flights in GA aircraft where the pilot had more-or-less duct taped a GPS receiver to the instrument panel and was clearly using it to navigate. The same can be said of the software flight planning sofware we all use (FSCommander, Plan G, etc., etc.) they can all be set up to connect to your simulator, so you can use them to find your location whenever you wish. So who needs NDBs, and VORs, etc.? If that floats your boat, more power to you. But, if you'd like something more challenging, try navigating to your destination without using GPS, or Plan G. Like flying in weather without an autopilot (the subject of an earlier post), you will be surprised by how hard it is and how much you don't know. Give it a try. Cheers.

Mike

Great ideas Mike, and I'll have to look into the Avianca Scout to add to my hangar. I use the real-world Foreflight Charts (although this is very much expensive, so your idea is probably best for those wishing to limit spending on this area of the hobby). I also believe many of the online version of the vfr sectionals will work well for the purpose described.

I certainly found it challenging trying to follow the VFR charts to find some of those Misty Cabins - but it sure was fun, and also challenging searching out your window while trying to fly the plane at the same time.

As we've discussed a short while ago, radio navigation is certainly worth learning because it really adds excitement to the flights (besides getting a feel for how the pilots did it before GPS). Nothing more exciting than following the needles to your destination and seeing the runway appear out of the gloom on an IFR weather day. GPS really gets boring after that, although sometimes I just let the plane do the flying on GPS while I enjoy looking out the window (or grabbing that sandwich).

John

So, in the spirit of my remarks above, I’ve started to try to fly “real VFR” flights. Here are the ground rules I’ve set myself for this exercise:

(1) No use of GPS whatsoever, not even a quick peek to see if you are where you think you are.

(2) No use of flight planning tools (e.g., Plan G) for anything beyond flight planning. That is, no use of these tools to track where you are going. In my case, I use Plan G to see where I’ve been only after I’ve landed.

(3) No use of the “outside views” (e.g., F11) to get a better view of the terrain below or ahead.

In other words, I am trying to fly exactly as I would if I were doing a real VFR flight before the days of GPS. The tools available for navigation are limited to time, heading, airspeed, altitude, available radio navigation aids and looking out the window to compare the terrain to my sectional chart. Obviously, this includes no use of ATC radar tracking to provide position updates or vectors to my destination.

I’ve just completed my first Alaska bush flight (999234; PAJN to CBW4) under these rules. As I anticipated, this was harder than it sounds and for substantial portions of the flight I wasn’t sure I was where I was supposed to be. The temptation to peek at the GPS, just to make sure, was pretty strong, but I successfully resisted. The task was made more difficult by the winter weather in the Alaskan panhandle, which changes rapidly and is very uneven from one place to the next. In fact the “nowcast” from any given AWOS changes every few minutes, so it’s tough to keep up with the anticipated weather at your destination or enroute. On top of that, the radio nav aids in SE Alaska are pretty sparse, and there are hardly any in western British Columbia. On top of all of that, some of those clouds have hard centers, and once you’re in one your self-confidence erodes pretty quickly. Imagine what that would be like for real. The easy way to overcome this problem is to fly above the minimum altitude specified in each lat/lon rectangle on the sectional chart. That way, you know you’re above the terrain. Unfortunately it also means that you’re either above or in the weather and you can’t see the terrain. Since the only way to navigate successfully to your destination is to get under the weather so you can see the terrain and compare it with the map (particularly inland, where there are very few radio nav aids), this means that much of the time you are flying below the MEA. Thus when you fly into a cloud, your heartrate is going to increase with every passing minute, as you have no idea when you’re going to exit the cloud and be able to see the terrain. All you can do is hope that happens before you run into the terrain.

For this challenging assignment, I chose the Bellanca Scout, a slow, two seat taildragger with very good visibility (a plus) and modest avionics (a minus). It has one ADF receiver for the NDBs and one VHF receiver for the VORs, but no DME equipment. So the best you can do is to draw a bead on one VOR and one NDB and determine your position by triangulation on a paper chart. In doing this, you need to bear in mind that the magnetic declination is both large and variable in SE Alaska, so an accurate plot takes some care. This is one of the virtues of real paper sectionals, which you can mark up with a pencil to your heart’s desire. Doing this while you’re flying in a cloud can be exciting, to say the least.

I’m going to post some photos of this flight. These will show up on our home page until they are displaced by subsequent postings. Thereafter, you can find them by going to Pictures and then to “Mike’s Miscues”. Here’s a brief summary. Most of my journey down Stephens Passage from Juneau towards Petersburg (PAPG) was in clouds, with visibility ranging from spotty to nil. I had a hard time matching the details of the shoreline visible out my side windows with the map, so I set up on the VOR on Level Island (LVD) and figured I’d turn inland from there. On the way, I learned from the PAPG AWOS broadcast that the ceiling at PAPG was 7000’ and dropping, so I diverted towards the Frederick’s Point NDB (FPN) and dropped underneath the ceiling, believing (correctly, as it turned out) that I was still over water. That was fine until I crossed the shoreline of Kupheanof Island. Shortly afterward I flew into a cloud and couldn’t see anything. I thought I knew where I had crossed the shoreline, so I thought I knew the elevation of the terrain in front of me. As it turned out, my Plan G track subsequently showed that I had crossed the shoreline somewhat to the east of where I thought I had, where the terrain was substantially higher. Fortunately, I broke out of the weather before I hit anything and was then able to stay under the ceiling and visually navigate down the channel until I could identify the entry point of the North Arm of the Stikine River. As I proceeded to the east, the weather improved slightly and I was able to follow up the Stikine to its junction with the Iskut and then up the Iskut to the vicinity of my destination at Bob Quinn Lake.

In spite of the fact that I had looked at a satellite photo of the airfield, I was having a lot of trouble seeing it, as the lake surface was covered with snow and indistinguishable from the snow covered terrain. As this point I did something that amounted to inadvertent cheating: I got on the traffic frequency for CBW4 and announced my intention to land. As a part of this transmission, FSX provides your position; I guess FSX assumes that you would know that. When I heard that I was 4 miles northwest of the airfield (something that I did not know), I knew that I would have to turn southwest to find it. I did find it, but I still had to fly an abbreviated pattern and a very short final to land on the last 20% of the runway.
So, this morning I’m sitting on the tarmac at CBW4 anticipating my return flight to Juneau. It took more than half my initial fuel load to get here, so I’m going to have to go back to Wrangell or Petersburg to refuel before continuing on to Juneau. I don't know yet what weather to expect, so I may yet have an exciting time getting home. Wish me luck.
<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: Westcoast, Jan 17, 2016 - 02:19 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

Great Fun Mike!

I just tried one myself. I used the trusty Aerosoft Beaver and zoomed my gps to unusable zoom.

Broken cloud cover at 3900 and ovc at 6000 with fog and rain left me with little options other than to follow the waterways. I did take advantage of the VOR and DME equipment the beaver offers and honed in on the signal from Sister Is (SSR).

I made the jog past Grand Is ok, but wasn't sure after that that I had missed the left turn into Speel Arm. I could see the shore at Taku Harbor so I knew that wasn't it.

At about this time my VOR and DME was indicating that I was still relatively on track, although the signal was lost and found and finally lost again before actually getting to my destination. Still it showed me about 47 mi from SSR's 73 radial which I knew meant I was very close to my destination - even though my path weaved me on and off of the desired radial.

The water was wide after turning off of Stephen's Passage and was difficult to tell I was still in the right place.

I spotted the small island at Speel Arm that made me believe I was in the right place. Sure enough - Snettingham was at the end with a nice dry runway, so no need to put down in the water (even though I certainly could have).

My pics are posted as well.

John

Great fun indeed John.

I think the novel part is the genuine uncertainty this discipline injects into each flight - you're not really completely sure how this is going to turn out. If you add to the conditions enumerated in my post above the requirement to fly only in the "now" day real weather, refuel only where fuel is available and to turn back or elect an alternate if it is too dangerous to proceed, you have the making of a real challenge to complete each assignment. I am thinking about some ways we might harness this excitement by utilizing a flight assignment format which would set the challenge in terms of destination, desired flight times and/or durations, passengers, cargo, etc. It might, for example, task a number of deliveries to a number of destinations to be accomplished, weather permitting, within the span of some number of days or weeks. I do not have in mind a competitive exercise, but rather a set of realistic constraints which would require judgement, problem solving skills, etc. and which would allow pilots to find a variety of solutions using different aircraft, different flight plans, etc. to meet the requirements of the assignment. Of course, as befits our guiding philosophy, these assignments would be entirely voluntary and unscored. Their sole purpose would be our own amusement and education.

I also wonder if SPA might benefit from some sort of mechanism pilots could use for sharing their solutions to these assignments. I have in mind something which integrates pictures and text (and, maybe someday, videos) into a single "document", without the need for putting the narration in the Forum and the pictures in the photo album. This would take the pictures off the home page and spare visitors the need to plow through our (in my case, lengthy and detailed) narrations.

Mike

Sounds great Mike!

I'm all in on this. I must admit defeat here after getting over confident on my first two flights. My latest attempt PAGS to ELF was a fatal disaster. Yes...fatal in that I did indeed find the solid center of a cloud.

I continued on again through the magic of simulation, but still was unable to find the destination. I might suggest that this 3rd Postal Flight is quite difficult - and I kind of thought it might be from flying there on several other occasions. After spending over an hour and most of my fuel - post CFIT, I finally gave up and used gps to guide me in to assure me that it actually was still there. I then reviewed my heart-breaking flight path and noted that I was initially within sight of it on my additional flight plan - but didn't know what I was looking for (this one is kind of hidden - a real tricky flight).

Anyway, I didn't log the flight as I considered it a personal failure. I'll try it again tomorrow - reincarnated from today's failure.

I encourage other pilots to give this a try and post their trials and tribulations. I would add that the reward is finding that final destination based solely on radio navigation and visual reference - and it really feels good to see that destination appear.

This latest failed effort - I tried many times - even back-tracking and following the radial back towards the destination - still nothing. ELF is really kind of hidden.

A final advisory - you will want to have your orbx scenery installed and I recommend at minimum orbx global and vector - and the regional running it all in hybrid if you can afford these addons and your system supports them. It's hard to follow VFR landmarks if they don't exist in your sim!

I have to question some of what we see compared to what really exists and whether some of it might be actually easier in real life. I mean, after all, even orbx can only include so many landmarks matching the VFR sectionals. That said - it really adds some fun to the flights

It's interesting how quickly you care less about what kind of plane you're flying and how fast it's going when you're focusing on your navigational equipment and looking out the window and looking at your sectional chart. I found myself even pausing my beaver a few times to retake reading of my VOR distance and radial position to try and find that ELF water landing - which I failed to do.

Well...the adventure will continue.

John