How do you find the limits of areas on a chart?

I think if you're going to thread tight areas in an unfamiliar metro
area these days, you'd better have a GPS with airspace depiction.
Sure, you may be able to do it via pilotage, but then again you could
easily screw up and bust class B (or worse).

Sometimes I just file IFR to avoid the hassles.

--Dan


Grumman-581 wrote:
Judah wrote:
In the real world, you start out at a known location, and monitor your
progress using navigation tools such as pilotage, dead reckoning, etc. You
don't simply 'pop' into a largely empty area of a chart.

Ahhh, but you can in MSFS... snicker

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message

How in the world are you supposed to know when you are inside or
outside one of these areas,

There's a dark, dashed line painted on the surface of the earth denoting
these areas, making avoidance easy. These lines are not noticeable to those
on the surface, but are easily visable from the air. If you'd take the
bother to go on a real flight, you would notice this. :-)

In article ,
says...
Dave Doe writes:

You might like to note the differences between IFR charts and plates vs
VFR charts (which, if you look, are really maps - topo maps).

I've been able to find sectional charts and terminal charts at
SkyVector, but where can I find IFR charts?

You could check out some arrival and departure plates here...

http://www.aip.net.nz/NavWalk.aspx?s...e=Christchurch


--
Duncan

Robert M. Gary writes:

The sectional chart is used with a plotter. The plotter measures
distance and can figure direction.

I googled for this and found only software.

I presume you mean the mechanical arm-like device that I've seen being
using with flat charts on tables in movies? Certainly that might be
useful, but what about during flight? Chart tables would be awkward
in the cockpit (although large aircraft with navigators might have
them).

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Dave Doe writes:

You could check out some arrival and departure plates here...

http://www.aip.net.nz/NavWalk.aspx?s...e=Christchurch

AirNav has those. But it sounds like there are other en-route charts
for IFR, which I haven't seen.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

A Lieberma writes:

Maybe if you took the time to RESEARCH how to read a sectional, you will
find all sorts of goodies, such as power lines, lakes, rivers, cities,
points of interests that actually correlate with USING YOUR EYES outside
the window.

I've looked very carefully at sectionals. In the vast majority of
cases, there are no clear landmarks indicated that allow one to locate
the exact boundary of airspaces. The best one can do is allow a
margin of several miles or more, but in crowded areas that may not be
sufficient.

How do I know if I'm in the southwestern tip of the Turtle MOA on the
chart that covers Arizona, for example? There are no landmarks given.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Judah writes:

In the real world, you start out at a known location, and monitor your
progress using navigation tools such as pilotage, dead reckoning, etc. You
don't simply 'pop' into a largely empty area of a chart.

I don't see any difference between the two.

The charts have numerous landmarks - lakes, rivers, roads, power lines,
cities, racetracks, aqueducts, quarries, bridges, antennas, hills, mountains.

Not enough to locate the boundaries of the airspaces.

All are very discernable from the air in real life. MSFS does not effectively
simulate the real-world view of the ground from the cockpit of a small plane,
and that is why you are having so much trouble.

No, I'm having trouble because there isn't anything on the chart that
allows me to locate airspace boundaries in many cases. The boundaries
are not stenciled on the ground outside the window, even in real life.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Dan writes:

I think if you're going to thread tight areas in an unfamiliar metro
area these days, you'd better have a GPS with airspace depiction.
Sure, you may be able to do it via pilotage, but then again you could
easily screw up and bust class B (or worse).

I think a GPS is useful in any case--but how do pilots without moving
maps and GPS do it?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Wolfgang Schwanke writes:

You ought to know where you are anyway, at least roughly. If you do,
you also know when approaching an airspace indicated in the chart.

But you don't know when you've cross the boundary in most cases. You
can only guess. You can find points that are definitely outside or
definitely inside, but you cannot find the boundary itself.

That's what navigation is all about. If you don't know where you are at
all, you're doing something wrong.

It's not a question of not knowing at all, it's a question of knowing
with sufficient precision to respect airspace boundaries.

In "empty" areas you use a technique called dead reckoning. It's
essentially extrapolating from your last known position. Of course this
introduces an error, which you should take into account when deciding
your safety margins from any obstacle or forbidden airspace.

In other words, you still don't know.

If you feel uncertain about those blank areas, you can always avoid them.

Sometimes the airspaces to avoid are so close together that one cannot
avoid them and still complete the flight.

No, but they don't have to for that purpose. You deduce your position
in the topography relative to visible landmarks without having to be
exactly over them, and from there you deduce your position relative to
whatever airspace depicted on the map, once again without its boundary
having to be exactly on a landmark.

That only works if you leave an extremely wide margin for error.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

A Lieberma writes:

Maybe if you took the time to RESEARCH how to read a sectional, you will
find all sorts of goodies, such as power lines, lakes, rivers, cities,
points of interests that actually correlate with USING YOUR EYES outside
the window.

I've looked very carefully at sectionals. In the vast majority of
cases, there are no clear landmarks indicated that allow one to locate
the exact boundary of airspaces. The best one can do is allow a
margin of several miles or more, but in crowded areas that may not be
sufficient.

How do I know if I'm in the southwestern tip of the Turtle MOA on the
chart that covers Arizona, for example? There are no landmarks given.


You would observe the Pinto Mountains intersecting the Sheep Hole Mountains,
and know that the edge of the MOA is about halfway between that and the Cadiz
Lake... It's pretty distinct, actually, if you know how to read a sectional.