How To...Cross-Country VFR Flying with VFR Scenery and Real-Life Charts

By Terry Rochefort (5 May 2005)

I received my real-life private pilot’s licence in 1969, learning to fly in a Piper J-5 and an Aeronca Champion. Both of these aircraft were taildraggers, and both had only the most basic panel – no radio equipment whatsoever. I learned how to get from Point A to Point B by looking at a map and looking out the window for landmarks rather than keeping a needle centered – a useful skill if one’s radios ever fail.

My flying these days is limited to the virtual kind, but with the help of some good maps and some good scenery, I am regaining some of the old feelings. An added bonus is that you can pause mid-flight to investigate some of the more scenic and historic points en-route.

Although I’m Canadian, I have a basic familiarity with Northamptonshire in England through my wife, and was very happy when my in-laws brought over Just Flight’s VFR Photographic Scenery for England and Wales. My satisfaction with VFR flying improved dramatically; suddenly the countryside looked like English countryside, and the towns looked like towns. I hinted, apparently not in a subtle way, that some real aeronautical maps would make life even more satisfying. On one of her trips to England my wife kindly brought over a set of Topographical Air Charts, put out by the UK Civil Aviation Authority. These charts, with a scale of 1:250,000, are great, containing navigational aids, and topographic features. They are plastic-laminated, so one can draw routes on them with an erasable pen. The charts are not cheap, though, -- about £14 (or $26 U.S.) each, and if you want to cover England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland you need 8 of them. They are available through UK pilots’ shops. [For flights in the U.S. and Canada you would want Sectional Charts, most of which can be downloaded from our file library here.]

So, armed with real-life charts and VFR scenery, I set out to do some virtual exploring of Northamptonshire and the adjoining county of Bedfordshire.

I decided on a three-legged cross country tour, similar to what one would do in the course of obtaining a private pilot’s licence (except that my cross-country trip was shorter than one meeting licensing requirements). With my new scenery and detailed charts, I would be able to navigate to and visit places that are inaccessible using FS2004 default scenery. I decided to start from Northampton’s Sywell airfield.

The UK is a virtual (in the real sense) treasure trove of airfields built during the two world wars, and Sywell is one of these. Unfortunately for aviation buffs, many of the wartime airfields are now abandoned (but not Sywell); fortunately, however, many of them, even the abandoned ones, are still shown on charts, because they can be identified from the air. With VFR scenery, they can also be identified by the virtual pilot. I decided to incorporate two of these of these airfields in my cross-country flight.

One of the airfields of interest is Old Warden. Old Warden, near the town of Biggleswade (in Bedfordshire), is home to the famous Shuttleworth collection of antique and classic aircraft, and is still a very active small airfield. The air museum is well worth a real-life visit if you are in that region. You won’t find Old Warden listed under FS2004 airports, but it’s easy to find with VFR scenery and a good map. The second airfield of interest is Silverstone. It is another former WWII airfield, which has now been converted into a world-class motor racing circuit. Silverstone is also marked on the charts and easily visible with VFR scenery.

My route, then, was to be Sywell – Old Warden – Silverstone – Sywell. Just as I would have done when working on my pilot’s licence, I drew the route on the appropriate chart.

But, with no navigation aids, the question is: “What course does one fly?” I used a fixed plotter, which I still have from my flying days.

The plotter is essentially a clear plastic ruler with a semi-circular protractor in the middle. You can still buy them at any pilot supply shop for around £8, or around $10 U.S. To use the plotter, you simply find a place on your track which crosses a meridian of longitude, or if your course is almost North-South find a place on your track which crosses a parallel of latitude. Most of these plotters have a small pinhole right in the middle of the bottom edge of the protractor. To find your heading, place the top side of the ruler on your track, with the pinhole over the spot where the track crosses the meridian or parallel.

You then read your heading where the meridian or parallel intersects the top of the protractor. The plotter indicated that my Sywell – Old Warden course was 126º.

In the same way, I found that my Old Warden – Silverstone course was 268º, and my Silverstone – Sywell course was 029º.

To fly these courses using the compass heading you have found with the help of the plotter, you would have to assume no wind drift. If there is a wind, you would have to correct your compass heading for the appropriate amount of drift, in order to still fly your desired track (the line you have marked on your chart). Correcting for wind drift would be a subject for another article, so for now we will assume no wind.

I decided that I would fly the FS2004 default Piper J3, which is as close as I can find in performance and panel to the J5 on which I trained. Taking off from Sywell and climbing to 3,000 feet on a heading of 126º, everything appeared as expected according to the chart – the town of Wellingborough to the northeast, cross River Nene, and the village of Wollaston. It is wonderful when the shapes of the towns on the chart match the shape of what you see when you look out the window. In a few minutes, Santa Pod raceway (actually Podington as marked on my chart, another wartime airfield now put to a different use) came into view.

About 2/3 of the way to Old Warden, I came across something very striking. Off to the left of my track was what a large airfield, clearly abandoned.

It was labeled on the chart “Bedford”, and the dashed circle identifies it as “disused or abandoned”. I did a little research and found that this was called RAE (for Royal Aircraft Establishment) Bedford during World War II. When I was researching Bedford, I found that an adjoining airfield, Twinwood Farm, also now disused, had a brief moment of fame. The American bandleader Glenn Miller left Twinwood Farm on December 15, 1944, on a flight to Paris, and was never heard from again. By the way, on the chart showing Bedford airfield, you can also see Podington identified in the same way, (as a dashed circle denoting an abandoned airfield). To be even more helpful, the chart notes that it is now a race track.

Flying by compass reading is not an exact science, so you have to check landmarks against your intended track. As I got close to the town of Bedford, I realized that I had drifted a little too far to the east (the compass reading on the J-3 is only an approximation, so even with no wind you can get off track easily). Looking at the angle that my intended track crossed Bedford and went to the west of Castle Mill airfield, I realized that I had to make a correction. So I simply turned west for about a mile, lined up to where I felt the track should be, and turned again to my intended compass heading of 126º. This is exactly the kind of correction I would have made in real life. It is always satisfying when your destination shows up where it should be, and this happened for me, with a great view of Old Warden.

I landed at Old Warden, but the one drawback of VFR scenery is that it is only effective above about 2000 feet. For airports which are not explicitly modeled in FS2004, you know you are landing on a runway, but there are no visual details, so you do not get a good visual impression of the airport when you are on the ground.

The leg from Old Warden to Silverstone (268º) has a great visual cue advantage – the track takes us directly north of Cranfield Airport. Again, a cue like this is something I would have relied on in real life, more than even my compass. After passing Cranfield, I flew over the town of Newport Pagnell, and north of Milton Keynes. There were large motorways in identifiable patterns, which matched what I expected according to the charts, so that was another good visual check. Like clockwork, Silverstone raceway came into view. The view from the air makes it very clear that this is a former airfield.

It was time to head back to Sywell. The course is 029º, but again it is a good idea to check one’s course against landmarks. My chart told me that my track went right by another racetrack which lies to the northeast of the village of Towcester. My wife informed me that I was mispronouncing it, and that it is actually pronounced “toaster”. The good news was that, even though I was mispronouncing the name of the village, I found the racetrack with no problem.

If you are looking for landmarks, one advantage of the J3 is that the ground doesn’t fly by very quickly, so you have lots of time to find them. In due course, I looked for the M1 motorway, and noted that my track crossed it at roughly a 90º angle. From there, I simply headed in the direction of the centre of the town of Northampton. Very soon, Sywell came back into sight and I joined the circuit and lined up for runway 3, from which I had departed. It is a very satisfying feeling when you are on final to your home airport after a triangular cross country flight navigated the old-fashioned way.

If my wife will continue to indulge me, I intend to do a lot more exploring, especially looking for airfields, active or abandoned, which are not available using default FS2004 scenery. For me, and as Microsoft says, this is truly “as real as it gets”.

Terry Rochefort
rochefort@shaw.ca