The Navigation CD-ROM

The Navigation CD-ROM main menu.

The Navigation CD-ROM offers a complete course in airspace usage and radio navigation in an interactive multimedia style. No computer skill is necessary, just the ability to read, listen and follow instructions. If you can do that, you can learn aircraft navigation.

Example lesson page from the airspace tutorial.

What's Included

Each tutorial consists of many individual screens, each of which presents a concept involved in understanding the complete subject. The pages always include text, which by default is read to you (but you can shut the voice off if you wish) plus diagrams and other graphics to further explain the subject.

Example lesson page from the GPS tutorial.

In some cases the graphics are animated to more clearly illustrate what happens as you fly. In other cases the graphics are interactive. For example, you may be called upon to tune a nav radio to a specific VOR frequency, identify it via Morse code and determine what radial you are flying on. While not matching any specific aircraft or radio type the interactive material is representative of what a real pilot would have to do. Intermixed with the learning material are occasional quizzes where you are asked to demonstrate that you have understood the material just covered. This provides immediate feedback to the student. If there are problems, it's easy enough with the standard tutorial menus to go back and review.

Lesson Material

Example lesson page from the NDB tutorial. Pages often include simple animation, showing the effects on the nav instruments as the aircraft moves relative to a navaid.

The tutorials take advantage of the computer environment best when demonstrating concepts using animations. For example, in the VOR lesson the student can see an aircraft move across the ground (shown using a simple aviation chart) relative to a VOR station and observe how that movement is reflected in the in cockpit instruments. Watching the needles move makes concepts like this, which can be confusing to beginners, clear much sooner.

Once especially nice aspect is that the lessons go beyond simply covering the material the FAA would want for the written exam, by giving realistic examples of actually using navigation techniques. It's one thing to be able to pass a test, but what a pilot really needs is to be able to actually use the knowledge and these tutorials will certainly help.

Example lesson page from the VOR tutorial.

Conclusion

As with most products, there are aspects that are less than ideal. I felt that the narration was rushed; the narrator tended to talk too quickly and omitted pauses at obvious points, like between paragraphs. There were also occasional minor stumbles on pronunciation. Whether this is really a problem would depend on the student and some students may want to just turn the voice off and read the material anyway.

There were also occasionally misspellings in the text and at least one case where an instrument in the graphics portion displayed wrong information. A little proofreading would seem in order, though this really has little effect on the actual educational value.

In the end, it probably comes down to individual preference: does the student like learning via computer or using the more traditional text books? For any student who wishes to learn navigation via computer The Navigation CD-ROM will certainly do the job.