Navigating High Alt. Intersections w/o VOR freq. and Course

Hello everyone,

I'm a novice FSX user with a little navigational understanding. I am not a flight student or pilot by any means. I'm gotten the hang of hopping from one intersecting VOR to another given the freq. and course of each VOR. What I'm having trouble figuring out is the named intersections that appear when I attempt to fly a high alt jetway. The flight-plan that FSX generates doesn't indicate what the corresponding VORs and courses when leaving one course and proceeding along the next leg.

are these intersections intended solely for computer aided navigation such as an FMC? or is there a method to deriving the corresponding VOR's their frequencies and the intended course?

I've gone so far as to look for real world charts, draw a line from the new course to the nearest VOR station, but when flying over open ocean, these VOR stations are often to far away for the NAV radio to contact.

There has to be a way, is there not?

You can try out this planner: http://vfrflight.org.

Not exactly an IFR planner, but it can be used for VOR to VOR navigation and it imports all IFR routes and points from FSX/P3D.

Once you create a flight plan, you can review all VOR radials with DME's at any of your route point. Take a look at this screenshot:

You can use it on separate PC to review your VOR frequencies.

Hope that helps.

Hello everyone,

 

 

are these intersections intended solely for computer aided navigation such as an FMC? or is there a method to deriving the corresponding VOR's their frequencies and the intended course?

 

Hi, you got it right, these "named waypoints" are for RNAV, and do not need to be related to any radio navigation aid at all. To fly these routes, your airplane has to be RNAV equipped, so it needs either a GPS or an INS, or both. Some of the waypoints really are VORs or NDBs, but the vast majority are simply arbitrary points defining the airways. These waypoints are not only on intersections (one airway crossing another), but inbetween too. But the FSX flightplan shows only the points where you turn - from one airway to the next - and this only happens on intersections obviously. They are not limited to high altitude either, there even are RNAV approaches to airports.

You could fly RNAV in heading hold, if need be. The navlog in the FSX flight planner includes the headings for you to fly from one waypoint to the next (but be mindful of the wind drift).

But in default FSX planes this is better done with the little GPS unit, which shows in real time the RNAV flightplan to follow, and how to get from one waypoint to the next (direction, distance). In more advanced addon planes you will find all sorts of RNAV equipment, more sophisticated GPS units (which you can acutally buy as addons all by themselves, like the F1 GTN750 or RealityXP), INS and/or FMC installations.

Today radio navigation en route is more the exception than the rule. The FMCs know where their waypoints are and the INS does not need any external reference once set up correctly, they can fly happily along and always find their way. Nevertheless, all airliners retain the possibility to use VOR2VOR, and more often than not the FMC will quietly and in the background check your route by cross-referencing the VORs in the vicinity that it knows about.

If you use the radar gauge you can see the airways.

gauge.zip

In the file library.

For sim knowledge either go to

http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/index.htm

or simply use the Leanring Center in the sim - it's what it's there for.

The advice here is trying to get you to run before you can walk and can only confuse the issue.