how do heading and course knobs work?

by Zoey Botsford 4 min read

How to change course and heading at the same time?

A standalone CDI (Course Deviation Indicator) is an instrument that shows your deviation from a VOR radial that is selected using the OBS (Omnibearing Selector) knob located on the instrument itself. An HSI (Horizontal Situation Indicator) is an entirely separate instrument that combines a CDI and a heading indicator.

What is the difference between heading bearing course and track?

Aug 07, 2011 · Adjust the knob for the heading you want. Then push the HDG knob for that mode. Groups 1 and 6 involve the navigation mode. Switch 6 picks VOR or GPS for you NAV reference. See the Learning Center for the GPS operation including how to load a flight plan into it. In group one is where you turn the CRS knob to pick the radial for the VOR that you wish to center on.

How do I turn off heading hold?

Feb 23, 2014 · If you mouse click on the HDG and CRS knobs, do the. heading bug and course needle center on the EHSI? This should work. Secondly, no need to move to the edge of the knobs to rotate. On the popup, the mouse wheel on the center of the knob is all. it takes. If you like, you can send me a PM with your email address, and I can send you

How do I set the heading of the airplane?

Nov 19, 2017 · If you bind a couple of keys, keyboard or joystick to alter course and heading you will be able to alter course and see heading/course indicators at the same time. I tried looking for the keyboard options to increase/decrease course and heading but can't seem to find which ones would do that. Guess I'll keep looking.

How does the heading indicator work?

The heading indicator works using a gyroscope, tied by an erection mechanism to the aircraft yawing plane, i. e. the plane defined by the longitudinal and the horizontal axis of the aircraft.

What is the difference between a course and a heading?

Heading is the direction the airplane is pointed, whereas track is the actual direction of the airplane tracking across the ground. Bearing is the angle between any two points, whereas course is your intended path of travel to your destination.

How does a course deviation indicator work?

A course deviation indicator (CDI) is an avionics instrument used in aircraft navigation to determine an aircraft's lateral position in relation to a course to or from a radio navigation beacon. If the location of the aircraft is to the left of this course, the needle deflects to the right, and vice versa.

How far off course is 1 degree?

Experts in air navigation have a rule of thumb known as the 1 in 60 rule. It states that for every 1 degree a plane veers off its course, it misses its target destination by 1 mile for every 60 miles you fly. This means that the further you travel, the further you are from your destination.

Is heading same as bearing?

Heading is the direction the aircraft is pointing. The aircraft may be drifting a little or a lot due to a crosswind. Bearing is the angle in degrees (clockwise) between North and the direction to the destination or nav aid.May 11, 2011

How do you read a course over ground?

With your straight edge, draw a line from the last fix to the end of the set/drift line. Measure the angle of this line against the compass rose to get the Course Over Ground. The Speed over Ground is also the length of the line, if the measured time was an hour.

Does HSI reverse sense?

Reverse sensing occurs on the back course using standard VOR equipment. With a horizontal situation indicator (HSI) system, reverse sensing is eliminated if it is set appropriately to the front course.

What is the difference between a CDI and HSI?

A standalone CDI (Course Deviation Indicator) is an instrument that shows your deviation from a VOR radial that is selected using the OBS (Omnibearing Selector) knob located on the instrument itself. An HSI (Horizontal Situation Indicator) is an entirely separate instrument that combines a CDI and a heading indicator.

Does HSI reverse sensing?

Reverse sensing occurs when the current heading is on the bottom half of the VOR. Taking this theory to the HSI where the currently flown heading is always on the top half and you can never have reverse sensing. It is also proper technique to set in the front course when flying a LOC/BC approach.Feb 22, 2016

What does the 1 in 60 rule state?

In air navigation, the 1 in 60 rule is a rule of thumb which states that if a pilot has travelled sixty miles then an error in track of one mile is approximately a 1° error in heading, and proportionately more for larger errors.

Why do flights go off course?

1) broken or defective equipment. 2) equipment that is not properly maintained or calibrated. 3) improper use of equipment by flight crew. 4) incorrectly interpretation of output data from equipment by flight crew.Feb 8, 2016

How many feet are in a degree?

364,000 feetOne degree of latitude equals approximately 364,000 feet (69 miles), one minute equals 6,068 feet (1.15 miles), and one-second equals 101 feet. One-degree of longitude equals 288,200 feet (54.6 miles), one minute equals 4,800 feet (0.91 mile), and one second equals 80 feet.

What is CDI in navigation?

A CDI can be its own standalone instrument used for VOR navigation, or it can be part of an HSI which also integrates a heading indicator. When part of an HSI, the CDI is more just the actual course deviation needle on the instrument rather than the entire instrument itself.

Why is CDI confusing?

The reason the CDI can be a little confusing is because it can either be its own standalone instrument (used for VOR navigation) or it can be a component within an HSI (Horizontal Situation Indicator).

Why are VORs going out of fashion?

There’s a reason VORs are going out of vogue. They are challenging to use, not as accurate as more modern methods of navigation, and the ground stations are expensive to maintain.

What is the easiest way to orient a VOR?

Because a VOR is an electronic navigation aid, the easiest and most direct way to orient the course is to magnetic north. This means on a day with no wind, your compass would match the OBS, which would line up with the runway, and so on. But not every VOR is oriented to magnetic north. In northern Canada where compasses aren’t reliable, ...

How many signals does a navigation radio receive?

To show a course line the navigation radio receives two signals from the VOR station, one fixed and one variable. The fixed signal is the same regardless of the radial selected, while each radial produces a slightly different variable signal.

Is a VOR oriented to the North Pole?

But not every VOR is oriented to magnetic north. In northern Canada where compasses aren’t reliable, VORs are oriented to true north, or the geographic north pole. Curiously, some VORs in the continental United States are also oriented to true north, most notably a few in central Florida.

What does CDI mean in airplanes?

The CDI acts somewhat like a course line, showing the pilot the relationship of the airplane to the selected course. If you’re flying westbound, for example, and the OBS is properly tuned and the CDI is to the left (or south), you know the airplane is north of the desired course.

Do aircraft have GPS?

Thousands of aircraft still don’t have GPS, and the VOR network serves as a critical backup. The VOR system has many components, including a ground-based radio transmission station, a panel-mounted navigation radio to receive signals, and a navigator head.

Pete Dowson

The G1000 is in xml so all the L:vars should be visible to lua.#N#All the rest can be done with offsets -

spokes2112

Xml gauges use RPN (reverse polish notation) for arithmetic, just to make it more fun.. LOL!#N#1st subtract 180* from the radial. Radials go outbound from station, we need inbound. (A:NAV1 radial, degrees) 180 -#N#dnor = is a degrees normalize operator.. It automatically does - If greater than 360 then subtract 360, if less than zero then add 360 .

vmilner

Thank you both for posting all this info, and sorry for not replying right away. I actually went with Pete's advice and learned how to program in lua with offsets. Found it not too hard and super useful. Here is my two-liner for setting the Obs:

OBS needle moves 10 degrees at a time

I cant get the accuracy I need when I set the OBS or the Heading Indicator or the rotating ADF card. When I try to adjust by clicking on the knob, the needle clicks 10 degrees at a time. I need better accuracy for tracking VOR radials and doing ILS...

Heading bug only moves in 10 degree increments

Using default aircraft, the heading bug only moves in 10 degree increments - making fine adjustment impossible. Also the VOR only moves in 10 degree increments, and the autopilot altitude selector ( the plus and minus hover adjustment) only moves in...

Instrument Increase Problem

Hello all. Im having a problem with increasing the data on a given instrument in smaller increments. When I go to adjust the Heading for the AP / FD it will adjust by 10 degrees per click most of the time and other times only by 1, 2, or 3 degrees....

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Heading

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Heading is probably the most confusing term out of all of these because it can most easily be used in conversation to replace track, bearing, or course. By definition though, heading is actually just the direction that the nose is pointed. This does not factor for wind, or the actual movement of the airplane across the g…
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Track

  • Track is the easiest of these four to understand in my mind,because it simply refers to how you are actually tracking over the ground. Whennavigating in the air, your track is really all that matters in terms ofgetting to where you want to go. If you need to go northeast to yourdestination, and have a significant wind from the west, your heading might beto the north in order to achieve a tr…
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Bearing

  • Bearing can be confusing sometimes because has some overlap with course. Bearing is simply the angle or direction between two points. A practical application of this is in VOR navigation. It’s a common thing to hear someone say “we are bearing 090 from the station”. This simply means that off of the VOR they are tracking on the 090 radial outbound from the station. In relation to th…
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Course

  • Course is very similar to bearing in that it’s the desireddirection for your route of flight. If you are going directly from one airportto the other, your course and bearing will be the same along the route of flight.If you are flying from an airport to a VOR to another airport, your course willchange in each leg, as will your bearing.
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Example

  • For this example we’re going to work backwards through the above mentioned directions. Assume you are departing an airport and your destination is directly eastbound. When you take off the course between the departing airport and destination airport is 090. In this instance the bearing of the destination airport off of your departing airport is also 090. This is also the direction you wan…
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Does A GPS Use True Or Magnetic Heading?

  • The above example assumes you are using the compass in yourairplane (hence why it requires so many steps to calibrate the differencebetween your true course all the way down to your actual compass heading). Butwhat about a GPS? By definition it’s not using earth’s magnetic fields as a wayof navigation, but rather positioning information provided by satellites. So ifit shows your “de…
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