Flying Basics: How To Navigate Without GPS, INS or Radio | DCS WORLD 

2 More VFR navigation tips: 1) Latitude marks are 1 NM apart on the Kneeboard, latitude marks are always 1 NM mi and Longitude marks are variable. Longitude line are further apart at the equator than they are at the north and south pole. So trust the latitude marks for your distance scale. While you were lost, you could easily see on your kneeboard map you want to go about 20 miles. 2) 600 Knots is 10 mile per minute! Always start you jet navigation speed calculations at 600 knots for simplicity. Because 10 miles per minute is very easy to calculate. In your video, you needed to travel about 20 miles, so move the decimal and about 2 minutes travel time. But you were going about 300 knots so just double the time, 4 minutes flight. No calculator required. Most of DCS travel is about 300 knots so this can give a good estimate at a glance. You can certainly be more precise with other more time consuming methods, but this method helps keep your workload down at a glance. George

Pull out your map, compas and calculator and everything is possible. It reminds me of that scene in "The hunt for Red October" where the Russian navigator says "Stop pissing yourself Yuri. Give me a stopwatch and a map and I'll fly the Alps in a plane with no windows."

dead reckoning (direction, wind deflection, speed, distance to waypoint or destination), also most military maps have 3 norths on them (grid north, magnetic north and true north) the maps also include the current magnetic variations at the top of the map)

people playing IL-2 1946 on realistic settings: Now is my time to shine !

I don't know how many GR members have FSX, but maybe setting up a long range race where everybody has to navigate on their own, without GPS, would be fun. Say 500nm in length or about two hours of flight time. I used to do long range racing/navigating in FS2004 and FSX using freeware and third party warbirds. Was a lot of fun.

The secret to aerial nav is to look as far as you can see for the biggest possible landmarks that are easily identifiable on the map. I’m talking coastlines, mountain ranges, features that are undeniably what they are (eg The Alps, islands, headlands, flatland/floodplain to hill transition areas, mouths of rivers etc) Get two or more of these ideally 90-120 degrees apart from each other to triangulate your rough position on the map. Only then start looking for shorter range features such as towns and roads etc. Towns cities and roads and rivers etc although useful, all look pretty similar and can lead you into trouble if you haven’t already got a good idea of where you are roughly, only then do you start looking at the smaller features. The most common mistake is looking at features on the map and trying to make that fit to your environment. Look at the environment first then go to the map.

As a student pilot I was taught to fly IFR. (I follow roads)

I was an officer in the army and I’ve done civilian flying. Navigation allways was one of my biggest strength. Simple answer to how to become better at navigation is: ”Practice alot” And it helps to be smart. Being stupid is not helpful. Fly around and try to figure out where you are by comparing the map with what you see outside the cockpit window, and eventually you will be better at it. It’s easier to figure out where on the map you are from 10.000 ft in clear weather than it is standing in a muddy hole betwene a rock and tree when there’s a blizard or when flying 400mph at treetop level while being chased by MiG’s.

That's the way I did it before GPS...vor's, and landmark following... or if we wanted to get real fancy IFR ( I follow roads). :)

Being lost rules: Climb, conserve, confess. Climb as high as practical, because you can see more terrain and radios reach farther (if that’s something you can use). Conserve fuel by slowing down, because if you don’t know where you are or where you are going, then there’s no hurry to get there. Confess (real world more than in this example)- call air traffic control and ask for help. I know a real world pilot who got turned around, didn’t fess up, and ran out of gas and landed in a field.

This is useful when your Nevada map has waypoints that are not even close to the points they should be

Fly south to the coast, handrail it north or south depending on where you need to go. Trying to navigate off sand dunes (that get moved around by the wind) is futile. DCS really needs a better way to navigate or at least a smaller scale knee map

We need to be able to zoom in on the knee map and have some navigation tools

Coming over from Flying Circus and Rise of Flight and I'm happy if I get a compass! It's crazy how much technology advanced during the 20th century.

I just started playing with the kneeboard yesterday as I finally got my VR issues ironed out. This might be considered a cheat but there is a button that says something like "mark current location" and when you click it makes a mark on the kneeboard map. From that mark and compass heading, you should be able to do a plot to a location.

Thanks very much for all your great tutorials. I am new to DCS and still have to set up the kneeboard. May I ask where you get these great VFR maps for the kneeboard?

A question. In high altitudes the air is very cold, proof found in the Lancaster crews needing coats and such while flying, so wind chill would be a minor factor on the main windshield. Also high speed flight has wind friction as a heating factor, such as in the SR-71 flights. Is there data showing at what speed/altitude that these two factors cancel each other out? Just curious.

you can zoom in on a map by getting it closer to your eye. If you're in a plane and the map is on your knee...

You guys are great and really have some really good knowledge. Thank you for your time and help.

+GrimReapersAtomic *Part of the learning process for real-world aviators is basic navigation* using maps and the aircraft's mechanical instrumentation. The ring laser gyro inertial reference system on contemporary tactical aircraft drives an attitude-heading indicator (basic roll-pitch data with an equatorial compass scale) with integrated yaw-rate gauge and a horizontal situation indicator (a heading indicator with bearing and course-deviation functions) in the main instrument cluster; inertial reference may show a specifically different heading from the standby compass on the windshield frame due to magnetic variation (degrees from magnetic north to true north). Ground speed can be determined from the calibrated airspeed/Mach gauge and a current weather chart in the straight-and-level; the wind vector determines the air speed - ground speed difference. The stopwatch factors into dead reckoning, a process using time and the speed vector to ballpark a next waypoint from a starting position.

Why Blue Flag server has GPS enabled on F10? When all planes have some realistic navigation systems anyway. That's the question.

DCS needs an option to print out the knee-map...

can you please do a video on how to become a DCS expert player in 10 days :D

Your video's are so helpfull, can't thank you enough!!!

Man, these videos are great. Thanks so much for the entertaining help!

Nice one. Try again in foggy north Europe (WW2 map). Here were few land marks - in Europe there is sooo many. (Have I found the right church tower??)

How did they get the wind speed and direction in an old ww2 plane ?

Well I guess the next challenge for Cap... Can he beat the 178 seconds to live challenge, VFR into IMC...

Is there a video or how would one navigate to find an AO or an area to attack like a FARP? Thanks.

Cap, when you are looking around your cockpit what are you using to slew your view? Your mouse, a hat on the Saitek, a Track IR head-tracking system? What do you recommend for DCS?

Hello cap, how about celestial aeronavigation, I bet this stuff can be fun, but DCS seems not model the stars correctly ;). Amelia Earthart use this method to circum navigate earth, but she lost due to navigation error. Sounds challenging huh? What you think? XD

Hello. I need help please. I’m having trouble reading the heading compass in the fe 190. How to read it. Getting lost all the time. Thank you very much Cap. Greg

hey cap Mirage interceptor aircraft in movie sky fighters. mirage are so close and sees a missile fires. but was able shoot his gun destroying the enemy mirage and killing the missile to.

Hello Grim, i'm very new to DCS in Terms of Simulation. What DCS version do i use? is the Open World Beta 2.7 version the best? Don't fancy doing it Solo thanks in advance.

Navigation on star's if it's night and you can see nothing on the ground .

Bedankt

Is the knee board map based on Jeppesen?

You know those guys who spout facts without actually knowing the facts. That was a LOT of assumptions about how its done today versus "old school". My 2002 government regulated flight lessons required me to plan 4 flights on paper, fly them with nothing but a paper map for navigation and land at all destinations within 15 minutes of plan. During a flight test if the tester catches you pull out a ruler or stop watch, they get ripped from your hand and tossed into the back. Everything is calculated including emergency diversions and land marks identified and flight plan filed before you even look at the plane. In fact, the same rules applied in England too at the time.

Can you please do a tutorial on how to setup vr in dcs? Thanks in advance

What plane are you flying

how do you get the mini map

nothing like a bit of DR in the afternoon.....

What type navigation is ARC?

I have a question for you.How many minutes are you sleeping per day?

very interesting,im going to do just that from now on,f10 map always feels like cheating to me.By the way,whats the knee map button?

How To Navigate Without GPS, INS or Radio. F10.

noice

It’s called F10

Cap are you retired from air force???

What plane is that?

ya'll got anymore frames?