Teaching NDB navigation to PPL students

Dazzler

Dazzler

Well-Known Member
Question for the seasoned CFIs out there:

I realize that, for the written test, the Private Pilot student has to know about relative bearings to NDBs, but for the actual flight training do you typically teach tracking to an NDB on a specific bearing, or is NDB homing sufficient?

Thanks!
 
With the ONE operable NDB we have in the area, I teach tracking.

Don't spend a huge amount of time on it with PPLs... more of an intro, really. But I work my instrument students!
 
I just teach homing for PPL; its more useful as a situational awareness tool. If they must divert to an airport over a relatively short distance that has an NDB, it is easy to point the plane at the needle and divert
 
Dazzler said:
but for the actual flight training do you typically teach tracking to an NDB on a specific bearing, or is NDB homing sufficient?
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If any of the airplanes I flew actually had an NDB, I'd limit it to homing. Tracking bearings to and from takes a lot of time to teach to an instrument student, much less an PPL. If you're not going to teach a skill to mastery, it has little value, IMO.

For instrument students, I'd avoid teaching it at all, particularly since every NDB within 100 miles has been decommissioned. Even if there were one nearby, I'd rather skip this and focus on GPS approaches. NDB's are just too time-consuming for the very limited usefulness. Remember, you need to be able to fly them partial panel as well.

The more things you try to incorporate into your training, the less proficiency achieved in each. Life is about choices...you just can't have it all.:)

Airlines, of course, still fly NDB's in remote areas, so many pilots will have to learn them eventually, but at least they'll have an FMS to help.
 
For what its worth I believe that learning NDB navigation is quite useful, be it tracking or homing.

NDBs will always be around. Many areas of the country can't afford ILS/LOC approaches, VORs, and many aircraft don't even have GPSs.

For the weekend pilot who simply flies around his local airport it may not be as important to learn as say pilotage, but for the rest of us NDBs are still very useful to learn.

One thing that helped me learn tracking, aside from practicing in an airplane and on Flight Simulator, was reading the Instrument Flying Handbook. I recommend that book along with the Airplane Flying Handbook as essential reading materials for both student pilots of any level and CFIs.

I just feel that if we want to be pilots we shouldn't short change ourselves in any area of training, including perceived "ancient" forms of flying such as NDBs. I have the same feelings toward G1000 aircraft used for training.

What this does is create a generation of lazy pilots....the kind who will cancel a flight just because the GPS is out. What ever happened to good ole fashioned navigation?? Unfortunantly more and more pilots belong to this school of thought these days, and that can't be safe for any of us.

Out here in Texas there are quite a few NDBs around. Within the DFW area, where my home airport is we are pretty covered as far as VORs, ILS/LOC, and GPS approaches go. But we still have a few NDBs at some small airports lying right underneath the DFW Class Bravo airspace.

Many of my cross countries take me out far into the Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana countryside and many times I have come across airports with noting more than an NDB or VOR approach. And a couple of those times I actually had to fly them while in IMC, but not down to minimums. Never the less had I not known how to properly fly an NDB approach I would have ended up way off course when I came out of the clouds.... risking the possibility of impacting a nearby mountain or tower.

Just my 2 cents on the matter :)
 
tgrayson said:
For instrument students, I'd avoid teaching it at all, particularly since every NDB within 100 miles has been decommissioned. Even if there were one nearby, I'd rather skip this and focus on GPS approaches. NDB's are just too time-consuming for the very limited usefulness. Remember, you need to be able to fly them partial panel as well.
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I have run into jet pilots who do not know how to use an RMI, so it might be a good idea to cover the NDB with instrument students, or at least how to intercept and track using an RMI if you are in one of the glass cockpits. I would not bother with partial panel NDB approaches. Since they are relatively rare anyway, I doubt many in the US would be in the position where they could not find a VOR or localizer based approach if they went no gyro.
 
Here is a basic way to just figure out where the course is relative to you and how much correction. This works to or from the station.

Parallel the course, note how many degrees off the head is, double that for intercept, always turn towards the head. To the station is fairly simple, from the station if your head is 10 degrees off but is off to the right, you would turn 20 degrees to the right, etc.
 
ananoman said:
I have run into jet pilots who do not know how to use an RMI, so it might be a good idea to cover the NDB with instrument students, or at least how to intercept and track using an RMI if you are in one of the glass cockpits.
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They don't retain it. That's the origin of my reluctance to add a lot of frills into any course of training. If it's not taught to mastery levels, then it evaporates quickly. If it is taught to mastery levels, then it takes a lot of time.

The more obscure techniques can be taught later as the need arises. I showed one student how to use an RMI in preparation for an interview with a commuter and we'll be reviewing the topic as his captain upgrade approaches.
 
I just mostly taught homing but I did tell them that if after a while the needle started moving, they may want to turn just a little past straight up so they don't fly a cirlce and kind of explain it to them. PPL students have so much "new" stuff to learn, I tried to not overwhelm them with things they didn't HAVE to know.
 
Varig_777 said:
For what its worth I believe that learning NDB navigation is quite useful, be it tracking or homing.
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Maybe more so for VFR pilots. Even when they are all gone, those AM radio stations get picked up by an ADF. Some are pretty powerful. KOA radio's tower is just off the southeast edge of the KAPA Class D in Denver and I've used it for easy navigation home on more than one cross country trip.

For VFR pilots, homing is okay, at least so long as you are going =to= the station, where all that it wastes is a bit of time.
 
tgrayson said:
Never saw the logic of that technique. I normally just use 30 degrees.
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:yeahthat:

I've seen guys be 5-10 degrees off course and try to double that for correction and the wind just kept blowing them farther off course. I have always used at least 30 degrees personally, but I know that the FAA is where that "double the number" stuff came from.
 
In reading the posts it seems the best way to approach this is a little like moutain flying. We don't have mountains here in the midwest so we only talk about mountain flying. If one of my students wants to fly out west I tell them to seek out an instructor in that area to get them up to speed on the differences they will see out there. We can talk about it here but there is no substitute for experiencing it.

If you have NDBs in your area, spend a little time with your PPL students homing to them in addition to the ground material you go over with them.

I teach NDB approaches to my instrument students because they are close by.
 
tgrayson said:
Never saw the logic of that technique. I normally just use 30 degrees.
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If you are 10 degrees off 30 seems a bit steep, etc. Plus if you double the amount you are off, you are on when it is the head/tail is half of what you just doubled. So, 20 degrees off, 40 degrees to intercept, when the head/tail is 20 degrees "off" you are back on. Takes out the overlaying and bearing to/from mental gymnastics.

But then again, what do I know.
 
Dugie8 said:
If you are 10 degrees off 30 seems a bit steep
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Really depends on how far from the NDB you are. Plus, as someone else pointed out, the smaller intercept angles may not be effective with a strong wind. And the smaller intercept angles are also sometimes victims to DG precession and minor pilot deviations of heading.

The sole advantage that I can see to the technique is that when you turn to your intercept heading, you'd like the needle to pass the "0" spot, in order for the rule "the needle always falls" to work.
 
Of course, Duggie is wrong, nothing I taught or do on a daily basis works, every single possibility of a simple procedure for teaching a student to track an NDB wasn't covered in my original post sooooooo, lets tear it apart, apply conditions that weren't discussed and over complicate the simple. My bad, I will refrain from posting any more tips or techniques.
 
Varig_777 said:
NDBs will always be around. Many areas of the country can't afford ILS/LOC approaches, VORs, and many aircraft don't even have GPSs.
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I have to disagree with you. Whether we like it or not, the future is coming fast. Just in my short two and a half years of aviation I've seen major changes. NDB's are being decommissioned at a rapid pace, and nearly every airport with an NDB approach now how a corresponding (and usually better) GPS approach. GPS will take over because you can put a GPS approach into a grass strip in the middle of nowhere with nearly zero cost. Our flight school doesn't even teach NDB's anymore (other than the basics required for the tests) because we have no more operational ADF's. The school didn't think it was worth it to maintain them.

GPS will actually begin to take over more than just NDBs. Just in the past year, I have seen numerous WAAS approaches put in, most of which have LPV minimums of sometimes only 50 ft. higher than CAT I ILS approaches. I've even read articles about possibly beginning to decommission many CAT I ILS approaches at smaller airports and VOR's even as soon as 2010.
 
Dugie8 said:
Of course, Duggie is wrong, nothing I taught or do on a daily basis works, every single possibility of a simple procedure for teaching a student to track an NDB wasn't covered in my original post sooooooo, lets tear it apart, apply conditions that weren't discussed and over complicate the simple. My bad, I will refrain from posting any more tips or techniques.
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No whining Duggie. Of course the technique is right. Parallel the course and the needle tells you where to go to intercept it.

All some people are pointing out is, depending how far you are away in relation to the fix, doubling may not work, or at least take a very ling time.

I use the same technique as you, both far away and in close. Then the 60:1 rule (d0on't tevn need the rule, just a drawing) tells that being 5° off when 30 miles to the station is further from your courseline than if you are 5° off when within 2 miles from the station. Assume the goal is to re intercept your course in a reasonable amount of time and distance. Even assuming nothing happens with the wind you might spend a long time with a 10° correction before you see that needed even start to move since that needle is only going to move about 1 degree for every 1/2 mile you fly if you turn 90 degrees and go straight for the courseline (did I get the math right? - no coffee yes).

Add to that the wind issue. When you paralleled, did you also take a wind read? Turning to parallel finding yourself 10° east of course and correcting 25°? Didi you fly that parallel course a bit to see how the winds are or just turn in? If you just turned in, how do you know that you weren't right of course because of a 10 kt crosswind? If you are that 20° correction ain't gonna do much. Make that crosswind 15° and your 20° correction to the left will keep you drifting further right.

I had some fun with a new instrument student doing NDB work two weeks ago along with the usual discombobulation, I set hum up in an intercept scenario where he doubled the angle. Halfway through I was tempted to have him take off the hood to show him how ineffective it was. Maybe next time

Parallel the course =always works. The "double the angle" rule is a good starting point.
 
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