Just wondering, is it normal for instructors to teach their students to just turn to the final approach track and ignore any crosswind after turning at the FAF inbound on an NDB approach?

Watching you, the Colonol and . on the other forum is like watching the unstoppable force vs the immovable object.

For what it's worth, most of the NDB approaches I've shot are in the mountains of the Yukon, and they are for all intents and purposes cloud break procedures, minimums are in the 2000-3500 AGL range, with the MAP directly over the field. As long as you're still in the protected airspace an 11 degree (Despite being a flight test fail) error is not going to affect your odds of making it in, or the safety of the flight.

Further to this, I don't think I've ever shot an NDB approach with a turn at the FAF, so I just hold what ever I was holding on the inbound leg to the FAF... Any Examples of approaches with 30 degree or greater turns at the FAF?

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esp803 wrote: Further to this, I don't think I've ever shot an NDB approach with a turn at the FAF, so I just hold what ever I was holding on the inbound leg to the FAF... Any Examples of approaches with 30 degree or greater turns at the FAF?

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Yeah, I suspect the problem is that they haven't experienced a turn at the FAF very often. My home airport has a 25 degree turn, so it's an issue if there's a strong wind.

I just find it strange that some instructors are happy with a potential 11 degree error. I never had too much difficulty tracking outbound from an ADF, but apparently this instructor's students can't manage it, hence the reason he teaches them to just ignore the crosswind. Very odd.

I was always pushed to be as accurate as possible on any correction to be as close to center and corrected as possible. So yeah, if you're inbound to the FAF and you have a say 20* correction inbound, just keep that past the NDB. Your needle will swing and you should have no problem continuing with a good correction and stable approach.

Remember your IFR instructor likely has no operational experience in IFR, just what was taught to them by their instructor and whatever they learned additionally in their instructor rating.

tipsails wrote:So yeah, if you're inbound to the FAF and you have a say 20* correction inbound, just keep that past the NDB. Your needle will swing and you should have no problem continuing with a good correction and stable approach.

That's fine if there's no turn at the FAF. If there's a 30 degree turn, for example, a 50 knot direct headwind becomes a 25kt crosswind.

Do you do a lot of NDB approaches in a 50 knot headwind? Just curious.

There's a lot of stuff that's done other than out of the textbooks "in the real world". Read Rod Machado on hold entry procedures, for instance.

CpnCrunch wrote:Just wondering, is it normal for instructors to teach their students to just turn to the final approach track and ignore any crosswind after turning at the FAF inbound on an NDB approach?

Well they don't do it that way in the military that's for sure, there they put a premium on accuracy and they don't tolerate sloppiness or deliberate errors out of laziness. Why would you teach someone to deliberately compound inherent errors in a navaid with ones of your own? Isn't this the same cast of self-promoting "experts" that incessantly bash flight instructors today for not teaching the proper way to do things?

Jesus... Since when did we become profession where slopiness is not only accepted but taught in our schools? And then people want a "college of pilots"?!

How about people start by becoming professionnals before.

photofly wrote:Do you do a lot of NDB approaches in a 50 knot headwind? Just curious.

There's a lot of stuff that's done other than out of the textbooks "in the real world". Read Rod Machado on hold entry procedures, for instance.

I did one a while ago where the wind was gusting to 25 at the airport, and was probably about 30 or 40 knots at 1400ft with a lot of windshear. Even at 30kts (i.e. 15kt change in crosswind after turning 30 degrees at the FAF) it would be 10 degrees of error and a possible flight test fail.

That just sounds like a shitty instructor training pilots to be shitty as well.
Wind direction has always a briefing point for me (And my students when I was an IFR instructor) at the end of the approach briefing. You should be able to anticipate with at least a ballpark bit of accuracy your approximate headings after each turn in the procedure.
Nothing like teaching to get behind the plane and react. Stupid IMHO.

That being said, I don't think I've ever even seen a traditional NDB approach with a 30° turn at the FAF, but an IFR pilot should be able to do a 2 second estimate on what the wind change will be and adjust accordingly, doesn't take much. It probably won't make or break the approach being that close, but just proper pilotage as far as I'm concerned.

DanWEC wrote: That being said, I don't think I've ever even seen a traditional NDB approach with a 30° turn at the FAF, but an IFR pilot should be able to do a 2 second estimate on what the wind change will be and adjust accordingly, doesn't take much. It probably won't make or break the approach being that close, but just proper pilotage as far as I'm concerned.

I think 30 degrees is the maximum allowed. My airport has 25 degrees which is pretty close. I agree with your comments about estimating the wind correction and then correcting.

For all intensive purposes it's just a RNAV approach, shoot the overlay and let the box figure it out.

SuperchargedRS wrote:For all intensive purposes it's just a RNAV approach, shoot the overlay and let the box figure it out.

Yes, that would certainly be more accurate, but there are many NDB approaches that don't have an overlay, and for the flight test you can't use an overlay.

CpnCrunch wrote:Just wondering, is it normal for instructors to teach their students to just turn to the final approach track and ignore any crosswind after turning at the FAF inbound on an NDB approach?

No.

You don't need to correct a heading if there is no cause to correct it of course, but if you see that you are drifting away, what would you do, just fly an ignore ? Seems extremely silly to me.

For all intensive purposes it's just a RNAV approach, shoot the overlay and let the box figure it out.

I hope I didn't get the joke there.

CpnCrunch wrote:I think 30 degrees is the maximum allowed. My airport has 25 degrees which is pretty close.

30 degrees is the maximum, and there are minimum final approach segment lengths that go along with it depending on the amount of turn and approach category of the aircraft (TP 308E). Over 30 degrees and straight in minimums are not permitted.

CpnCrunch wrote:Yes, that would certainly be more accurate, but there are many NDB approaches that don't have an overlay, and for the flight test you can't use an overlay.

An overlay is actually a GNSS approach that happens to use the profile of the NDB or VOR approach. The NDB or VOR does not have to be monitored nor does it have to be serviceable. In fact I would say the NDB shouldn't be monitored if you are doing the GNSS since it is not part of the approach, you don't care what it says and it isn't as accurate as the GPS anyway. It's the GPS that must be serviceable, monitored and used as a reference.

You can however fly the NDB or VOR approach using GPS if you are so equipped, but the navaid must be serviceable, monitored and be your primary means of tracking, (ie. if it drifts out of tolerance a missed approach must be executed regardless of what the GPS says).

CpnCrunch wrote:

tipsails wrote:So yeah, if you're inbound to the FAF and you have a say 20* correction inbound, just keep that past the NDB. Your needle will swing and you should have no problem continuing with a good correction and stable approach.

That's fine if there's no turn at the FAF. If there's a 30 degree turn, for example, a 50 knot direct headwind becomes a 25kt crosswind.

Ah, right I see what he meant now.

CpnCrunch wrote:

SuperchargedRS wrote:For all intensive purposes it's just a RNAV approach, shoot the overlay and let the box figure it out.

Yes, that would certainly be more accurate, but there are many NDB approaches that don't have an overlay, and for the flight test you can't use an overlay.

For the flight test you can do anything you want; it's up to you which approaches to choose: one precision, one non precision, but which one is up to you. A GPS overlay will do just fine for the non-precision approach.

There's more to life (and flying) than flight tests - but personally I think if you have a GPS and don't load it with something useful - even without an overlay - while you're flying any approach, flight test or otherwise, you're a fool.

photofly wrote: For the flight test you can do anything you want; it's up to you which approaches to choose: one precision, one non precision, but which one is up to you. A GPS overlay will do just fine for the non-precision approach.

The flight test guide says "For renewal flight tests, where one approach is conducted with vertical guidance or GPS, the other
approach should be a non-precision approach with a traditional ground-based navigational aid, such
as LOC, VOR or NDB." which makes me think you can't use an overlay (at least for the renewal). I'm not sure if that applies to the new IPC.

There's more to life (and flying) than flight tests - but personally I think if you have a GPS and don't load it with something useful - even without an overlay - while you're flying any approach, flight test or otherwise, you're a fool.

Yes, definitely.

Last IPC I did was one GPS approach to minimums and then off and away for a lovely ILS. The IPC is supposed to be a "real-world" scenario. In what real-world scenario am I going to prefer a VOR approach over a GPS if one is available?

Yeah, but of course it isn't every day real world that kills us. Even a PPL has to do everything as a worst case scenario and it's not that easy relative to experience. In the same vein, I don't think an easy IPC is doing anyone any favours. Maybe I'm a masochist, but I think an IPC for GA should be "tough", akin to 70x recurrencies. One life is just as important as many.

DanWEC wrote:Yeah, but of course it isn't every day real world that kills us. Even a PPL has to do everything as a worst case scenario and it's not that easy relative to experience.

I believe I disagree with just about everything you said there. And nobody said anything about an "easy" check ride. NDB approaches are in many ways a lot easier than GPS ones.

GA don't tend to die because they drifted 20 degrees off course on an NDB approach. They die because they made lousy decisions about the weather and whether they should go flying at all. There's no benefit to the examiner checking I can fly a perfect NDB approach by telling me that's the approach I have to do; he or she should be checking I have the decision-making skills to plan a complete flight and use the equipment available to me. Enough people don't.

Just my opinion, I was speaking more in generalities than really pertaining to an ndb approach, I think I'm guilty of getting off topic a bit.
Anyhow it's t-shirt weather in December and have a dirtbike with far too little mud on it, off for the day!

A lot of airports still have NDB approaches, and there are still a lot of NDB airways. If your plane isn't GPS equipped then that is your only option, and it's probably a good idea to know how to track outbound from an ADF.

photofly wrote:

CpnCrunch wrote:

SuperchargedRS wrote:For all intensive purposes it's just a RNAV approach, shoot the overlay and let the box figure it out.

Yes, that would certainly be more accurate, but there are many NDB approaches that don't have an overlay, and for the flight test you can't use an overlay.

For the flight test you can do anything you want; it's up to you which approaches to choose: one precision, one non precision, but which one is up to you. A GPS overlay will do just fine for the non-precision approach.

There's more to life (and flying) than flight tests - but personally I think if you have a GPS and don't load it with something useful - even without an overlay - while you're flying any approach, flight test or otherwise, you're a fool.

My initial IFR flight test consisted of a SID departure, enroute, hold, into ILS approach and missed, engine failure back to my airport for a single engine LNAV/VNAV as the non precision. Never went near an NDB except during training. I've done a total of one NDB approach ever operationally.

CpnCrunch wrote:A lot of airports still have NDB approaches, and there are still a lot of NDB airways. If your plane isn't GPS equipped then that is your only option, and it's probably a good idea to know how to track outbound from an ADF.

That proves nothing. Lots of aircraft don't have ADFs any more. You can have and maintain an instrument rating never having tuned an NDB.