Flight Simulator Navigation

What a beautiful sight—a DC-3 coming in for a landing.

Welcome to this navigation tutorial devoted to Flight Simulator enthusiasts. This opening picture attests to my not-well-hidden love affair with the DC-3. You'll see more DC-3 pictures as you progress through this site, but not exclusively.

Navigation is quite easy to learn and understand. Thousands of aviation students throughout the world are doing that right now either in aviation ground schools, at home with video-taped lessons, or with self-study books. Understanding and using basic navigation concepts is important to fully enjoy flight simulators, too.

But, darn, I found no single site on the web for flight-sim enthusiasts that addresses everything from basic navigation, to low frequency navigation using the NDB (Non Directional Beacon), to VOR navigation, and the full range of instrument approaches. So this is my attempt to fill that void.

And we're very proud to have received CompuFlight's Select Site Award.

You'll do plenty of flying as you venture through the various subjects that follow, plus have the dubious honor of meeting the irrepressible Mr. Benjamin Counter. Counter, a captain of industry, is your best charter customer. There's never a dull moment when he schedules your services. He is, of course, a totally fictitious character. That's good because he gets into more situations than any mortal I've ever met. His Modus Operandi is "I need to fly now." He arrives in the "Plot a Course" section.

I've also included some historical notes on early navigation systems. You'll discover how far we've come and what pioneers the early pilots were.

This tutorial contains so many graphics that you may have to click your browser's reload button to bring up all of the images the first time that you visit each page. As a minimum, you must be patient while they load. Didn't want to cheat you out of the details.

To the best of my knowledge and ability, the stuff posted on these pages is accurate. Here follows the regrettable legal mumbo jumbo that we car- and home-owners feel obliged to post on websites these days.

For any wounded souls who may have imagined that this website in any way degraded them or their computer, understand that, like life itself, there are no warranties expressed or implied. This website is for entertainment only. Also, in no way is it meant to substitute for a full-fledged ground school course if you are a candidate for a "real" pilot's license.

Enjoy and learn ... it will enhance your flight simming experience.

And finally, the talented efforts of many people are liberally sprinkled throughout these webpages. To the last they were generous in granting permission to use their designs or photographs or artwork and descriptions. Please click on the credits button below to learn of their contributions. And then get Navigating!