Practice flights, tracking outbound

Two practice flights are listed below that will sharpen your skills at intercepting and tracking an outbound radial using the ADF. Although the routes are the same, the flights differ. Try to fly each flight once a day until you have nailed the procedures. That will happen very quickly.

Concentrate on staying on the 151° outbound bearing. In case your calculator is broken, the reciprocal of 151° is 331°. A one-degree deviation puts you off course by 0.6 NM. at the end of the 38 NM outbound leg from OW NDB. This is a long distance to track outbound, especially to arrive at a runway. That's why these are such good practice flights.

Enjoy the flights. It will be a busy 24 minutes.

1. Tune your ADF to 397.0 kHz, STOGE NDB (OW), and tune Nav-1 to 115.8 MHz, (FMH). FMH is a TACAN Station, and your VOR needle will not respond; we use this signal for DME information only. Wind is calm. Start the timer at the beginning of your takeoff roll. Depart from Rwy 17, KOWD, Norwood, Massachusetts, climbing to 3500 ft. Destination is Otis Air National Guard Field, KFMH, Falmouth, Massachusetts, with field elevation of 131 ft. Fly direct to OW NDB, then turn left and track the 151° radial outbound from STOGE NDB to Otis ANG Field. RMI Needle will point to 331°. You will track almost 38 NM outbound from OW NDB, landing Otis Rwy 14. ETE from Norwood Memorial Airport is 24 minutes. Begin your 400 fpm descent 15 DME from FMH VOR (TACAN). Leave your ILS OFF during this flight!

2. Same route as above, except that we add some complexity and reduce the visibility to 3 miles and the cloud cover to overcast, base at 1100 ft. Set in a 20 kt wind, from 130°. Calculate your WCAs and Ground speeds for Climb and Cruise before departure. Same en route details as previous flight, except altitude will be 3000 ft. and begin your 400 fpm descent 13 DME from FMH VOR (TACAN). Land Rwy 14. Leave your ILS OFF for this flight!