Back to Basics - Series 4, Lesson 3

Instrument Rating Series 4 Lesson 3

This time, we continue our in-depth look at the humble NDB and discover some very useful techniques that breathe life into this often overlooked navigation aid.

Outbound

We have already spent a good deal of time looking at how to track towards an NDB while avoiding flying a long, curved path to the station. But what about tracking away from an NDB? The range of aviation NDBs is quite limited in most cases which means it is to be expected that as you overfly one NDB, you are not yet in range of the next one. You could just hold your heading and hope for the best until the new NDB does come into range or you can apply some of our new-found skills and apply them to the station we have just left.

Think back to what a ground-breaking navaid the NDB was in its heyday, where you could descend through cloud in confidence.

Let’s first start with a simple and oftenused method of establishing ourselves on our track after taking off and climbing out. Figure 1 shows our planned departure from an airfield with the take-off direction being 090° and our preferred track to our destination is 360°.