snippercr

Well I already have my private ASEL:Instrument; got it over the summer at a part 61 school. Per part 61 rules, you only have to do 1 precision approach and one NP. Ergo, I did an ILS, followed by a localizer and VOR approach. Do a hold. Recover from unusal attitudes. Here is your instrument rating.
I am at a part 141 school now they want me to know how to do EVERY approach in the book. While I had never done a GPS or DME arc, they were really easy and are kinda fun. HOWEVER... I still cannot for the life of me do an NDB approach. I have no idea what angles to look for and stuff and during corrections both before and after the NDB (assuming non-colocated at filed).
Any ideas/advice?
They are also going to make me have to do a hold at an NDB too so that will be exciting...

FlyerJosh

Go up with and instructor and fly a few NDB approaches (or just track in and out from the NDB on specific bearings), but do it WITHOUT a hood on.

By looking out the window and being able to see where the station is located, as well as how correction angle, drift, and wind all affect your track, you'll probably be able to conceptualize things a little better than if you can't look at how the station moves around the aircraft.

NetJets_DA2Easy

microsoft flightsim 2004, about 20 bucks. use the baron it has a nice ifr panel with an rmi, push the head or pull the tail, thats all there is to ndb navigation, simple.

siyer

I agree with NetJets_DA2Easy. Head Falls, tail rises, and turn in the appropriate direction to make it point to the course.

UnlimitedAkro

what the heck is an NDB?!

Hmmm.... ... Led Zeppelin... Woodstock '69... WWII... Adam and Eve ... im thinking back now...

Arent those NDB things supposed to be decomissoned by now?!

FlyingDog

The NDB will never lie to you. (and it is one of the few nav aids the feds can't easily remotely shut off btw).

Turn to the heading you are going to be using for the approach - look at the needle (assuming arrow end) turn to where the needle is and go beyond plus 10 or slightly more - wait till arrow starts to intercept and turn back on course.

Then the fly the PT just like any VOR B - and then it is duck and dive within 10 miles.

Really pretty easy. Harder to do in the moment.... but so the sim thing as said above.

Cool trick follows -
We had an examiner who would hand you an NDB approach from like 1000 miles away and tune the NDB to a local am station and have the applicant fly the approach....

It wigged out the applicant at first - but the beauty is that it is just another beacon and it can be anywhere and it really did a lot for the pilot flying confidence...

This is my opinion and if you and $4 to it you can get a cup of coffee

Outlaw2097

Two words:

GPS Overlay

Bri85

I got thru my whole Instrument Course without doing an NBD approach, the aircrafts weren't equipped with it =). So to tell you the truth I dont know how to do an NDB Approach and the ones that were around here we decommission. I believe by 2010 all of them will be offline in the US. and it will free up $8million a year from the FAA

coldpilot

Being able to fly an NDB approach is an excellent skill to have. Yes many NDBs are being decommissioned but flying the approach really helps develop your situational awareness. Not to mention if you use a RMI to track a VOR it's done the same way. It's not a useless skill at all although extremely confusing until you get that "oh i get it" light bulb .

the King

That is the absolute truth. Yeah, NDBs suck and I wouldn't fly one if I didn't have to, but the skills involved make you aware of wind drift while tracking a course. In addition, you must have a high degree of control over your heading to be successful with an ADF. My advice: remember that the needle always points to the station. If the wind is blowing, you must crab the airplane so your ground track looks like the approach plate.

On a personal note, I sincerely hope your former school didn't take that attitude on instrument training. I understand that they may not have the equipment required to do all the approaches (GPS, NDB, DME, etc). However, if they told you that you only need to be able to do VOR and ILS approaches, they were sadly mistaken. The instrument rating prepares you to shoot any approach your airplane can do. That's especially important for those of us who want to do this for a living.