Adlerdriver

Hey Hacker,
How about an F-15 specific method (probably works in other fighters too):
If you have an INS destination that is the same location as the TACAN you're using (like maybe home drome), select that as the steer-to so you get bullseye info on the VSD. Turn to put the general vicinity of the fix you want to go to within the coverage of your VSD (or I guess you could even use the SIT display for fixes behind you). Now move the acqs symbols over the desired fix using the bullseye info and figure the required heading based on current heading and position of the acqs symbols in degrees off the nose using the BRA info.

Hacker15e

I also like the "WSO method", which goes something like,

"Hey, dude, can you pull out the high chart and put the lat/long for that fix in as INS point 99?"

And then a minute or two later, it magically pops up as an INS destination point.

Pretty cool feature that McD added into the E model.

Billy Pilgrim

I was doing this exact thing about a week ago flying to an IAF at a strange field, then after about two or three minutes and a few updates into it I (smartly) decided to KIO and just ask for vectors to final.

Another technique I've validated is just to continue current heading until ATC gives you a vector. This is probably not the preferred method.

Yes you can use the HSI, using bullseye on a daily basis helps too I think.

Billy Pilgrim

Haha - but the problem is that "feature" is probably always asking you to fly.

sourdough44

We used to use it fairly often 'back in the day'. 'The rendezvous point is the 270 at 30, 12,000 feet'.

The method taught in Navy training was a real or imagined pencil over the HSI, where at to where you want to go.

The shorthand method was just to eyeball it, adjust as needed as you cut radials & DME.

Hacker15e

Gotta repost this....hehe, I got a forum violation for posting a link with too many bad words in it and the original was deeeee-leted.

As you can guess, lots of IPs had minor aneurysms when radio NAVAID fix-to-fixes were dropped from the syllabus (myself included).

It happened, however, concurrently with a revision to 11-217 that also completely erased any reference the technique/procedure (which also happened to correspond with a ton of over changes to more closely align USAF instrument procedures to FAA procedures), and added in some verbiage about fix-to-fixes being done RNAV only.

So, despite everyone going all Hitler-video over it (this is the part I got a violation for -- google "Hitler fix-to-fix" if you want to go back in time and see a 2009 internet meme), since it was no longer even in the big book o' USAF instrument flying techniques/procedures, it was hard to justify UPT IPs teaching it.

Just too bad...yet another time-tested method of student harassment lost.

OSAVIP

I remember our instructors gave us paper HSIs to practice the "pencil method" during study sessions. I guess it worked...I still have the skill more than 22 years later. That and the tweet spin boldface that's still taking up precious brain cells...:

galaxy flyer

Hacker15e,

It was student harassment UNTIL you (or I) were leading a four-ship to the ARIP doing a fix-to-fix on an ID-250 (or ID-249, I can't remember. Then, it was real harassment and sweat.

GF

blastoff

FAA actually asked AFFSA to make Fix-to-fix go away (around 2010?) since its been obsolete for 30 years.

Thus it was removed from 11-217 and our lives forever. 11-217 itself may be going away as well in favor of MAJCOM supps to the AIM. Stay tuned.

galaxy flyer

Clearly, the end is nigh...what's next?

GF