Operations
Nav Data and Charts continued...
Usually I take the Navigraph airport charts and print them on A5 paper format. Enroute charts are more problematic because it is difficult to print them. The paper format A4 is not suitable, A3 would probably be ok, but most of you, like me, certainly would not have an appropriate printer. Sometimes you can find enroute charts on ebay or buy a set of new charts (very expensive).
Best thing would be to have an electronic flight bag to get rid of the paper work. I'm waiting for a good solution which works together with the FS9 flight simulator. My dream is to have a webpad in my cockpit with all relevant data on it. The Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) from AivlaSoft is very close to my wishes and expectations, but unfortunately only available for the FSX.
Links:
IVAO: http://www.ivao.de/
VATSIM: http://www.vacc-sag.org/?PAGE=airport_overview (for Germany)
EAD: www.ead.eurocontrol.int/
Navigraph: http://www.navigraph.com/www/default.asp
Recently Lufthansa System has made the LIDO charts available for the iPad. For the time being charts are available for 40 airports only. Much too few to switch over to their solution.
Links:
LH Systems mobil: http://mobility.lhsystems.com/
Aviation Weather
Aviation has come a long way since the Wright brothers first flew at Kitty Hawk. Even after a century of flight, weather is still the factor most likely to result in accidents with fatalities. Therefore the current and the expected weather plays an important role during flight preparation and inflight decisions.
Due to the fact that the simulator weather is based on real weather conditions its always important not only to check the weather condition of the departure airport, but also the forecast (TAF) for the destination airport, prior take-off. It happened on a flight from Istanbul - Atatürk Airport (LTBA) to Bukarest Henri Coandă (LROP) when I did not carefully check the TAF of LROP. Arriving in LROP the runway visibility range (RVR) was almost zero and no time left to divert to an alternate, because of other private obligations.
The weather report for that particular day (02-Nov-2010) at LROP:
022030Z 04002KT 0150 R08R/0500N R26L/0450N FG VV000 06/05 Q1020 580///95 NOSIG=
Decoded:
| Visibility | 150m |
| Runway visibility | Runway 08 Right, 0500 meters 26 Left, 0450 meters |
| Vertical visibility | 0 feet |
Actually a CAT II ILS DME approach on Rwy 08R/L should have been possible, but the weather synthesis of ASE did make the conditions even worse. The result was an accident during deceleration after landing. Well, it happened in the simulator, so nothing serious happened, but it didn't increase my self-confidence regarding my personal pilot skills.
ATIS
Flying online the actual observed weather conditions are part of the departure airport ATIS. The example below demonstrates the IVAO ATIS for Hannover, EDDV, 25-Sep-2011, 1520z.
ATIS snapshot taken from Dolomynum
Decoded weather information from ATIS:
| Location | EDDV |
| Day of month | 25 |
| Time | 15:20 UTC |
| Wind | true direction = 290 degrees; speed = 4 knots |
| CAVOK conditions | Ceiling And Visibility OK |
| Temperature | 23 degrees Celsius |
| Dewpoint | 11 degrees Celsius |
| QNH (msl pressure) | 1019 hPa |
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