25 older than him 
30 years older than him for me…
Haven’t had a chance to look at the youtube and digest, just a quick skim. I think the lad may need to slow down if he is going down the multi crew route. Lots of head inside while taxying and am guessing some lessons learned on planning and TEM?
I got my MEP/IR a year older and was much more ponderous trying to keep up with the Seneca 1. That was when the asymmetric timed NDB circle to land was de rigeur. You still needed to be familiar with the more reliable low frequency four course range, although the nearest one was too far away for a test run.
“That was when the asymmetric timed NDB circle to land was de rigeur. You still needed to be familiar with the more reliable low frequency four course range, although the nearest one was too far away for a test run.”
I remember the asymetric timed NDB and I remember doing asymetric circle to land. In fact still do it on revalidations.
But what is an NDB circle to land? And what is the meaning of a “low frequency four course range” please?
NDB CTL is just an NDB FAT that is offset the runway, although testing would be to a runway procedure, then aligning and reconfiguring and then going around at circle minima. Most revalidations today are a combination of ILS and RNP to get your PBN revalidated.
In mountainous terrain the NDB is not very trustworthy (apologies for blinding glimpse of the obvious) and it also suffers from coastal effect and thunderstorms etc. The four course range is a cheap, arguably more reliable LF MF beacon system. It broadcasts an aural signal in four segments using the A and N morse code. They would overlap on four courses where you would hear the null tone (A and N merge) and know you were flying the beam, Ernie Gann style. No needles, just stopwatch and listening to morse code. You used procedure turns to figure out which segment you were in and then positioned to fly outbound on your runway beam, carried out a procedure turn to re intercept. A marker beacon gave you the FAF. Back in the day there were still a few four course ranges in Canada, and the IR required that you understood them.
https://flyingthebeams.com/map
[ URL made into a clickable link, to avoid problems with funny characters in URLs ]
gallois wrote:
But what is an NDB circle to land?
I had to do an NBD circle to land on my FAA IR checkride in 2002. It was just an NDB-A approach (i.e. not aligned to a runway), which requires a CTL at the end.
@ncyankee will know this but IIRC any IAP with an offset of 20 deg or more is called “circling”.
Didn’t watch the whole video but you are only as good as your currency. If he had a good mentor, before and after the PPL, and threw plenty of time and money at flying a lot, a good level of IFR proficiency is very possible at a young age. Especially in the US where you have a lot of destinations without the PNR/PPR / opening times / etc stuff here. Also as the video shows, ATC there can see wx radar.
Here in Europe, flying costs more and there are a lot more assorted obstacles, so most of us don’t start until divorce / kids have left home / etc
RobertL18C wrote:
The four course range is a cheap, arguably more reliable LF MF beacon system. It broadcasts an aural signal in four segments using the A and N morse code. They would overlap on four courses where you would hear the null tone (A and N merge) and know you were flying the beam, Ernie Gann style. No needles, just stopwatch and listening to morse code. You used procedure turns to figure out which segment you were in and then positioned to fly outbound on your runway beam, carried out a procedure turn to re intercept. A marker beacon gave you the FAF. Back in the day there were still a few four course ranges in Canada, and the IR required that you understood them.low freq radio range
Just been reading up about the four course range, and that included playing the sample sounds that are part of the Wikipedia article. It caused the dog to walk into the room and begin howling at them in response. He gave a solid tone, so I think he was on the beam.
Got it now. Just different terminology.
Yes CTL is a 30° + break after following the approach course.
The 4 course range, never heard of it. Although we were taught that NDBs were unreliable under the conditions mentioned. I only remember a couple of approaches in France that used a switch from one NDB to another and they were all on POGOs. We did however have to tune and identify NDBs through the morse signal. Nowadays thank goodness they are automatically detected and shown on modern radios. We also had (brain fade forgot the term haven’t used it in forever) but what possibly is now known as vectors whereby the controller kept giving you QDMs to fly based on your radio signal. Le Mans had one but it was limited because your radio was tied up and ATSOs could only handle one aircraft at a time.
It was a less precise version of a PAR without vertical guidance.
At the time we had 2 terminologies/types of circle to land MVI and MVL.
MVI (manouver visual imposé) which is now known as a VPT and MVL (manouver visual libre (free)) now known just as circle to land.
Approaches were direct (straight in) or indirect if the runway was offset by more than 30°.
For the MEP/IR you had to be able to do all these with OEI if the examiner so wished.
Nowadays those manouvers still exist but there are very few NDB approaches left and we now have RNP and PBN which means to revalidate we have simply to do a precision and non precision approach. Examiners don’t tend to bother with an NDB approach so they tend to be an ILS and a GNSS approach without vertical guidance with one or 2 engines. You then also have to fly a basic set of OEI manouvers either VFR or IFR eg circle to land.
