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Distance from airport

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Distance from airport

Postby wooly » Sat Apr 03, 2021 2:36 pm

Hi , being new to flightgear, something is puzzling me. When approaching an airport how can you tell the distance to go, e.g a few miles to start slowing down? i either land in a field or fly over the runway. Is there a setting i can use to mark distances or can google earth do this ?
Thanks for any help
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby WoodSTokk » Sat Apr 03, 2021 2:50 pm

If there are no navaids on field, you can only land in VFR conditions. That means you should see the airfield or at least the runway at a specific point and land visually.
If there are navaids you can check bearings to it to navigate to the airfield.
Very helpfull are DMEs, mostly in combination as VOR-DME or VORTAC. Many stations are on field (that means they stay inside the airfield facility) and give you accurate mesurement to the field.
Sometimes there are navaids off field (some distance outside the airfield). But if you know how far the station is off field, its simple to calculate how far the airfield is away from your position.
For best experience most bigger airports are fitted with ILS and most ILS are fitted with a DME.
Mostly the DME of an ILS show you the exact distance to the DME station it self. They are moslty located at the GS antenna located at the touch down zone.
But also often they are setted to give the exact distance to runway threshold.
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby wooly » Sat Apr 03, 2021 5:00 pm

ok, sorry, that didn't mean much to me. i don't understand the abbreviations, don't forget i am totally new to flying. also i can never hear the ATIS, all seems set ok
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby I-PIC68 » Sun Apr 04, 2021 2:45 pm

Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER, Airbus A320, Cessna 172P, DHC-6
Airport: LIPQ, LGTS
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby ludomotico » Sun Apr 04, 2021 5:19 pm

Distance from/to an airport (or other places with an appropriate antenna) is measured rather unsurprisingly with the Distance Measure Equipment (DME). This is the most easier navigation tool to operate. This tutorial is for FSX, but the DME works exactly the same in real life or FlightGear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPy15TC-h9s

There are many ways to learn the DME frequency for an airport, if the airport has it (most medium and large size airports have DME) The most obvious way: it is in their real-life charts. Unfortunately, these charts are not always available for non-pilots. You can check the map inside FlightGear, but I find this map a bit difficult to operate.

You can also check SkyVector. For example: https://skyvector.com/?ll=49.9983826203 ... 301&zoom=2 That's Frankfurt, Germany. Do you see the large blue "compass roses"? They are VORs, and some of them are also DME. CHARLIE is 115.35, RIED is 112.2. Also, if you click on the airport, you'll find that the DME for Frankfurt is called FRED and its frequency is 115.90

For the symbols, check for example: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_ ... oducts.pdf (page 23)

FlightGear database is not as updated as SkyVector is, but most frequencies will also work in FlightGear.
Last edited by ludomotico on Sun Apr 04, 2021 5:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby Hooray » Sun Apr 04, 2021 5:23 pm

You could also use one of the tutorials or the RedGriffin ATC addon to get started
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby F-PTCZ » Sun Apr 04, 2021 6:12 pm

You can also measure on the FG map( CTRL M) by clicking on the place you want to measure the distance from your plane , with the right button of the mouse and it gives you a blue line with the heading and distance.
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby Alant » Sun Apr 04, 2021 8:56 pm

Once on the glide path, you can use the old-fashioned way - look at the altimeter and multiply the height by 20.
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby Johan G » Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:21 am

Alant wrote in Sun Apr 04, 2021 8:56 pm:[...] look at the altimeter and multiply the height by 20.

Would not that be distance in feet?

You could get approximate distance in nautical miles (NM) by dividing with 300.


1 deg is about 1/60.
1 NM is about 6000 ft.
3 deg glideslope is about 3 ft altitude at 60 ft distance, or about 300 ft at 1 NM.
300 ft multiplied by 20 is 6000 ft.
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby Alant » Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:45 am

Yes, unless he has a metric altimeter. ;)
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby I-PIC68 » Wed Apr 07, 2021 5:42 pm

I created this for myself and I keep it under the screen.
Then you need to add the altitude of the airport.

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Aircraft: Boeing 777-300ER, Airbus A320, Cessna 172P, DHC-6
Airport: LIPQ, LGTS
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Re: Distance from airport

Postby Johan G » Sun Apr 11, 2021 3:00 pm

Alant wrote in Wed Apr 07, 2021 9:45 am:[...] unless he has a metric altimeter. ;)

Ah! That absolutely makes sense. :)

1 deg is a bout 1/60.
1 NM is about 1800 m.
3 deg glideslope is about 3 m altitude at 60 m distance, or about 90 m at 1 NM distance.
90 m multiplied by 20 is 1800 m.


Edit: Oh, wait! All I need to know is that for a 3 deg glideslope you multiply the altitude by 20 to get the distance in the same unit.
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