XC Diversion

[Ozfergie]

I need to perform an in flight diversion on my next XC - the diversion needs to be planned in the cockpit en route.

 

It's a bit of vague question but do you have any tips or tricks around being "organised" for this?

 

 

[SDQDI]

Put ozrunways on your phone and do it in a tandem seated plane:whisper:

 

But on a serious note make sure you keep an accurate track of where you are, doing a diversion when you aren't 100% sure of where you are is stressful and fraught with the danger of embarrassment of ending up geographically challenged.

 

 

[Akromaster]

Know where you...keep track of land marks and heading. Probably helps if you fly your planned track by google maps before hand.

 

 

[nathan_c]

Knowing where you are is critical obviously, and if you can divert from a known point on the map that you can locate easily to your diversion field is a lot easier then somewhere random along track (though this is not always possible). Id rather my students locate an obvious feature and work out a heading based on that point rather then guess how many miles along track you are and being wrong and getting yourself lost.

 

Other little things like having a pencil with 10 mile markers etched onto the side to avoid needing to bring out a ruler can make your life easier too.

 

 

[Roundsounds]

I hope your instructor will provide preflight guidance as to how they expect you to perform the diversion? Trying to learn one of the many methods in flight is a very poor instructional technique. I am not a fan of trying to measure a track airborne, diversions are often the result of adverse weather. The last thing you need to be doing is going head down - that's a sure way of inadvertently entering cloud. Estimating a track or holding your chart up to the DIrection Indicator are a couple of ways of establishing yourself on the diversion.

 

 

[mike_perth]

Couldn't agree more roundsounds - this is something Im hoping your instructor will give you guidance from and maybe even suggest some good airfields to divert to along your track - and leaving the diversion point and choice of field up to you.

 

The marked 10 mile pencil is also a good one - Mine lives in my kneeboard to this day even tho I more often than not use Ozrunways (Still carry paper but may be slightly out of date due Ozrunways)

 

 

[Roundsounds]

Couldn't agree more roundsounds - this is something Im hoping your instructor will give you guidance from and maybe even suggest some good airfields to divert to along your track - and leaving the diversion point and choice of field up to you.The marked 10 mile pencil is also a good one - Mine lives in my kneeboard to this day even tho I more often than not use Ozrunways (Still carry paper but may be slightly out of date due Ozrunways)

I teach students to estimate a track bearing and distance before measuring it. This provides both a gross error check and develops the ability to estimate a diversion without using a plotter / protractor and rule. I also have them estimate time intervals for the same reasons.

 

 

[rdarby]

It is easier if you have a procedure to guide you.

 

TTTCARES

 

Time - record it and where you are on your map so you can get back to a known point

 

Trace - estimate it. You will be amazed how close a rough estimate of angle is.

 

Turn - Don't over think the angle and don't wait too long

 

Compass - synch the DG to it, if you have one

 

Altitude - make sure it is appropriate for the new track

 

Radio - get the frequency for where you are going

 

Engine - mixture etc. if relevant

 

S - SARTIME. Work out your new timing and amend SARTIME or fuel calculations etc. if needed.

 

Good luck

 

Ryan

 

 

[Akromaster]

Caution? At least provide an argument for your caution.

 

As others have said, knowing your position is 'obvious' but as a student, that's harder said than done. I recall in my training that it was a lot harder to pick out landmarks than I thought. Tracks that are marked like major roads was hard to spot, where there should be a river looks like a creek from the air, where there's a lake, is a dry bed, etc. It took me quite a while to get used to how things look from the air, especially if you haven't wondered out beyond 25nm.

 

As far as I'm aware flying there's no law against using whatever resource you have access to, like google maps, to get familiar with the planned track. I still use it to plan for flights into airfields I haven't been to, like what my 10m landmarks look like.

 

 

[kaz3g]

Wise words, Roundsounds.

 

I picked up the AUSTER from Watts Bridge on 7 January nearly a decade ago. The seller gave me a few minutes at the controls in the air and that was it. My only prior experience in one of these was a couple of hours with Nick Cauldwell at Tyabb in a Gipsy powered machine so even the swing on take off was opposite. My departure takeoff could probably be described as "interesting".

 

I had towering Cu's and isolated embedded TS down the length of the Divide. The turbulence was awful and I decided after a while that since the wings hadn't fallen off it was a strong little aeroplane. I couldn't take my eyes of the horizon and cloud base for a moment so I thanked Her for giving me the foresight to have purchased a Garmin 295.

 

My charts were all marked off with everything I could possibly need but I'm dashed if I could get much from them while being chucked around all over the place. The magnetic compass was rotating wildly so the DG and the Garmin were life savers.

 

I still have the Garmin and use it routinely. It's supported now with my iPad and OzRunways which replaces paper when touring around Victoria which I know pretty well. When I head Outback (I'm off to the Gulf in a couple of weeks), I prepare my paper charts, include my iPad Mini along with the other gear and make sure I cover all bases by referencing ground to paper and confirming on OzRunways.

 

It's always good to know where you are....especially if the noise stops!

 

Kaz

 

 

[facthunter]

Plan well Have all your information(notes) on the plan. Have a good idea of suitable alternates along the route anyhow. That's normal on long critical flight where reserves are minimal and you use a running recovery of the 10% F/F reserve to remain legal.. Have a running fuel use /remaining plan. and amend it as you go. Look up Howgozit.

 

If you are losing time adjust for the extra burn. Keep an up to date figure available, of fuel remaining at all times.

 

Know your planes performance fuel wise. Ie say 50 Nautical miles equates to 10 litres so you get 1.25 miles (air miles) per litre. 80 nm to run is 80 x4/5 litres in still air plus 45 minutes reserve (suggested).

 

KNOW what USEABLE fuel you loaded. That's the amount you work with LESS what you have already burned

 

This gives you a good idea of how far you can safely go. Always discount the fuel available by what fixed reserve (plus some) you are comfortable with. The fuel gauge reading is not enough by itself with out some form of confirmation. IN this case calculated burn on the legal and proven figures form the POH.or actual if it's MORE

 

Apply your wind component and add/ subtract %as applicable for the direction of track you choose. Being roughly RIGHT is better than precisely WRONG. If you err do it the conservative way. This is not a comprehensive coverage just a few points to consider. Nev

 

 

[Nightmare]

Knowing where you are is critical obviously, and if you can divert from a known point on the map that you can locate easily to your diversion field is a lot easier then somewhere random along track (though this is not always possible). Id rather my students locate an obvious feature and work out a heading based on that point rather then guess how many miles along track you are and being wrong and getting yourself lost.Other little things like having a pencil with 10 mile markers etched onto the side to avoid needing to bring out a ruler can make your life easier too.

Yes! Don't rush to do the diversion, As Nathan says, turn at an obvious feature a little along the track. I had to re-do my diversion lesson because I rushed it, take your time and get it right.

[poteroo]

One of my personal flying rules is that the best precautionary landing ...... is a diversion to a safe strip.

 

I still hold to that after 54 years in the saddle. After 4.5 hrs flying on my last long distance ferry flight - I heard the YABA AWIS calling below VMC conditions. Diverted to the closest, (all weather), strip 40nm to the NE and landed. Made a few phone calls. Waited for AWIS wx to improve. Chewed on some dried fruit & nuts in my emergency supplies. Then set off home after having a nice, safe, pit stop where both the aircraft and myself were not at risk. Yes, I probably could have pushed on into some marginal wx, but after so long in flight, and at my age, I recognise that I'm getting tired, and that isn't good for negotiating seriously bad wx.

 

A diversion due weather is usually something that you can see approaching. So, it makes sense to pick a point on, or off, your track - over which you divert. This gives you a minute or 2 to roughly estimate the new track, and distance to run, before you make the turn and mark the time.

 

happy days,

 

 

[ian00798]

Here's how I do a diversion:

 

Always divert from a known point, preferably a very obvious feature. Then I use the acronym TELFAR

 

T - Track. Don't forget to convert from grid to magnetic

 

E - ETI. Figure out your ETI, don't forget to account for known winds.

 

L - LSALT. Only needed for an IFR diversion

 

F - Fuel. How much do you have? How much do you need? Remember you still need to have your reserves intact

 

A - Altitude and airspace. Fly a hemispheric level. Check for things like CTA and restricted areas on your divert route.

 

R - Radio call. Give the details to Brisbane/Melbourne centre. Amend your SARTIME if needed.

 

 

[Oscar]

With the greatest respect to all the people who have given most useful and considered advice on this thread, and stating upfront that my power flying XC experience is almost zero, but I have a few decent XC flights in gliders to my credit- many years ago, way before GPS etc.

 

For planning a glider XC flight, in those days anyway, you basically made a note of the general track heading to the major waypoints ( either for a triangle flight or an out-and-return.) A glider has bugger-all space for map referencing en-route. So, your 'tracking' would be by visual reference: release from the tow, roll onto the required heading, note some physical feature on track, and then fly to get over that. When over it, roll out onto heading again and pick the next physical feature on-track, rinse and repeat..

 

In a glider, your primary concerns are to head for lift and avoid sink, with an increasing concern the lower you got, for keeping outlanding sites within glide distance. At 1K feet AGL, you abandoned the flight and headed for a safe landing site - and only modified that plan if you hit a really, really strong thermal almost immediately. Been there, lost a Diamond Distance ( 300K to a Goal) flight by about 3ks. Bugger.

 

In a glider, 'diversions' are weather-dependent. I've been WAY out of range for a planned return to base, had a cold-front roar in below me, had to turn and run like buggery for home sitting on top of wild IMC conditions and trying to balance my necessary speed and therefore descent rate vs. the front height. Ended up surfing the rising air ahead of the front into Narromine.. Got there, ended up soaked as we pulled the Libelle back to the hangar when that front hit.

 

With an engine to provide the motive power, rather than kinetic energy, should a diversion be such a drama? - provided you make the decision to divert before it is swamped upon you?

 

I look at the electronic aids available to us nowadays. It seems to me - based upon only what I can learn from on-line resources - that with a combination of something like OzRunways and the BOM radar information overlaid on that, you should be able to anticipate the necessity to divert well in advance of it 'happening' to you.

 

And what do people think about the Xavion application? Description – Xavion

 

I have no experience of flying IMC as the PIC ( but have flown into Tullamarine in the RHS in IMC in a Cherokee 6, breaking out of the cloud base at less than 500 feet, centred on the runway - thank you, electronics.) I HAVE had experience of running into Ulladulla harbour in a howling storm navigating totally blind to a necessary +/- 50 feet or so on the radar.

 

I am of the opinion that being forced to rely on paper-based navigation resources, in this day and age, is akin to being forced to demonstrate competency in Morse Code for communications. Commercial operations -with their vastly higher risk - rely on computer-controlled take-off and landing profiles, with the pilots being there mostly for 'out-of-condition' corrections. That's why those pilots are paid large salaries: to be the agent over-riding the electronics when it goes pear-shaped. I would not have it any other way.

 

HOWEVER: a diversion SHOULD be a reaction to something less than an emergency. Provided that one has sufficient back-up in one's electronic flight aids, I don't see why utilising such aids should not be acceptably safe flying.

 

 

[SDQDI]

Couldn't agree more in regards to electronic aids Oscar!

 

Having said that the op was doing his navs and I do think it is important to do it old style at the start:thumb up:

 

But yes diversions with ozrunways on an iPad or iPhone is a piece of cake and can happen instantly, I wonder how many incidents could be avoided by proper use of an electronic Nav aid? How many folks have run out of fuel miscalculating their time of arrival? Maybe it would be more of a safety benefit to mandate everyone carry 2 electronic Nav devices instead of paper?

 

 

[facthunter]

If they both depend on satellites, you might need the paper still. Funny how in marginal conditions, fail to acquire satellite or something happens. Never on a clear day with visibility to the horizon.

 

I've always had the view..... "Don't trust ONE particular source derived answer." Confirm it with a separate source of information even IF it isn't as accurate .Fuel gauges, back up with original fuel load (confirmed by dip or fill to top). minus calculated burn for quantity cross check. Burn against time elapsed. and time to destination. Convert litres to minutes, and minutes to distance or litres to distance if the W/C is constant. You MAY be operating with less reserve than you are comfortable with so don't err with the calculations and If you look like you might run out of fuel, LAND with power rather than let the fuel run to exhaustion and land deadstick where you are limited in what you can do to alter your approach path, into a something less than desired paddock. Nev