I dont fully understand the avionics tab on the sim, could anyone help me out?
Especially the CRS feature.
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Wish I could but I ALSO wonder what’s its for.
360°? What’s that mean? I tried to play with those settings a few times and nothing happened.
during normal flight, it mostly remains unused.
that tab is useful for VOR navigation and other similar navaids
for example, tune in a VOR or NDB, and if you want to intercepted a certain radial, just put that radial in the CRS.
boom, now just intercepted said radial and it’s done
there’s all about it here:
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The avionics tab is used for navigation during almost all phases of flight. When you spawn in, the source (middle right) should be set to GPS. If you create a flight plan in the map, your HSI will automatically show you your GPS path, because the nav source is selected to that. The other buttons are not really used until you want to fly an approach.
If you want to fly an ILS:
First open the map and select your arrival airport. Select the runways tab and then set the ILS of the desired runway to NAV1. When you select an ILS, it will automatically tune the course (CRS) to the correct one. The course is essentially what your final approach heading will be (assuming no wind).
Above you can see I have tuned the ILS to runway 10 at KMGM. We can then notice a few key things by comparing with the approach plate. First, the top left box that says NAV 1 has both the correct ILS frequency (109.9) and identifier (IMGM) when we compare it with the approach plate. Below that, the course (CRS 1) also matches the approach plate (sometimes it is a few degrees off in infinite flight). Below that, the bearing pointer (BRG 1) is set to NAV 1. This allows us to see our distance from the localizer (this is next to the yellow arrow). Finally, because our SOURCE is set to NAV 1, our HSI in the bottom middle shows us our course for the ILS.
If you want to fly a VOR approach:
These approaches are more difficult and not used as much in real life. For a VOR approach, you will need to open your map and tune the appropriate VOR to NAV 1 or NAV 2. In this case, I have tuned the MGM VOR to NAV 2.
We can see again in this example, by comparing the NAV 2 box (top middle) against the approach plate, the correct identifier (MGM) and frequency (112.1) are tuned. Below that, I had to manually set CRS 2 to match the approach plate, as it is not automatically set for VOR approaches. In this case it is 318. Below that, my bearing pointer (BRG 2) is set to NAV 2, so we can now see distance information to the MGM VOR (next to red arrow). And finally, with my SOURCE set to NAV 2, the HSI (bottom middle) now shows the approach course that I have set for this approach.
Finally, the ADF button which I didn’t talk about. This is an extremely outdated form of navigation. Don’t worry about this button as you will never use it.
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Basically, it is for mostly navigating via radio. With it, you can navigate to a VOR (short for Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range), which is basically a station on the ground sending out signals in all direction on 360 radials, which you can imagine as a bicycles wheel, with the radials being the spokes and the VOR the hub, or with ADF, short for Automatic Direction Finder, which is also a station that sends out signals but instead it just shows where it is. Basically, imagine it like a light on a big mountain, and you point your arm towards the light. Most GA pilots use radio navigation as not all aircrafts, especially older ones, don’t have a GPS equipped. You can use both when you enter a VOR/ADF in your map, then go to the avionics tab, and set “SOURCE” to “NAV1” or “NAV2”. The bearing buttons are for changing bearings, for example when you enter nav1 bearing 150° you will fly on the VORs 150 degree radial. The map range is for changing the range of the map (as the name says) if you’re flying an aircraft with a live cockpit. This will make you see more waypoints and traffic. Last but not least, the compass button is for changing your HUD or cockpit map to show either NAV, as a full circle, or ARC, as a half circle. I recommend you check out the user guide for the avionics tab.
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