Get inside your navigator's head

The map, especially with weather, airspace, and traffic overlays, is an invaluable resource during much of a flight—so much so that the skills sections for several tasks in the Instrument Rating Airmen Certification Standards (ACS) note that you should use the moving map unless the examiner “fails” it. For example, the holding procedures task says that you should “Use a multi-function display (MFD) and other graphical navigation displays, if installed, to monitor position in relation to the desired flightpath during holding.”

But when you’re flying IFR procedures, the key display in your panel isn’t the moving map. Instead, the flight plan page of the navigator provides the most useful information, because it shows the fixes and legs of the route you’ve entered—and, most important, the sequence that the GPS is programmed to follow. The flight plan page shows you what the box is thinking and what it will do next.

The basic layout of the flight plan page is the same in most navigators. Some primary flight displays, like the Garmin G1000, also can display a flight plan inset, a handy reference when you’re focused on the primary flight instruments. You can also split the multifunction display in many systems to show both a map and the flight plan page.

An IFR procedure (departure procedure, standard terminal arrival, or approach) is basically a sequence of fixes and legs. During an approach, there’s more going on inside the navigator’s brain—confirming accuracy of GPS signals, computing glidepaths, and so forth. But to you a procedure is essentially just like the fixes in an enroute flight plan. That’s why the flight plan page is essential when you load and brief IFR procedures. It shows you the sequence of fixes that you’ve programmed and is the best way to confirm that your expectation matches what the box will do (see “Not a Readalong,” October 2024 AOPA Pilot). The flight plan page also displays critical details, including legs such as holding patterns, course reversals, and arcs. Newer units also show charted segment altitudes that may not be present or easy to read on the map.

In effect, the flight plan page converts your GPS into something like a flight management system (FMS) on a turboprop or jet. When that page is displayed, you can easily skip ahead to a fix when ATC offers a shortcut, delete a hold in lieu of procedure turn, activate a leg that ATC is vectoring you to intercept, or even proceed to a fix or leg behind you.

Consider the RNAV (GPS) Runway 33 approach at Sioux Falls, South Dakota (FSD). If you’re arriving from the north, ATC will probably provide vectors to the final approach course, but when you load the procedure, it’s best to preserve options by choosing FEZNT as the transition. That action leaves the hold-in-lieu-of-procedure-turn (HILPT) in the flight plan, available should the controller need to change the sequence and have you fly the hold. If ATC tells you to expect vectors to join the final approach course, on the flight plan page you can easily skip over the hold and activate the leg from the hold exit at FEZNT to the final approach fix at YUCNU.

Check the guides for the units in your panel to learn about customizing the column titles on the flight plan page of your navigator. For example, I show the cumulative distances to fixes so that I can always see the distance to the runway, useful for planning when to slow down if ATC has asked me to keep the speed up and for announcing my position on the CTAF at a nontowered airport.

Displaying the flight plan doesn’t disregard the standards in the ACS. You probably have multiple maps available on your electronic flight bag, on the MFD—even miniature maps can lurk behind the headings and CDIs on electronic HSIs. So don’t duplicate that information when you’re flying a departure, arrival, or approach. Instead, turn to the flight plan page so that you can stay a few steps ahead of your navigator and avoid “What’s it doing now?” moments. FT

Bruce Williams is a CFI. Find him at youtube.com/@BruceAirFlying and bruceair.wordpress.com.