How do pilots find their destination?

Navigation techniques used by pilots in an aircraft:

It is an extremely technical process to steer an airplane from one airport to another possibly covering hundreds or thousands of miles. Flying involves several techniques and equipment that a pilot employs to be able to plot the exact position and direction of an aircraft to safely get to the destination airport.

Plotting the Route

The first activity, which is eliminating or avoiding a particular area is not part of the navigation process but planning a route. Airlines do pay much attention to plotting the flight routes between two cities to identify the shortest, quickest, and most efficient in terms of fuel consumption. Information like wind patterns, the likely terrain that the airplane will encounter, available navigational aids, restricted airspace, and gateway routings are taken. Before take-off, pilots will have studied the pre-planned route maps and flight plans presented to them by the airline.

In shorter flights and general aviation, pilots may specify their particular courses of flight based on the weather, airspace restrictions, and other factors. Pilots rely on navigation charts, atlases, and flight planning tools to determine the straight course between airports, waypoints, navigation beacons, and other physical features. Planning a route involves choosing a series of radio beacons, GPS reference points, and visual reporting points along the airplane's desired path.

Setting the Heading

So, after the direction is chosen, one more parameter has to be defined the one pointing to the route. Heeding consists of defining the actual heading which is defined as the degrees of the direction of travel relative to magnetic north or true north. Before the takeoff, pilots set the aircraft compass or heading to the starting magnetic or true course for the first en route waypoint in the flight plan.

While en route, pilots will use headings to point the airplane in the direction needed to cancel out the wind drift and to guide it to the proper heading needed for the next waypoint in the planned route. Complex auto-pilots can also control movements and execute accurate heading alterations based on the FMS navigation programming.

Tracking Position

Apart from strictly adhering to pre-designated headings by pilots, they also estimate their location at any instance they deem fit throughout the flight. The position relative to the planned route should be tracked to ensure that the aircraft is on course.

Visual Position Tracking

They can also use visual references whereby pilots will try to locate certain geographical features they can easily identify such as cities, rivers, lakes, highways, or even coastlines, and match them with what is portrayed on the map. The pilots then align themselves by looking at the ground and noticing the shadow of their airplane and they use the readily identifiable visual reference points to make their estimations.

Radio Navigation

Radio navigation involves the use of radio beacons or satellites to locate an aircraft in the air. Such signals can be received onboard instruments and I believe they can give meaningful position, course, groundspeed, and glideslope to the pilots. Common types of radio navigation used today include:

• VOR gives direct or radial information from a beacon or a station.
  
• Nondirectional Beacons (NDB) imply a specific position about a particular transmitter.
  
• DME provides slant range distance to a navigation aid
  
• Auto Direction Finding (ADF) is a set of bearings for nondirectional beacon
  
• Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) are one of the most important elements that provide both vertical and lateral guidance to a runway.

The use of the VOR system can pinpoint the exact location of an airplane through the overlapping of different radial lines originating from different VOR stations. When an aircraft is within sight of several radio beacons, it can establish its position more accurately and determine a fix. In this way, the pilots set navigation radios on different frequencies that will help them ascertain their position concerning the two merging signals.

GPS Navigation

The most accurate and efficient method of identifying the position of an aircraft is the Global Positioning System (GPS) as it uses the flight management computer onboard the aircraft. Global positioning system receivers acquire signals from the satellite network to determine the precise latitude, longitude, altitude, speed, and direction of the moving object.

Modern flight control systems interact with GPS and other signals such as radio navigation and chart the airplane movements on a map display and pre-planned flight path. This allows pilots to know exactly their position at any time during the flight about airports, waypoints, and navaids to ensure that they are on the right track.

It can be flown by a pilot using GPS coordinates or flown on autopilot through automated navigation instructions and steering commands which lead directly to the desired airport. The GPS has made it easier to navigate through point-to-point routes approaches and even landings.

Contingencies

Airliners operating today come equipped with dual navigation systems that have back-ups and their power source in case of equipment failure. Pilots effectively rehearse for conditions where GPS or other primary means of navigation might be lost and they will transition to other forms of positioning.

If the navigation instruments were to be completely knocked off, pilots can request help from air traffic control facilities by requesting radar surveillance help, direction-finding equipment signals to regain positioning, and vectors to help the pilots steer away from areas that have been ravaged by thunderstorms or congested airspace towards the intended destination.

In worst-case scenarios, pilots may have to fall back to pilotage the process by which one flies a route visibly by reference to the geographical features. Today even when flying from Los Angeles to New York, all on airliner automation without sight of land or stars, pilots perfect the skills of manual flight that are required for visual flying in the event of a failure of all else.

Arriving at Destination Airports

When a pilot is approaching a particular destination airport, ATC issues specific clearances for beginning the descent and following the prescribed arrival procedures. Radar vectors help the aircraft to navigate through busy airspace and join as required for the active runway. Pilots preclear arrival navigation procedures and have their settings such as altitude, speed, and headings set at various waypoints. Landing aids such as ILS offer vertical and horizontal approach guidance to assist the aircraft in its final phase of descent on the set course to touch down on the same runway. At the gate, pilots mark the end of successful navigation by tracing the flight paths that cover thousands of miles to the intended terminal.

From the planning stage before the flight up to reaching a particular point with no sign of the coast until the precise, highly automated landing, pilots competently coordinate today's sophisticated instruments and cautious navigation to identify airports all over the world. The deliberate integration of route information, radio signals, Global Positioning System direction, and air traffic control directions all contribute to guarantee that airliners can locate their destination at different instances.