hey everyone Jason shopper here of m0a calm and myself and the mga dot-com team
are so proud of our new private pilot online groundswell it's me coming out
very soon depending on when you're actually watching this it may already be
out now a lot of love has gone into this from animations to great in-flight
footage to awesome in studio footage as well and I want to start sharing with
you some sneak peeks into the course and inside some of my favorite videos and
the team's favorite videos as well so this one is a longer video than a
typical Emma's orient comm video but it takes you through and helps you get a
better understanding of VFR sectional charts and if you love this video you're
gonna love all the courses and all the videos inside the new online ground
school there's going to be a link in the video description below or above this
video for a 2-week no-strings-attached free trial of our course whichever
course you want private instrument commercial doesn't matter that you can
check out there so we'll let the ground school video play and afterwards go
ahead and take action on that free trial this learn more about VFR a sectional
charts you can consider this lesson really like map reading for pilots this
lesson by the way is gonna be significantly longer than some of the
previous lessons we've gone through it also includes a link for a download of
our VFR charts symbology underneath of this video so go ahead and take a moment
to download that so you haven't you could have it separately on the iPad it
might be a bit much to print it's quite a big document but on an iPad or even in
a separate window would benefit you because this is something you're gonna
reference through the rest of lesson 10 now now it doesn't matter by the way if
you intend to use paper or digital charts in the cockpit this symbology is
the same so you need to know this information
either way this lesson builds on the previous lesson of airspace as we put it
all together now on the sectional chart this is a foundational lesson I
guarantee you'll be asked on aeronautical charts on
every checkride you take in addition to the knowledge tests let's begin with the
facts you need to know for starters visual flight rules or VFR sectional
charts are the primary means of navigation we use them to find airports
avoid special use airspace find control tower frequencies determine what
airspace we're entering we use them to find out what frequency to contact the
tower on or to get the automated weather as well there's a lot of information on
these charts and they cover the entire United States
now the VFR sectional charts are valid for six months on the frontal chart is a
date shown when the chart came out and when it expires it appears on both paper
and iPad presentations the digital charts well so let's say the VFR
sectional chart came out on December 18th
it'll be good until June 18th once has expired
it's a good idea to take it out of your flight bag assuming you're using paper
charts right across bold letters for ground training only because you can
still use it for practice but we don't want to navigate off an expired chart
because things change radio frequencies even airspace can change you don't want
to be flying with bad information the charts are named by the way for the
largest airports really within its boundaries on the further chart there's
a map showing the continental United States with a chart you're holding
actually shade out so you can kind of see which sectional chart we have now a
sectional chart covers a good bit of airspace so when the chart is unfolded
it expands about five feet across so you want to practice fold in an unfolding so
it doesn't take over the cockpit as well when the chart is folded properly one
side has a designation plates are in the name of the sectional the issue and the
expiration dates and the other side the legend showing the symbology similar to
what I had you download now if you're using those paper charts you want to
make time to purchase that new chart when the new one comes out with iPads
it's even easier though you just download the new one you'll get a push
notification and says sign it download the new chart so let's know take a look
at what the FA calls the VFR chart user's guide I recommend you download
this also a link that is well as you can download free
PDF from the FAA what you're looking at here is the symbology for the airports
that you'll see on the charts now you can follow along I say use the arrow to
really point out what we're talking about this opportunity to make sure this
is plane in full screen so you can really see everything now let's start
with the basics on the chart blue-blue airports are for towered airports
magenta that Airport is magenta is for a non towered airport on the sectional
chart will see tab marks on the circle designating the airport now those tabs
that you see around that Airport tell us that there services available at the
airport now more often than not this means fuel is available at the airport
at least part of the time tabs around usually mean fuel available
now when the runway is actually longer than eight thousand sixty nine feet it's
shown with lines drawing the runway out rather than fit it in the circle
you ask why eight thousand sixty nine feet that won't be on a test or anything
like that this is more just your fun fact for the day how they print it based
on pixels they print it to scale so a smaller runway looks smaller in that
circle larger runway it looks bigger that circle so it's somewhat to scale
well based on their scale a runway that's greater than eight thousand sixty
nine feets using their scale wouldn't fit inside that circle so then break out
of the circle and just physically draw the runway there now continuing to look
at that Airport the star on top of the circle there that tells us the airport
has a rotating beacon now rotating beacon is gonna help us identify the
airport at night let's move on now to airport grouping information now this is
the detailed information on the airports that's going to appear on the sectional
chart over the right side of the page you had the legend that's gonna walk you
through everything example F SS that means there is a flight service station
there at the airport the flight service station is where we get our weather
briefings the flight service station also processes our
flight plans beneath that we see the phrase no s VFR which stands for special
VFR no special VFR meaning that is flying in limited visual conditions
that's not allowed that airport most likely because the airspace just too
congested to allow something like special VFR we see the name of the
airport we also see the common traffic advisory frequency we can tell that
because we have the letters C T next to that frequency well that tells us there
is a control tower in this case it reads one one eight two point three which
really tells us the tower frequency is one one eight point three zero right
they drop that zero off at the end they're all tower frequencies you need
to know have five digits it's a the zero is kind of it's left off because it's
implied sort of like how we access a website no one types in
www.simpleandsensational.com 10 C of the lights if we see the letters RP next to
the runway that tells us turns in the pattern for a
particular runway R to the right because our P stands for a right pattern you can
learn more about that in the US charts supplement to see which runways or or
when that applies here now let's take a look at how to identify electronic means
of navigation they're gonna appear on the sectional chart VHF omnidirectional
radios more commonly known as vor s are identified with this blue compass rose
and rectangular box that gives you the frequency to actually listen to the vor
the actual vor itself kind of looks like a hex bolt as you can see and if they
have dist measuring equipment DME they have that
hex bolt in the box as well now if a Vortech if it's considered a vortac
which is essentially an old military vor this symbol is shaped kind of more like
a roman shield in a way some vo ours are located on airports others are set off
away from airports we're learning more about vor s and navigating to vor s in a
future lesson but this is just to introduce them how they appear on the
sectional chart now we have something called victor airways those are like our
highways in the sky you learn about those a few lessons back remember they
travel from vor to vor vor s by the way have a five-digit frequency the zero
again is always left off where's nice to kind just know it's there just like with
our voice frequencies now the name of the vor and the Morris code identifier
that series of dots and dashes is also given that you don't need to know Morris
code to be a pilot here and you're gonna listen to them we're gonna talk more
about that when we get to the vor so you'll be able to tell a difference in a
dot and a dash I promise now continuing on here on the right side we see these
magenta and really kinda looks like a flower in a way and there's a three
number designation well these flowers are actually symbology for what's known
as a non-directional beacon we're gonna call it an NDB now ndb's just being
honest with you our 1930s technology its modulation radio and it's very very
quickly being phased out right it's kind of like payphones and everything else as
technology changes we face now it's so much so the FAA is actually said that
when these ndb's break we're no longer fixing them no one's making parts to fix
them anymore so slowly over time these will be completely faded out now to use
an NDB in the airplane your airplane must have an automatic direction finder
which is in a DF your aircraft may not even have an ADF so ndb's may be of
little or no you to you we're still gonna talk about them
though in a future lesson now airspace decoding is key for the sectional charts
it's going to be the same across your sectional chart as well as a tack chart
which we'll talk about in a future lesson here you'll learn about that one
we'll read about some of the others here let's look at our airspace this should
be a quick recap Class B airspace is shown in blue class
Charlie airspace that's solid magenta line class Delta airspace dashed blue
line we just learned about that in that previous lesson
those improper fractions well that's associate with our airspace dimensions
as well class Eko airspace and was that tough one we covered a little while ago
well let's also depict it so we can identify whether it starts at 700 or
1200 based on our domestic enroute or class echo transition areas here now
also class echo airspace but still those lines those blue lines those highways in
the sky remember those those our victor airways
and therefore our IFR traffic and I know we're flying VFR but even on a VFR day
there's still someone out there flying IFR and operating on those IFR routes we
wouldn't want to be vigilant our cross-country flights because we're just
flying there for fun but someone might be on those highways in the sky so
important to note when we're flying past that we don't want to be you know the
the guy who's playing frog or going across these these highways in the skies
without looking at knowing what's coming here and speaking of things that can
hurt you by the way here's some symbology we really need to know for
special use airspace to help you avoid it this airspace by the way is color
coded and it really spells it out for you
prohibited airspace restricted warning areas these are all shown with these
blue hash marks now magenta hash marks are used for alert areas and moas or
military operation areas the solid thin Magette
the line here that's our mode C veil which we've spoken about and also has
some frequencies around it the controlling agency for any airspace if
appropriate to contact them now that we're aware of the samal adji let's take
a look at an actual sectional chart and practice decoding the information we're
heading to the Ocala Airport where I do a lot of flying Ocala International
Taylor field then the three-letter identifier Oh
C F by looking at the sectional chart we can see that the Ocala airport is Class
D airspace Class D airspace has a control tower we know that because it's
two picked in blue we can also read the control tower frequency is one one nine
point two five the star next to that tells us the tower is part time the
letter is C in the circle tells us the frequency for the tower is also the
common traffic advisory frequency meaning when that part time tower closes
I still broadcast like a pilot controlled Airport on that frequency we
can also see the automated terminal information system or the ADIS frequency
it's the frequency it gives us our weather beneath that the number 90 it
tells us the airport feel elevation is 90 feet above sea level
that's important because very often traffic pattern altitudes a thousand
feet above airport elevation so in this case we'd be flying the traffic pattern
at 1,100 feet 1,100 feet MSL the letter L with the asterisks tells us there's a
lighting limitation it could be some experimental lighting the FAA is testing
but more often than not we know it as pilot controlled lighting which means
you actually use your microphone switch to activate the lights and the lighting
intensity the next number 74 tells us the longest runway at the Ocala
Airport measures seven thousand four hundred feet and the last number one two
three dot zero is our Unicom frequency Unicom stands for universal can
education frequency which we would use to contact the FBO the fixed-base
operator on the field to request fuel now we can learn a lot about the region
we're flying in by studying that sectional chart we see a lot of magenta
circles on the sectional chart which tells me there's a lot of pilot
controlled non-towered airports in the area several of them by the way are
private airports those are indicated with the letter R in the circle the R
stands for restricted most often the private airports are grass strips and
you cannot land at a private Airport without prior permission unless it's an
emergency and you have to be ready to explain
yourself when you land we can see we have a military operations area and a
restricted area near the Ocala Airport this tells me we're likely to see some
military traffic in and out of the area remember they are a lot faster flying
than we are so it'll be extra careful when operating near their airspace
if the MOA or the restricted area is in use or hot well we don't fly in a hot
restricted area you can fly in a hot military operations area but it's on a
you know you decide kind of basis you cannot fly in restricted airspace when
it's hot but I could fly through a military operations area with my head on
the swivel when it is active now when we start doing our night flights this will
be important the sectional chart shows us cities and towns below us and they're
actually shown in yellow here this is important because on those night flights
you'll be amazed at how accurate the shapes of those cities appear because
when it's dark the lit outline of the city is what's prominent in the more
rural areas you'll see the name of the community next to in a circle next to it
here here we can see Candler the town there's this tiny town actually
depending on what part of the country you're in the rural areas stand out
because if there's a number of large barge or grain silos or farming right
like if we're a Midwest farming community or Pacific Northwest small
timber towns look like combination of Matchbox cars and blue
tarps right well the white line here tells us that there's a terminal area
chart in the Ocala area as well like I said we're gonna learn more about what
that terminal area chart means in the next lesson here the sectional chart
shows us the frequency box for the Ocala vortac that frequency to receive the vor
is one 13.7 zero or Channel 84 if we're flying in our military aircraft which
uses a different radio the three level letter identifier for the vor and the
Morse code which we use to identify it so we before we can really trust it for
navigation to make sure it's actually working the number on the top left side
of the box it's the frequency for Gainesville radio
this is the folks we open and close our flight plan with now those upside-down V
shapes on the sectional chart well those are obstructions they could be water
towers or cell phone towers you're just simply TV antennas the top number shows
us the height of the object the number of beneath in parentheses shows the
height above the ground you can remember this by thinking it this way the top
number is what your altimeter will read if you hit the top of it the bottom
number is how far you'll fall MSL versus AGL right now this is a quick
shot here of the class Bravo airspace over Orlando we know this is class Bravo
why because of those heavy blue lines Bravo means busy
we need permission to enter the airspace we need to hear the magic words cleared
in the class Bravo airspace we can see the shelves of the Bravo marked with our
improper fractions we can also see there more obstructions located a little east
of the airport those towers with a little lightning bolts coming off them
indicate the obstruction has a light at the top of it for your homework get a
hold on a sectional chart and if you don't have a current one you can use the
chart users guide or I'll give you some websites here in a bit and go through it
and see if you can correctly identify things on the
if you don't have access to a chart you go to a website like skyvector dot-com
skyvector com go to your local area and you can see VFR sectional charts for
your local area and start to find some symbols you don't realize and then you
go ahead and head down and look at the chart users guide look at the the legend
look at the symbols and see what you're going to find and learn and discover in
your local area don't trust me you're going to want to spend a lot of time
with the sectional chart I mean when you're on the ground or whether you're
in the cockpit you want to spend the time on the ground because in the
cockpit if you have that map out all five feet of it right it can be a little
daunting to try to learn everything here whether you choose to use paper or an
iPad I want you to become a master of this here
you're hurling to the sky at a hundred knots I don't want you fumbling around
with a chart or with an iPad I want you to master up on the ground the next
lesson real look at the tack chart which is kind of like a blown-up version of
busier airspace on a sectional chart I wrote the Private Pilot blueprint with
the intention of if I could do my flight training over what I wish someone would
have told me I want that book to be yours for free all I ask is that you pay
ship it visit Private Pilot blueprint comm to get your free copy