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4 Answers

VFR heading to fly

Asked by: 3825 views
Airspace, FAA Regulations

True or false: when flying VFR (above 3000 AGL) your direction to fly is True Course minus/plus variation? Also known as Magnetic Course. 

I sense there is a lot of confusion with this and I doubt that many pilots actually fly the correct VFR heading (I know I haven't always). 

 

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4 Answers



  1. Russ Roslewski on Jan 23, 2020

    Is there really a “lot of confusion” on this? 91.159 is pretty clear that it’s based on magnetic course.

    I find the part that most people don’t remember is the “above 3000 AGL”.

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  2. lifeasben on Jan 24, 2020

    @Russ

    What I mean is there is confusion over the definition of Magnetic Course, at least from my conversation with a few CFI’s and one DPE.

    I personally wonder how many of us when out for a “leisurely VFR flight” even know what heading our fancy tablet or GPS is displaying? For example, if you follow the course shown in Foreflight this is not Magnetic Course, it is displaying a course corrected for variation and winds*, a Compass Heading.

    Further, on the typical paper VFR navigation plans it goes something akin to: True Course (what you plot on a map) > True Heading (TC adjusted for winds) > Magnetic Heading (TH adjusted for variation) > Compass Heading. So, where is Magnetic Course on the plan? You’d have to compute it separately so you know what to actually fly.

    * you can trick FF into not taking winds into account by setting an extreme altitude or inputing a ETD way out in the future when winds aloft are not available. But this is not practicable for the real world.

    Maybe I’m confused? Always learning….

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  3. John D Collins on Jan 24, 2020

    On ForeFlight, it is true that the Navlog displayed on the map view of FPL only shows magnetic heading, but, if you go to Flights and tap the full Navlog, the magnetic course for each leg is displayed in the Magnetic Course column. Also, ForeFlight has instruments that can be displayed in flight that are displayed on the bottom of the Map view, one option is “Course Next”, which is the desired course to the next waypoint. So there is no need for tricks with ForeFlight to determine magnetic course in the real world :).

    The hemispheric altitude rule applies to the magnetic course which is true course +/- variation and does not consider winds or heading. So as long as you stay on your original course, the heading you use to track the course is not important for determining altitude selection.

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  4. Mark Kolber on Jan 26, 2020

    >> I personally wonder how many of us when out for a “leisurely VFR flight” even know what heading our fancy tablet or GPS is displaying?

    I honestly cannot recall a time I did not know where I was going.

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