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6 Answers

Sectional Folding

Asked by: 9890 views ,
General Aviation

I am beginning to think this is just an urban myth spoken about in FBOs and hangars across the world.  I have heard there is a manner in which to fold your sectional chart that will allow you to easily follow your course from one area to another with the simplest of ease.  I hate using the words "I heard" but I have never seen it and have never known anyone who has done it, just a chain of people who knew someone who knew someone who knew how to do it.

To explain it a little better, the sectional would be folded in a square small enough for you to see a relevant amount of chart to keep good pilotage but when it came time to flip it or change pages it is just like a simple flip of a page of a book.

So to the question, does anyone know how to do this or is it a fantasy we would all like to be true?

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6 Answers



  1. Koehn on Apr 04, 2012

    I gave up and got an iPad.

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  2. Ernest R Ortner III on Apr 04, 2012

    I have an iPad but I am doing my commercial training part 141 and the chief instructor is huge on paper charts along with pilotage and dead reckoning.  When I do my cross countries I still have it powered up just in case I do get lost.  It is too great of a tool to completely eliminate if I have it as an option.

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  3. Jim Foley on Apr 04, 2012

    ‘Tis true, not just fantasy.  Now, most of my XCs are in the 50-75nm range, which allows the entire route to be displayed on half of a kneeboard, leaing the other half open for my planning papers, airport diagrams, and scratchpad.  On longer ones tho, I have occasionally done the “page” method.  I have to play around a bit and re-learn how to do it every time, because I don’t do it that often.  Basically, just look how it is pre-folded.  Just try to copy that pattern, but in the section you want.  Get an old outdated chart and practice.  You should be able to figure it out pretty easy.  (I was trying to find a YouTube video on it, but it appears there are none.  If I find the time soon, I’ll try to make one.)

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  4. JM on Apr 04, 2012

    Try this, specifically B-2
    http://www.map-reading.com/appendb.php

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  5. Earl Kessler on Apr 09, 2012

    As an aside, many of my students for Flight Reviews don’t know about the Sectionals and WAC Charts having the North and South arrows on the outside of the chart. One is inverted showing that you invert the chart before opening it so that all of the printing on the chart is right-side-up. If you can read it (North or South) than you will open the chart in the correct direction to see the print properly. This keeps you from fumbling with an unruly sheet of paper that blocks your view of this instruments while you are figuring out where Up is.

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  6. Best Answer


    Brad Kidder on Jan 22, 2014

    HERE IS WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR: Prepare your sectional by unfolding it completely, and then fold it in half on the horizontal (E-W) centerline using the existing crease. Set the new fold well with your fingernail, and perhaps even reverse the fold and crease it that way as well. Then, while folded in half latitudinally, zig-zag fold the sectional back into shape using the existing vertical creases. With this fold method, you are a always a single movement away from the next area of the map and will never need to unfold your sectional en route. Page left and right, flip for up and down. KEWL! (learned that at a AOPA Wings safety seminar)

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