TUTORIAL

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 INTRODUCTION
This step-by-step guide was created to help you learn and use Radio Range navigation for
the wing42 Boeing 247.

Radio Range navigation accelerated the development of air travel after the second world
war. Mainly the United States saw extensive use for its national network and some
international connections. Radio Range Navigation provided a reasonably safe and effective
means of navigation before being replaced by the more advanced ADF and VOR, INS and
ultimately GPS.
At its peak in 1944, the US lower 48 states held no less than approx. 450 Radio Range
Stations that effectively covered the nation in a web-like network. Worldwide there were
much less stations.
Many aircraft were equipped with the required Radio Range Receiver, necessitating a close co-
operation between the radio operator, the navigator, and the pilots.
The basic idea is simple. A beacon transmits two signals that are turned to audio signals in
the earphones of the operator.
One signal would be the Morse code for the letter ‘A’, which is dot-dash (short-long, bip-
beep, whatever you like. the morse for ‘a’ is .
The second signal would be the Morse code for the letter ‘N’, or dash-dot (long-short, or
beep-bip). The Morse for ‘n’ is .
As you can see, the A and N are each other’s reverse. This is important, because the setup
of the transmitter antennas on the ground would be such that, on approach to the beacon,
if you would drift to the left side, you would hear the ‘A’. Getting off-course to the right
side would produce the ‘N’. But, when perfectly on course, the ‘A’ and ‘N’ would overlap and
provide a long, continuous beep.

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 Radio operation
The radio unit is located overhead on the cockpit centerline.
for proper operation, Pilots should:
1) set Power on
2) Volume as required
3) CW mode on
4) select band as required
5) tune frequency as required

Before a flight, make sure to check the fuses are alright, and there are plenty of spares
onboard.

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 Setting up
It is strongly recommended to import the radio range stations and music stations into little
nav map. That will make flight planning a whole lot simpler. To do so, start little nav map
and under the menu ‘userpoints’, click ‘import csv’.

Then browse to and select the file ‘radio range stations lnm.csv’. the stations will show as
type ‘tacan’. The stations can be searched by name, ident or type.

The ‘ident’ field is the morse identifier code (“CT”), then the frequency (245), and the four
inbound true headings.
In a similar way, import the music stations file, called ‘Music stations.csv’. This will display
all music stations, as type ‘flag’ with name and frequency.

Note that the radio music stations outside of the usa are fictional.

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 Training flight

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Flight planning
The training flight is performed from new York Teterboro (KTEB), to Cleveland Hopkins
(KCLE). This is a flight that was part of united airlines coast-to-coast connection in 1935:

Departure time is 10:00 local.

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From there we plan a route that follows the radio range stations shown as the tacan
symbol. Optionally we consult the ‘Radio Facilities USA 1944.pdf’ document to find the
original airways of 1944. In this tutorial we will follow that routing.

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The chart shows an inbound Magnetic heading 238 into Newark. But this is for the Magnetic
Variation of 1944. Instead, we need to consult the data in Little Nav Map. you can easily
find it.

Here it shows (top right) the station ID (“NK”), the Frequency (341 KHz) and the four
inbound true headings: 47°/98°/227°/306°. So, from Teterboro we need to first proceed south,
and then intercept the inbound 227° True beam and we can plot accordingly. This gives us an
inbound heading of 240° Magnetic.
Alternatively, and as a check, we look up Newark in the station facilities index we can
check. It’s on page 125. That also shows the morse code for NK, the co-ordinates, and the
A/N side. For our inbound beam 240°M, the ‘A’ signal will be on our left side. This is a Medium
Range beacon and should be picked up immediately upon our departure from Teterboro.
In the cockpit we always use magnetic heading because that’s what the compass uses.

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From Newark we plan to proceed straight on at 240°M, until intercepting the beam into
Allentown (“XA”, 320): Inbound heading is 292°M. The A signal will be on our right. This, too,
is a medium range station. At the intercept distance of 51 nm we should be able to hear this
quite clearly from Newark.

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We plot this leg in LNM, too:

From Allentown onwards, we will continue to fly along track to intercept the beam inbound
Bellefonte (“BF”, 224). Along the route we can confirm our progress by listening to our
passing through the northbound beam into Williamsport (“IA”, 233). Note that this intercept
is of the beam into Bellefonte is close to passing through the beam into Williamsport.

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From Bellefonte, it’s going to be a bit different. We will fly outbound along the 102°T beam.
That will keep us on the airway. Note that this is marked as 111° on the old chart.

Our outbound heading thus is 102°T + 180 = 292°T/302°M. We follow this until we intercept the
beam into Youngstown. Youngstown inbound is 276°T/285°M.

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And finally, from Youngstown it’s a short stretch into Cleveland (“CV”, 344), along the
inbound beam 275°T/283°M.

The airport at Cleveland is situated almost directly next to the Radio Range Station.

The entire route in Little Nav Map now looks like this:

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Total distance is 369 nm. The Boeing 247 cruise at around 150 KTAS. This puts the flight time
at approx. 2h50m. This corresponds perfectly to the schedule arrival time of 12:54.
The flight passes through the square with highest elevation of 53, thus a minimum safe
altitude is 6300 ft.
For quick reference, the Radio Range station sequence is:

The weather is overcast, with little wind. Perfect for Radio Range navigation. We will not use
any other means of navigating. No GPS, no VOR, no ADF.
Make sure to check all radio fuses are OK, and there are plenty of spares:

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Flight execution
With flight planning complete, we load the boeing 247 on the ramp at Teterboro. As part of
pre-flight preparations, we tune the radio to 341 for Newark.

When switch on and tuned, we can clearly hear the ‘N’ tone rather loud, with a very faint
‘A’. This matches our position relative to Newark:

After cockpit preparations, we take off and proceed south (180T/193M) while climbing to
cruise altitude.

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After a while the ‘a’ signal should become stronger, and when ‘a’ and ‘n’ merge, turn right to
intercept the beam 240°M. Keep listening and correction. When the ‘a’ volume becomes dominant,
you are too far to the left of track, so you must correct to the right. If the ‘n’ volume
becomes dominant, correct to the left.
Try to maintain a constant ‘merged’ A & N signal.
Once per minute, the a and n sounds will be interrupted, and you will hear the morse code
for the tuned station, as shown in the chart.
while approaching Newark, the ‘a’ and ‘n’ volumes slowly and continuously increase. When
almost overhead the volumes suddenly drop. This is called the ‘cone of silence’. It means
you’re there! You are directly overhead the station. It also means that it is time to turn to
the heading to the next waypoint.

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We dial 320 for the next station Allentown, and immediately hear the ‘A’ signal for it. We
keep at 240°M until the ‘N’ signal comes on and merges, and we intercept the Beam. Meanwhile,
we have gone into cloud and we are reaching our cruise altitude of 6500 ft.

Before long we hear the ‘A’ and ‘N’ merge into a continuous tone, and we intercept the beam
inbound 292M. We keep listening and adjusting. A strong A means we to the right and we
correct Left. Vice versa for N. It’s easy to misinterpret the signal. Listen carefully, or
even switch off and back on to make sure you are interpreting correctly.
If you don’t pass closely over the station, and miss the cone of silence, you can still tell
the passing. The A will become very dominant when passing North, N very dominant when
passing South.

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After passing, maintain 292M. Tune 224 to intercept Bellefonte on 283M. Bellefonte is quite
far away. At Allentown we are at approximately 100 nm distance and we should be within
range. However, the sound of the engine may very well drown the AN signal. Make sure to
finetune the radio and turn up the radio volume!
At this point we may just as well tune to 233 (Williamsport) to help tell the approximate
moment of passing the intercept. We clearly hear the N signal as long as we are to the
East of the North-South beam.
Towards crossing the Williamsport intersection, the Bellefonte signal should become loud
enough to be picked up. Because we are still far away from it, minor heading corrections can
be applied to intercept the beam and stay on it.
Passing the Williamsport beam, now intercept the Bellefonte beam 283M inbound.
If the AN-sounds suddenly stop – check the fuses! A fuse regularly blows. It will turn
black. Double click it to replace with a fresh one.
The run-in to Bellefonte is quite long and allows an accurate flight down the beam. At
some 2 nm before passing, the A and N volumes start to die down as a signal of the pending
passing overhead.

After passing, we’ll keep tuned to Bellefonte and fly along the outbound beam at 302M. We
don’t make so many corrections for that. We need to stay on 302M roughly, to intercept the
next beam. That next beam is 285M on frequency 245, for Youngstown. Youngstown is a short
range station and may not be heard at this point yet. Just keep flying at 302M until it

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appears in your ears. When you hear it, you may well have overshot the inbound beam 285 and
you need to correct.
It is thus clear that the normal Dead Reckoning navigation should be maintained as well.
Compass, speed and stopwatch may help to stay on track while waiting for Youngstown Radio
Range station to become audible. Once audible, it’s already quite close and we need to make
large corrections to intercept the beam.
From Youngstown it’s a direct heading 285 into Cleveland (“CV”, 344). Don’t forget to let
down on time. With the airport in sight, circle to land.

After landing, tune frequency 610 for local music station “WJAY” and enjoy your taxi-in to
the gate. Well done.
Actual flight time for this flight was 2h36m. Must have had some tailwind!

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