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 then
follow the four inbound true headings.
In a similar way, import the music stations file, called ‘Music stations LNM.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:

In little nav map, we plan the route kteb - kcle. Straight Distance is 354 nm.

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next we plan a route that follows the radio range stations shown as the tacan symbol. This
can be done directly in little nav map. alternatively 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 first chart (p.21 of the radio facilities document) shows an inbound Magnetic heading of
238° into Newark (“NK”). 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.

If you select the tacan on the map, the window top right will show the station ID (“NK”),
the Frequency (341 KHz) and the four inbound true headings: 47°/98°/227°/306°. So, from

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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. Note how this
differs by only 2 degrees from the 1944 value. But don’t be fooled! Elsewhere on the
global the differences are much more substantial.
Alternatively, and as a check, we look up ‘Newark’ in the station facilities index included
with the boeing 247. It’s called ‘Radio Range - Worldwide Facility Charts’. Newark is on page
125. That also shows the morse code for NK, the co-ordinates, and the A/N sides for all
beams. For our inbound beam 240°M, the ‘A’ signal is the shaded area, and it be on our left
side when inbound on 240°M. 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.

From Newark we plan to pass over the station and proceed straight on at 240°M, until
intercepting the beam into Allentown (“XA”, 320). Checking again in either the index document
or Little nav map, we find that the Inbound heading is 292°M. this time, The A signal will be
on our right! Always make sure you know which sides are the a- and n-sides. This, too, is a
medium range station.

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We plot this leg in LNM, too:

At the intercept distance of 51 nm we should be able to hear the station quite clearly
already from Newark.

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From Allentown onwards, we will continue to fly along track 292°M 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 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
inbound beam. That will keep us on the airway. Note that this is marked as 111°M on the old
chart.

Our outbound heading thus is 102°T + 180 = 292°T/302°M.

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We follow this until we intercept the beam into Youngstown. Youngstown inbound is
276°T/285°M.

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

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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:

Total distance is 369 nm. The Boeing 247 cruises 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.

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For quick reference, the Radio Range station sequence is as follows:

The weather forecast 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 on board!

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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 already tune the radio to 341 KCs for Newark.

When switched 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 (180°T/193°M) while climbing to
cruise altitude.

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After a while, the ‘a’ signal should become stronger, and when ‘a’ and ‘n’ reach equal
volumes, they merge into a continuous tone. At that moment, turn right to 240°M to fly down
the beam 240°M. Keep listening and correcting. 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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While passing overhead the station, We dial 320 for the next station Allentown, and
immediately hear the ‘A’ signal for it. We keep at 240°M , waiting for the ‘N’ signal to gain
strength. 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 292°M. We keep listening and adjusting. A strong ‘A’ means we are 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 overhead allentown, maintain 292°M. Tune 224 Kcs on the radio to intercept
Bellefonte on 283°M. 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 ‘A’ and ‘n’ signals. 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 willamsport.
Towards 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.
Having past the north-south Williamsport beam, now we intercept the Bellefonte beam 283°M
inbound.
If the ‘AN’-sounds suddenly stop in the flight – check the fuses! A fuse regularly blows. It
will turn black. Double click it to replace it 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 302°M. We
don’t make so many corrections for that because high accuracy is not required here. We need
to stay on 302°M roughly, to intercept the next beam. That next beam is 285°M on frequency

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245 kcs, for Youngstown. Youngstown is a short range station and may not be heared at this
point yet. Just keep flying at 302°M until it appears in your ears. When you hear it, you may
well have overshot the inbound beam 285°M and you need to turn back south to interecept it
again.
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, all that’s left to do is a direct heading 285°M 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 KCS and switch to CW mode ‘off’ for local music station
“WJAY”, enjoy some 1930’s music during 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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