A lot of people seem to be baffled by the compass and where they are going. Here's a try at showing how to.set the darn thing.
Mind you, I'm no expert, I made it work like this for me and that's it. I just hope it helps anyone interested.......

First of all, we see the compass like this on start up:




Now move the course setter in such a way that the train tracks (the yellow lines) line up with the white needle with the crossbar (the north side of the train track should point to the crossbarred white line). In this case I needed to decrease the course setter.




On the screen somewhere in the info window you will see the degrees counting up or down. Read the last line of degrees (in this example its 252) and set that in the Directional gyro.
Again you will have to up or down the degrees until it reaches the just found setting. In this case 252





You are ready now. Fly on the Directional Gyro, but be aware the DG is quickly off. So repeat this procedure once every 10-15 minutes or after violent moves. Make sure the compass (the magnetic one) is steady before doing this, so trim your aircraft.

I hope this helps people.




Originally posted by a kind chap called Bando and resurected from the archives, haven't seen him around for a while though.

Anyway, while this gives me a better idea of how to use the compass, I'm still not sure how much this helps me, unless I am given a heading by someone either over the radio or in my breifing.
Can any of you more experienced pilots share your navigation tips, I know you blue guys have a homing pidgeons instinct that helps you find Hawkinge(!) but for instance (as was mentioned in another thread) what would you do in bad weather to find your way back to base or to your target etc.......?

For me, there is no substitute for spending time flying around your area of operations, and making note of any geographical features that stand out, shapes of lakes and rivers, prominent and obvious land marks, man made structures of note, like radar sites etc, and then make notes on where your airfield is from those points, noting headings etc.
Once they are in your head, most of the time I just fly in the general direction, pick up a landmark or object and orientate myself from there.

Thanks Trooper, that's more or less what I do at the moment, but what happens when visibility is low, cloud cover etc(fingers crossed.)

Well, you have to do what we always do.. rely on the compass, and that means all RAF flyers getting their heads around compass setting, time speed and distance etc..
What we don't have at the moment of course is the ability to ask ground control for directions etc, as the whole radio and comms system is pretty much u.s.
That for me is far more important to fix than introducing a modern flippin stunt plane to muck around with.

Learning to navigate is one of those things you can't rush. It just comes with experience. However, I fancy myself a pretty good navigator and can offer some advice.

If you get lost:

• Don't panic!
• The first thing you should do is get a general idea of where you are. Are you over the Channel, France or England? This should be easy since you know where you took off from. If you took off from Calais, crossed the Channel to England and got lost, you must therefore be somewhere over England.
• Check your 6, then pick a heading and stay on it. I recommend heading directly for the nearest coastline. If no coast line is in sight, head in the general direction of home. I.e. if you're over France and you took off from Hawkinge, it's time to head in a Northerly direction.
• While maintaining the same general heading and checking your 6 occasionally, have a look out the window for conspicuous terrain features. Good examples are lakes/rivers/forests with interesting shapes, or larger cities with good landmarks like the circular island in Calais, or the different but uniquely-shaped harbors at Dover and Hawkinge. Coastlines are usually the best navigational aids.
• Once you spot a landmark that you think is good, try to find it on the map. It's very important that you know your heading, or at least know the true orientation of the landmark. That arrow-shaped forest pointing to the right? If you're heading South it'll actually be pointing to the East (left) on your map.
• Can't find any good landmarks? Find a coastline and follow it. Eventually you will come across something that's unmistakeable, like the weird little appendage of land at Manston, Dungerness point, the Cotentin Peninsula, or the Isle of Wight. Once you find these you now have a pretty good idea where you are.
• Set a course, or follow the coastline back to familiar areas!

Don't sweat it if you get lost a lot. The map is enormous and if you aren't familiar with it, navigating can seem quite daunting. Rest assured that it DOES get easier with time. There will be a moment where things seem to just "click" for you, and you'll find that in familiar areas of the map you won't even have to think about it. You'll look out the window now and then, see Wissant, and know exactly where you are. The whole thing will take two seconds.

Unfortunately there's really no substitute for practice. The good news is that you don't have to memorize the whole map. Once you become proficient at navigating, getting lost becomes a non-issue, and you'll be able to venture out into unfamiliar areas of the map without worry. In fact, on one of the 5./JG27 missions my squad was assigned to escort some Stukas that were attacking some British ships out over the widest part of the Channel between Normandy and the Portsmouth area. We took off from Le Havre, and I'd never flown over this particular part of the map before, ever. But because we kept a good sense of heading and coordinated that sense with landmarks that we expected to see, when my wingman was low on fuel we were able to make it to Querqueville, France and land safely. Had we tried to get back to Le Havre he would surely have run out and had to ditch.

A few more miscellaneous tips/advice:

• Understand the lingo. If someone says "Engaged defensive with two Spitfires at 4k in Foxtrot 13 by 2" you should know that this means he's in a bad position against two spits at 4000 metres in the bottom-middle (South-middle) portion of grid F-13 on your map.
• It's extremely difficult to keep track of your position in the heat of combat. Don't feel bad if you shoot the guy down and have to take a few minutes to figure out where you ended up.
• It's also quite difficult to get an accurate position when you're out over water. This is natural, and this is why the fancy navigational aids used by the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre were developed.
• Get in the habit of thinking of things in terms of cardinal directions (N, S, E, W) rather than relative directions (left, right, ahead, behind)

Hope this helps!

Excellent post Doggles! Now if I could just find England

Excellent thread, Bokononist, and excellent responses!

Since we currently fly under ever-sunny skies at the moment, I always (try) to make note of where the sun is located relative to where I'm going. If I'm heading east at sunrise on a patrol or escort duty towards the Occupied French coast, I make a note that homeward bound I should have the sun at my back. I've found this so handy when all hello breaks loose and I'm diving madly for home and hedge hopping (or wave hopping?) on the deck with three 109's in hot pursuit. Keeping it simple while massaging throttle, prop pitch, radiator setting, temps, etc while weaving madly through hillsides/wavetops.....remembering to keep the sun at my back can be a lifesaver!

Could someone also explain German AC: Course Autopilot Deviation, Directional Gyro, Course Autopilot Preset, Repeater Compass Course Setter, Course Autopilot Adjust Course R&L. I have read the manual and asked online for directions for using these gauges/ instruments without response. The explanation for the British compass is a big help and, although I am not yet at the "Don't Buy Green Bananas" age, I can see it from here. In other words, plesae shorten my learning curve. Many thanks, John

Sorry. I have no clue what most of those do. In fact I'm not even sure the 109 has most of those functions. The person to ask is a guy who flies under the handle ATAG_MajorBorris. He flies the Ju-88 almost exclusively and knows it pretty well.

Hop onto the ATAG teamspeak server sometime.

Thanks for all the great responses guys, there is a mine of great advice there . One of the things that gets on my nerves is when I'm trying to give my position to other pilots when trying to rendevouz, or giving the position of enemy planes, one look at my instruments or out of the side of my cockpit is all it takes to lose my target sometimes!
Zahnarzt62, I don't know much about the blue planes, I'm waiting until I consider myself a decent pilot in the Spits and Hurricanes before I try to learn those craft properly (This maybe some time! I can't imagine having to cope with the learning curve with the amount of training given to some of our BoB pilots, especially against the far more experienced Luftwaffwe pilots). If I do come across any info regarding the 'blue' instrumentation I'll be back here and post it.