5
Homing vs. Tracking: The Battle Against the Wind 14:06 Miles: This is where the real skill comes in. Let’s say you want to fly to a station. The easiest thing to do is just turn the plane until the ADF needle is at 0 degrees—right on the nose—and keep it there. Pilots call this "homing."
14:22 Lena: That sounds simple enough. If the needle moves left, you turn left to put it back on 0. What’s the catch?
14:28 Miles: The catch is the wind. If there’s a crosswind, and you just keep the needle on the nose, the wind is going to slowly push your plane off to the side. To keep the needle on 0, you’ll have to keep turning the plane slightly into the wind.
14:42 Lena: So instead of a straight line, you end up flying a big, long curve to the station?
2:12 Miles: Exactly. It’s called a "bird’s path" or a curved track. You’ll eventually get to the station, but you’ll fly much further and take much longer than you would if you flew a straight line. In still air, homing is fine. But in the real world, it’s considered poor piloting technique.
15:05 Lena: So what’s the alternative? "Tracking," right?
3:17 Miles: Right. Tracking is about maintaining a specific "track" or path over the ground by correcting for that wind drift. It’s a bit of a dance. First, you have to figure out how much the wind is pushing you. You do this by flying a heading and watching if the ADF needle starts to drift off your desired bearing.
15:27 Lena: Okay, so if I’m trying to fly a bearing of 090 and the needle starts moving toward 095, I know the wind is pushing me left?
15:36 Miles: You got it. So now you have to "crab" the airplane into the wind. You turn the nose of the plane a few degrees toward the wind—say, to a heading of 085—to counteract the drift. If you’ve got the angle right, the plane will move in a straight line over the ground toward the station, even though the nose is pointed slightly away from it.
15:56 Lena: And at that point, where would the ADF needle be? It wouldn't be on 0 anymore, would it?
2:12 Miles: Exactly. The needle would be offset by that same number of degrees. If your "wind correction angle" is 5 degrees to the left, the ADF needle will point 5 degrees to the right of the nose. As long as that relative bearing stays at 5 degrees right, you know you’re staying on your straight-line track.
16:18 Lena: That sounds like it takes a lot of concentration to maintain. You’re constantly checking your heading, checking the needle, and adjusting for the wind.
16:26 Miles: It really does. And it gets even more interesting when you’re "tracking outbound"—flying away from a station. The logic is the same, but you’re looking at the "tail" of the needle instead of the head. Pilots use the same wind correction principles to make sure they aren't being blown off their desired radial as they head away from the beacon.
16:45 Lena: It’s like trying to walk in a straight line while someone is gently pushing your shoulder the whole time. You have to lean into it just the right amount.
16:53 Miles: That’s a perfect analogy. And this isn't just for flying from A to B. These tracking skills are essential for executing holding patterns and "non-precision instrument approaches." Before GPS, this was the primary way pilots would line themselves up with a runway in low visibility.
17:09 Lena: Wait, you can actually land a plane using just an NDB? That sounds intense.
17:14 Miles: Well, you don't land "blind"—it’s a "non-precision" approach, which means it gives you lateral guidance to get you lined up with the runway, but it doesn't give you vertical guidance like an ILS—the Instrument Landing System—does. You still have to see the runway at a certain "minimum descent altitude" to complete the landing.
17:33 Lena: I can only imagine the workload. You’re tracking the NDB, checking your altimeter, timing your descent... all while potentially in the clouds.
17:41 Miles: It’s one of the most demanding tasks an instrument pilot has to master. And it’s why the ADF is still a core part of pilot training today. If you can master an NDB approach—with all its quirks and errors and mental math—you can handle just about anything the sky throws at you. It builds a kind of "navigational grit" that’s hard to get from just following a magenta line on a screen.
18:03 Lena: It really makes you appreciate the pioneers who did this with much less reliable equipment. I mean, we’re talking about a system that traces its roots back to the 1920s!