Fun with radar!

The past couple weeks of Nav school have been classroom training on using radar for navigation. It is completely different from the way we have been navigating so far and is definitely an art form. The radar shows a "picture" of the ground from right below the plane up to 240 miles ahead. The picture is really just different shades of green and black spots. Black areas are either water or shadows behind hills or mountains, and everything else is shades of green. Cities show up as bright spots, since they are full of metal and concrete that reflect the radio waves much better than trees, dirt, and grass. There are about seven different knobs that each tune the radar picture a different way, and it must be configured in different ways in order to see certain things; like cities, terrain, or land/water contrast. That is why it is described as an art. So we navigate by studying our route of flight and noting the range and bearings between our route and recognizable terrain features and cities. For example, I would measure off the chart how many miles I should be away from a lake when I pass it, then make sure I am on course to pass at that distance. Tomorrow is my first flight using solely the radar, so we'll see how it goes!!