KNS 81 flight plans with ATC?
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I don’t understand how you would file a flight plan with this. You aren’t using the real world waypoints, but waypoints you create that are offset from a VOR or ADF. How would you file a flight plan for ATC for this? If I want to fly from KSTL to KSGF, I understand I could now fly a straight line to my destination using offsets, but how does this let me fly airways? If it doesn’t, how do I file the flight plan?
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The KNS-81 is a "VOR/DME RNAV" system which means it operates by creating "virtual" waypoints that are a defined position/distance from a VOR. It's going to be somewhat of a struggle to fly a full flight with this system - since the last VOR/DME RNAV approach was canceled in 2017.
For enroute navigation, the advantage is that you can be cleared direct to enroute fixes, but in general are not able to fly different airways than a /A aircraft (mostly because non-VOR based airways won't have defined rad/distance points for you to define in the system). This lets you say, be cleared direct to an intersection to pick up an airway or approach.
For approaches, the way the system used to work was generally you'd be able to define the "MAP" waypoint, then fly a specified course off that and use distances from that waypoint for your step-down fixes. You can see how this looked on an old approach chart here: https://www.fly.faa.gov/Information/west/zau/mdw/atcCharts/MDW_IAP_00081VDRG22L.pdf
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Great question. One of the great features of the RNAV system was the ability to provide constant width linear course deviation along existing airways. The best option would be to file along airways as you would do with a normal VOR-to-VOR flight plan.
Another option would be to fly airport-to-airport, regardless of the navaids available at that airfield.
You could also file from GPS intersection-to-intersection, which would allow ATC to easily identify the geographic locations you're interested in flying to, regardless of how you will navigate to them. I think this would be the preferred method for an off-airway route today.
Lastly, if an intersection does not exist at the point you wish to fly to/from, you could always identify the position to ATC with Lat/Lon coordinates, or with a VOR radial and offset. I've sometimes seen this formatted as: VKZ270025 (VOR: VKZ, Radial 270°, Distance 25nm).
While the latter suggestion might not be recognized by all controllers or systems in flight simulator, it's certainly a valid way to identify a geographic fix. You might get further asking a controller in person for a radial-offset fix, if that becomes necessary.
If you become more interested in what you can do with an RNAV system, check out the list of "recommended skills" from the relevant section of my manuals:
- Direct Route Navigation
- Parallel Flight along Airways
- Location & Distance from Waypoints
- Enhanced Geo-Fencing
- Maintaining Distance from Ground Points
- Holding Pattern Entries
- Fly a Rectangular Course
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Not to necro an old post but if you're talking about how to file on vatsim. The equipment code I recently found is /I, RNAV with no GNSS and no RVSM.
It's similar to /W but you don't even got an inertial reference system.
As for waypoints, file the points you want to fly to, to connect your start and end airports, and file those points. Make sure they're all inside the range of a nearby VOR and manually select each waypoint as you pass over them.
KNS navigation is essentially just like vor nav except anyplace near a VOR can be used and you don't need to zigzag from one VOR to another.
