Keeping Time

The trusty digital timer is a fixture in IFR training. You learned to time your turns, your flight segments, holds and approaches. You learned to keep an eye on your arrival times, lest you run late and need to inform ATC. Lately, though, the practice of timing approaches and related operations has largely gone by the wayside with the use of GPS navigators. With your flight plan laid out and the ETA for each upcoming fix displayed nicely on your screen, few pilots bother to separately use a timer. And, lets face it: Timer use for navigation is solely a backup if youve got GPS and a moving map.

Key Takeaways:

• Despite the prevalence of GPS, cockpit timers remain critical backup tools for IFR navigation, ensuring positional awareness during approaches and in situations of GPS loss.
• Timers are indispensable for executing traditional non-DME instrument approaches, aiding in procedure turns, outbound legs, and precisely timing segments from the Final Approach Fix (FAF) to the Missed Approach Point (MAP).
• Beyond primary navigation, timers serve practical purposes such as monitoring enroute progress for fuel/weather, managing ATC clearances, fuel tank switching, and critical engine warm-up and cool-down procedures.

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