SA and the Course Select Line or How I Learned To Love The Stack!

[AG-51_Razor]

Situational awareness in and around the Stack is very important for a couple of obvious reasons. First, it is necessary for you to to know where you are within the stack in order to give out useful position reports which helps the others in your flight improve their situational awareness and help affect a quicker, more efficient rendezvous. Secondly, it helps to keep you from running into someone else in your flight!

First, let's make sure that we all are perfectly clear on what the stack is and what it's dimensions are. It is a cylindrical space that is 5nm in diameter, starts at 2000' MSL and extends up to and includes 5000' MSL, the center of which is located directly off the port beam of the boat. 6000' MSL and above belongs to tankers and Case III approaches. I think that from a practical matter, we should plan to use the highest level, 5000', for the first flight that is scheduled to depart for their first waypoint and each subsequently scheduled flight will rondezvous in the next level below. This may help deconflict traffic departing the stack.

The whole purpose of the stack is to help deconflict various flights and aid in getting those flights joined up and on their way. Knowing this, you can see where it might be pretty important to have some fairly ridgid rules while operating in the stack. The first one is to maintain your altitude as close to assigned as possible. That gives you and others in the next level up or down, a thousand feet of clearance. The second is to maintain the airspeed that is specified for the stack, in this case, 250 knots indicated. This will help keep you from running into someone from behind, or getting run into yourself provided everyone is maintaining their speed. So, the only way to make a rendezvous with someone that is way out in front of you is to lead the guy by quite a bit and cut through the circle to gain on him. I always try (TRY being the operative word here) to remember to engage my Auto Throttle Control at 250 kts and engage my autopilot's BARALT function in order to hold my assigned altitude. Having done this, all I need do is roll the plane into a steeper turn in order to cut across the circle to catch up with the plane I am trying to join up with.

[AG-51_Thud]

Thank you Razor

[AG-51_Razor]

OK, so now we are all pretty much on the same page as far as what the Stack looks like and what it's for. Just to preclude any debate on this, I will specify that all I am really talking about here is the stack as it pertains to our use while departing the boat, not while we are returning. We can talk about that later.

So, for the longest time, I had no idea whether I was anywhere close to being in the stack until I was right up alongside the port beam and tried very hard to make sure that I was about 5 nm abeam. If I was at the assigned altitude and 5 nm abeam, life was good!    Then I saw some guy talking about the Course Select Line and how to use that and all of a sudden I had a much better idea of where I was in relation to that 4000 foot tall cylinder lying off the port side! But still later yet - maybe another couple of months - I saw another YouTube video where a guy pointed out the information that shows up down in the lower right hand corner of the EHSI when you are using the Course Select Line. It tells you, of course, what the direction is for that line but now I saw that it also shows you what the distance is that you are from that line!!!    Talk about a light bulb moment! So, armed with that knowledge, it is pretty damn hard to NOT get into the stack and stay there within a pretty good tolerance. When you are on the reciprocal of the BRC and you can tell exactly how far off that line you are, there is just no excuse whatsoever for any of us to not be in the stack plus or minus a couple hundred yards.

[AG-51_Ranger]

Or you can do what I did the other day.  Just set your BALT and ATC and just do some lazy circles while the wind is blowing you away from the boat and the boat is steaming away at 28 knots.  I call it the "offset stack".   

But seriously this is excellent information Razor and I shall follow your instructions to the T next time I am in the stack!

[AG-51_Razor]

This Select Course Line is also very handy to use for your Case III approaches. I always put the Final Bearing in on the ship's Tacan in order to give me a better visualization of where I need to be during the approach. As it is now in DCS, Marshall always gives us a holding fix predicated on the Final Bearing but the reality of it is that the boat's approach controllers can give you a holding fix that is well off the final bearing. Anyway, this tool is also fairly useful for other things. You can use it with a waypoint (by simply boxing the WYPT) and set up a desired course to, or bearing from any waypoint you like. For example, if you're attacking an airfield and you want to make your approach along the runway heading, assuming that the waypoint is on the runway, just set the Course Select Line to the runway heading and you should have a fairly good idea of where you need to be in order to make your run right down the centerline of the runway 

[AG-51_TwoLate]

Thanks Razor. I was using for distance that was on Tacan that shows on hud. easier for me to keep eyes in hud. I will look at this also. In pattern I would use the two dots in my hud to tell me when to straighten out on down wind.

[AG-51_Animal]

 
Also note, using the course line when in Case III holding pattern works as well as when in the stack by the boat.  Just be sure the course line is set to the bearing that MOTHER gives to you and then set it to final bearing when you leave the Case III stack.  (NOTE: You will be holding on the ‘ARROW SIDE OF THE COURSE LINE’ given by MOTHER.  The arrow points from MOTHER to the Case III holding stack.)