Definition
Navigation conducted by flying directly to or from ground-based radio navigation aids, such as VORs, NDBs, and DME stations, where the aircraft's course is defined relative to the position of those physical stations on the ground.
Plain English
Older-style navigation where the airplane flies along radio signals coming from specific ground stations. The route is built around where those stations are located.
Context Anchor
Seen in instrument procedure design and chart discussions, especially when comparing older ground-based procedure segments with database-driven area navigation segments.
Derivation
"Conventional" comes from the Latin conventio, meaning "an agreement" or "the usual way." Here it means the long-established, traditional method of navigating by ground stations, in contrast with newer GPS-based or area-navigation methods.
Why Pilots Care
Determines whether a procedure can be flown with the aircraft's installed navigation equipment and identifies when RNAV is not authorized.
Intuition Check
Do not read conventional as meaning casual or approximate. In this context, it means the standard ground-based method of navigation, as opposed to a computed area-navigation path.
Example Sentence 1
The approach is built on conventional navigation, so we'll be tracking inbound on the VOR radial rather than flying a GPS course.
Example Sentence 2
The pilot switched to conventional navigation after the GPS receiver failed during the arrival.