Maule Driver wrote:


Matt Whiting wrote:

Dylan Smith wrote:

In article , Peter Duniho wrote:


How so? Dead-reckoning is not nearly as reliable as pilotage. It's
basically a "poor man's intertial navigation system". With
pilotage, you know exactly where you are. All dead-reckoning does
is give you a rough guess as to where you think you might be.



Dead reckoning is an incredibly important complement to pilotage, and
it's how my in-built (i.e. in-brain) "GPS" gets much better accuracy.
Keep track of time since the last major waypoint or landmark, and it
stops you mis-identifying one ground feature for another, or one airport
for another. It forms a very important cross check when I'm doing
radioless navigation.

Why do you need dead/ded reckoning when you can see the ground?

Don't take this wrong way but that's seems like a question from someone
who hasn't really done a lot of pilotage in unknown territory without
backup. Watch the landscape and ignore time and distance, and you will
get stung. Even a rough calc will help keep you out of trouble.

Don't take this the wrong way, but talking without thinking can lead to
saying things that don't make sense. I've been flying since 1978 and
use pilotage on almost all flights, including most IFR flights that
aren't in IMC. The biggest determinant of success, other than having
basic map reading skills, is the terrain, not the "unknownness" of the
territory.


Lesson 1 in pilotage is see the feature, then find it on the map
.... and after you master that along with lessons 2,3,etc
Lesson 10 is complement your pilotage with some rough dead reckoning or
you will end up relearning lesson 1 the hard way.

Does that make any sense?

It makes sense of the terrain is all about the same (some areas of the
midwest), but not for where I live. I live in northern PA and flying
mostly in PA, NY, and other states within 500 or so miles of here. I've
never been in an area, other than the urban areas around Philly, NYC,
BWI, etc., where pilotage wasn't rather easy if you are paying attention
at all. We have lots of mountains, valleys, roads, railroads, lakes,
rivers, towers, etc. that make pilotage quite easy without dead
reckoning. Sure, I use it when I need it, but that is very rare where I
fly.


Matt