Skills are skills, and using a GPS to help you find your place on the
charts, or find the nearest airport, or where the special area's boundaries
are today, are *today's* skills, like it or not.

Skills are skills? The skill of the first-grader who can sing two
verses of "America" is equivalent to that of the teenager who can play
Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto?

The statement that using a GPS is a "skill" is almost humorous. Using
a GPS demands only slightly more skill than turning on an electric
light.

I'm not condemning the GPS; I'm disagreeing with the view expressed in
the post that initiated this thread that a brand new private pilot
"needs" a GPS--i.e., that it is a "necessity."

I live in central PA, where "Sentimental Journey" was just concluded
at Lock Haven airport. This year, as often before, some pilots flew
their J-3s from CALIFORNIA to central PA without GPS, without radios.
Obviously, GPS is not a "necesssity."

I have a Garmin 396; before that, a 195. For one reason: If I have a
radio or an electrical failure in IMC, I'll have a back-up. In VMC,
it's just an expensive toy.

vince norris