Roger writes:

... and we lean to navigate using what we see outside.

You must be really heavy!

Those who use only the radios or
GPS for navigation are not only setting up a bad dependency, but
missing out on one of the best parts of VFR flight. If you want a
real challenge, instead of flying around at 3,000 to 5,000 feet, get a
Cub or other simple plane and do a long cross country while staying
down low and do it without relying on GPS. It's a whole different
world and can give a real appreciation to flying by using a map,
ruler, compass and watch. It is far, far easier to get lost down low
than up higher. :-))

The less sophisticated the instruments I use to navigate, the more difficult
it becomes to avoid getting lost.

Last night, going from KDEN to Aspen on a route that had been suggested to me
here to avoid the mountains, I vowed to use only VORs for RNAV. To that end,
I worked out my routing in advance, developing my own waypoints that were
either the VORs themselves or radials and DME distances from the VORs. I used
a sectional to actually plot the route. When I actually executed this, in
near total darkness (occasionally I'd see a glimpse of trees below, or a
highway, or the lights of a town or airport), I still got lost, because I had
forgotten one small leg on the route that was needed to get me past some of
the many mountains in the area. I spent 20 minutes puzzling over what seemed
like an abnormally great distance from one VOR (HBU, if you must know) that
didn't seem to be diminishing according to plan, and finally I happened to
look up to see the trees of a very large mountain looping a few thousand feet
ahead. Not knowing exactly where I was, it seemed to me that the only safe
path was an immediate 180-degree turn to retract my path back to the last fix
that I knew to be correct. As I went back, I stepped through the route again
checking each point, and then I found what I had missed on the chart. Since I
was in flight and a good distance from the nearest VORs, I used dead reckoning
from the last good fix to get through the small pass that I needed to
traverse, and then when I found myself back on an expected radial at an
expected distance, I was able to continue.

All the while I was perilously close to the mountains. And I had the
advantage of minimal turbulence, something I'd probably not be able to enjoy
in real life. I don't think I'd try navigating through the mountains to Aspen
in real life, but it was certainly good exercise in the sim.

Of course, the "real" pilots here may laugh at all this, but unless they've
actually navigated in the Rockies at night in a real aircraft -or- simulated
it in a simulator as I have, I now know more about this type of navigation
than they do, because I've done it, and they have not. Were I ever to get
into a real-life situation like this, I'd have a distinct advantage.

--
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